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“No, not that.” Frustrated, I look up at him. “You said they went to the playground and were on their way home. Correct?”

“Yes,” I grit out.

“Then why did they come back? And in the rain?”

I shake my head. “I don’t know.” I push myself up and stand. “Sometimes, Clara forgets Squish. Maybe she…” I stop. My eyes move to the car, and I step toward it, opening the back door. There’s no stuffed animal in sight. “She has it.”

“She has what?” Vin watches me with concern.

I pull my phone out of my pocket and quickly swipe across the screen, ignoring every drop of rain. “Clara’s always leaving her favorite stuffed animal in different places, so I installed a tracker in it.” I tap the device icon, wait a few seconds for it to load, and then… “I found them.”

Relief, as I’ve never experienced in my life, crashes over me, pulling me under as I let myself breathe for the first time since Charlotte’s call.

I flip the phone around to show Vin.

A slight grin pulls at his lips. “Well, what are we waiting for?”

He whistles, and Mauro, Leo, and the guards rush over.

“What is it?” Leo asks, his brows knitting together.

“I found them,” I tell them as I rush over to my SUV.

“Follow us,” Vin orders the guards, who head to their vehicle.

“They’re not too far from here,” I say as I get behind the steering wheel. My brothers climb into the vehicle, and Vin lifts his phone to his ear.

“Eli, send twenty guards to the location I just sent you. We’re on our way there now to retrieve Clara and Charlotte.”

“Where are we going?” Leo asks, his hand gripping the back of Vin’s seat as he leans forward.

My foot presses down hard on the accelerator, my fingers grasping the steering wheel as vengeance takes hold of my beating heart. “To get my girls back.”

Chapter thirty-three

Charlotte

My eyelids flutter open as I slowly come to. Pain blooms across the back of my head while I struggle to sit up. I place my palm against it, noting a slight wetness. I bring my hand before my eyes and find blood smeared across my skin.

I swallow hard, blinking back tears.

Memories of what happened rush over me, each one sharper than the last.

Garrett opened the door.

I turned to my side and kicked at him as he leaned over me, essentially pissing him off.

Clara screamed, and I turned to see a man attempting to remove her from her car seat.

I yelled at him not to touch her and jumped across the seat, but Garrett dug his fingers into my waist in a punishing grip, hauling me backward.

I kicked and punched at whatever I could.

He dragged me by my hair across the gravel to his vehicle.

A man opened the door, but before they threw me inside, something hard hit the back of my head.

And then everything went black.