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“Where is she?” I croak. My throat is sore and raw. Had I been screaming? I don’t remember.
No one says anything, and I’m distinctly aware of dozens of sets of eyes on me. I open my own, wincing at the pain in my head.
“Ezra,” someone with a Southern accent says. Lee.
“Come on, man,” a deep voice rumbles. Jay.
Thank fuck they’re okay.
“Where is she?” I ask again. I try once again to sit up, and this time, Dante lets me. Pain lances through my left shoulder and down my back, making me grunt. I instinctively grip my own shoulder to ease the pain, but that only makes it worse.
“Ezra, you need to take it easy, man,” Benji warns.
I turn to look at him. He was the one tasked with keeping an eye on my girl. He was the one who should have kept her safe when I wasn’t around.
I trusted him. And now she’s gone.
“You let her go.” I know how I sound to him. There is no room in my tone for forgiveness, no space for atonement.
Benji’s eyes go wide. He stands up and steps back, his hands raised out in front of him. “Boss, I’m sorry. I don’t know how they got into the house. I-I don’t know—”
I stand up. My shoulder howls in response, but I grit my teeth against the pain. Jay and Lee help me stand straight, but I take a step forward on my own. A step towards Benji. A step towards murder.
“Ezra.” Lee steps in front of me. He knows me well enough to know that I’m about to lose my fucking mind. I nearly destroyed this entire property when Maya left me a year ago. If I wasn’t injured, everyone would be dead right now.
Lee clasps my uninjured shoulder and shakes me. I hiss and whip my head in his direction. “What?” I snap.
“It’s not his fault,” he says gently.
“Explain.” Because if someone doesn’t give me answers in the next three seconds, heads will roll.
“There were too many of them,” Lee explains calmly. “When you went searching for Dom, two more SUVs pulled up. Our backup didn’t arrive in time to stop them from taking her.”
I blow out a breath, trying to calm my racing nerves.
“When backup did finally arrive,” Jay says from behind me, “she was already gone. Dom must have had another car waiting for him somewhere on the property. We were engaged in gunfire and couldn’t come in time.”
There’s regret in his voice. I don’t blame him, and I shouldn’t blame Benji. The only one to blame is myself.
“If I had kept her by me…” I whisper, angry tears burning my eyes. “She didn’t want to stay behind. I promised I wouldn’t let anything happen to her.”
“Hey, man,” Vic says gently from behind me. I turn around. He’s badly beaten. One of his eyes is black and swollen, and he’s got a long, jagged cut on the side of his cheek. I didn’t notice everyone’s state before, but as I look around, I see clearly.
We all fought. We fought until our bodies were broken and we were nearly dead. Some of us are. I look out the front door to the blood-soaked driveway, and a guilt like nothing I’ve ever felt before settles in the pit of my stomach.
“Ezra.” I turn back to Vic. His eyes are filled with fierce determination. “We’ll get her back.”
I nod. I know he means it. As much as I hate to admit it, he cares about Maya, and she cares about him.
“What happened after they took her?” I ask. I need to know.
Lee sighs. “Dom instructed his men to kill us all. We were almost done for,” he says quietly, as if coming to terms with the fact that he was very close to dying today. We all were. “But our backup finally came, and we killed every single Crimson we could find.”
That isn’t reassuring, though. There could still be more on the property. The love of my life is in the hands of their leader. I have to do what Dom Carlo says now, if only so he’ll spare her life. I can’t bring myself to think of what he’ll do to her if I don’t comply.
“We have to do whatever he says,” I say, feeling defeated.
“Like hell we will,” Jay growls. I start to argue, but he cuts me off. “We’re the fucking Eastlake Syndicate, Ezra. We don’t kneel at the feet of our enemies. We’ll find her, and when we do, the motherfucker won’t be ready for the hell we’ll rain down on him.”
