Filed To Story: Craving The Wrong Brother Book PDF Free by Elysian Sparrow
Then he reaches for his phone and starts dialing.
“You really think you’re cold enough to do this?” he asks. “Threaten to harm a kid and her mother?”
“You need to pick a personality, Jade. One minute you’re thirsting for a helpless lady’s blood, and the next you’re shying away from textbook blackmail. We don’t need to harm them if Mateo cooperates.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
“That’s his kid we’re talking about. He will.”
“You keep imagining this guy is sane. That’s the problem.”
The call connects. I listen as Jade gives Aaron the order. On the other end, Aaron confirms what we need to know: Mateo’s ex-wife and daughter just got home. His contact is watching the house now. Visual confirmation is on the way.
I try to imagine the things that happened to Mateo in the years between our capture and now to turn him into this… thing. This version of him that’s all bloodlust and theatrics. Maybe he really does believe it’s my fault. Or maybe this is just how he vents, by making it a performance. Part of me wants to feel something for him. I get it; hurt people hurt people. But whatever sympathy I might’ve had? He burned through that when he captured Serena, which led to Sloane being unhappy.
As we get closer to the club, I glance at the mirror to look at Jade, who’s still brooding in the backseat, arms crossed, looking everywhere but at me. I let the silence hang a second longer before saying, “Have you asked yourself if you really want your wife back?
“What?”
“She asked you to leave. You left. She told you not to come back. You obeyed. She served you divorce papers. You kept it.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m telling you what one brother would say to another. If you want that woman, stop listening to her demands and get her back.”
We pull into the lot, and I park.
Then I’m out, tossing the keys to Jade as he steps out too.
“Have all the guys ready,” I say. “I’m going to find Sloane. The only thing she said was that her
Get the security guys at the second basement to go run checks and then find me.”
He gives a slight nod. “Alright, boss. Thank you.”
Ipause at the doors, looking back. “What are you thanking me for?”
“For being you.” sister’s been captured. Mateo must’ve called her directly.
I shake my head and go inside. The man has definitely gone soft.
The faux reception area is as bright as usual. I approach the front desk and ask for Sloane’s whereabouts. She shouldn’t be hard to track. Everyone who walks through this place gets tagged. Member or guest, it doesn’t matter. We always know exactly where people are.
The receptionist informs me that Sloane was taken down to the second basement by Levi, the second manager. Sloane had told everyone in a loud voice as soon as she walked in that she needed access to the server room.
Of course she did. I curse under my breath and hit the elevator, already jabbing the button to descend. I forgot what she studied in school and did for a living up until yesterday. Of course she’d want to locate Mateo herself.
The second basement doesn’t feel like part of the club. It’s colder down here-bare concrete floors, metal grafts, no decor, nos farm just function. A bunker disguised as a basement. When the elevator doors slide open, I step into a hathway. The sight of my entire tech team clustered nucider the server room stops me short. All of them are outside. I don’t think I’ve seen them all out of that room at the same time before.
“Boss,” Levi says when he sees me. “Your girlfriend is kind of crazy”
“Where is she?”
“In the server room. She sent everyone out.”
I don’t wait. I shove the door open.
The air inside is cool as machines hum in the background. Sloane is at the central console. She’s sitting in front of an open laptop and typing fast with additional gear spread around her. She doesn’t even hear me come in.
“Sloane,” I say, moving toward her.
No response.
I place a hand on her shoulder.
She jumps.
Her eyes are wild, glassy, and streaked with tears.
“What’s going on?” I ask carefully.
She sighs. “Mateo. I need to find him. I’ll be shooting that motherfucker right through the only eye he has left.”
Behind me, I catch the sound of Levi starting to step into the room, but Sloane reacts before I can.
“No. No, no,” she says. “Tell everyone to back off.”
I nod to Levi and gesture him away. He hesitates for half a second as if waiting for me to change my mind, then exhales through his nose and steps out The door eases shut behind him, sealing Sloane and me in.
She hasn’t stopped typing.
I should try to reason with her. Tell her she doesn’t have to do this on her own. That letting the others in wouldn’t mean surrendering control-it would just mean we’d stand a better chance, more eyes, more hands. But one look at her shoulders, at how stiff and locked they are, tells me that logic isn’t going to reach her right now. Her hands are shaking. Not wildly. Just enough to make me want to wrap my arms around her and force her to stop. To breathe.
I drag a chair closer and lower myself into it beside her.
“Bunny,” I say, keeping my tone steady. “You have to let us help. Do you have your phone with you? We might be able to use it to pull Mateo’s location.”
“He covered everything,” she says. “Spoofed the IMEI. Disabled Find My Phone. I tried to pull tower logs-nothing. Carrier-side data’s scrubbed. The last ping says Argentina, but that’s just a planted ghost signal. I bet he’s not in Argentina.”
Her words come in a rush.
“So, in summary?” I say.
“He used a fake internet call and hid it behind a VPN. Then he wiped everything five seconds after the call ended. No leftover data. No trail. I tried tracing the last connection point, and it led to some bakery in Buenos Aires.” Her voice catches. “The place burned down in 2018.”
I reach for her hand and place mine gently over hers.
“So our only option now is to wait for him to call back?”
“Yeah,” she says. “But this time, I’ll be ready. I’ll find him.”
I glance toward the door. “Maybe if I let the others in-“
“No. I know you, Knox. As soon as that location drops, you’re going to seal me in this room for my protection while you go hunting for him. I don’t want that. Mateo’s mine.”
Okay, maybe she does know me. It sounds exactly like what I would have done.
“Alright. Alright,” I say. “You’ll have the honor. That doesn’t mean they can’t help. I promise you, I’ll take you with me, and you’ll be the one to finish him. off. How does that sound?”
She finally stops typing. It’s not a full pause. Her fingers lift from the keys, hovering in the air like they’re unsure what to do next. Then she turns her head until her eyes meet mine. There are varieties of emotions running through those eyes. Exhaustion, fear, rage, and some others I can’t place.
“You promise?” she whispers.
“I do.”
“Swear on your life.”
I pause. Then, because I mean it, I lean in closer.
“Better yet, I swear on yours. You know I’m not tetting anything happen to you ever. Not while I’m alive.”
Her face softens. She exhales and gives a small nod.
“Mateo’s going to call back in ten minutes,” she says. “I’m setting up to track the live call this time. I wasn’t ready before, and he didn’t leave a footprint. Not one. He must have someone very skilled with him. Their work is pretty neat.”
Before I stand up to call the team back into the room, I say, “Are you sure he has your sister?”
“Yes. I saw her. He switched to video call and shot her in the thigh.” Her lips press together, trembling as she forces herself to keep it together.
Jesus.
That son of a bitch has already shot her. It now makes sense why Sloane’s so worked up. She watched her sister take a bullet in real time. This is the kind of information that makes me murderous. Mateo really does have a flair for the dramatic. I know I promised Sloane she can have at him when we find him, but that promise is looking slightly harder to keep with what’s running through my head. My hands curl into fists at my sides before I force them to relax. She doesn’t need me losing my head too.
“If I find that man…” she says.
“We’ll find him. Tell me, what else did you see in the video?”
New Book: Returned To Make Them Pay
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