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  “She’s still missing.”

  Mercy couldn’t stop the damned tears that came then, the fear of becoming spare parts for her organs, the fear for Abbie all too much. She cried as the man she’d failed held her, murmuring sweet words in her ear that she could barely understand.

  “It’s okay, beautiful. We’ll find her and get her back.”

  “I should have protected her.” Mercy couldn’t believe he was so calm, that he wasn’t yelling at her.

  “You did everything you could. You were outnumbered and outgunned, you stayed alive, and that’s all I could ever ask or want.” He tipped her head up so she was looking into his gorgeous blue eyes that held a wealth of feeling, and her breath caught at what she saw in them. “If you’d died, I never would’ve forgiven myself.”

  Mercy went to interrupt, but he placed his finger over her lips. Typically, she would have argued but the moment was charged with so much emotion she stayed silent.

  James cupped her cheek, his arm around her strong and safe. “I love you, Mercy. I know it probably seems quick to you, but for me, this has been happening for a while. You’re everything I didn’t know I wanted—beautiful, strong, feisty, funny, kind, sweet, and so much more. I don’t expect the words back, but I need you to know how I feel. Life is short and can be cruel, and I don’t want you to close your eyes for one more second without knowing how much you’re loved.”

  Tears pricked her eyes, and she wanted to say them back more than anything, but fear gripped her throat, closing off the words. She tried to say them back. She knew she was in love with him, that he was the only man for her, yet they died on her lips as his head lowered and he kissed her.

  It was the sweetest, most tender kiss, full of passion and emotion, his lips soft and familiar. James was home, life. He made her feel safe without smothering her or making her feel less than. All her life, she’d been made to feel less but not once since she’d met him had James done that.

  A cough had them breaking apart, and James pulled away slowly with a sexy grin before they both looked to the source of the sound. It was then she realized she was in a hospital room as she noticed Nick standing behind a man wearing a white doctor’s coat, a stethoscope hung around his neck.

  “Miss Broussard, it seems you’re awake. How do you feel?”

  Mercy moved to sit, and felt the cannula in her hand attached to a drip. “Um, okay, I guess. A little foggy-headed and weak, and my muscles are achy like I’ve run a marathon.”

  The middle-aged doctor nodded. “You had moderate hypothermia. We gave you warmed intravenous fluids and something to counteract the drugs you were given. James here offered to stay as you were a little anxious, and his presence seemed to help.”

  Mercy struggled to take in the news and how close she had come to dying. “When can I go home?”

  “Not until I’m happy your core temperature is stable and there are no serious after-effects. You may find you suffer painful blisters on your fingers and toes called chilblains. I’ll give you something for that.”

  She looked at James with wide eyes. “Doc, I need to go.”

  “There’s nothing to do until we locate Abbie. Stay here and get checked and then you can come home until we get word. We can assess things again then.”

  “She’ll need to rest when she gets home, hypothermia isn’t a joke.” The doctor gave them a stern look, and she felt James tense.

  “I’m aware of that, doc. I’d never put Mercy in danger.” His words were clipped and angry, and Nick stepped forward as if sensing he might need to drag James off the doctor.

  “Understood. Well, let’s get these tests ordered, and then we can see about getting you home.”

  Mercy turned to James as the doc left the room. “How’s Ian?” She was almost scared to ask the question after she’d seen him on the floor of his home, beaten and unconscious.

  “He’s fine, bruises and some cuts but he’s home and more pissed off he didn’t shoot them.” Mercy felt a smile pull at her lips. That sounded like the man who’d been a mentor most of her adult life and more of a father than her own had been.

  “I keep bringing trouble to his door.”

  James grabbed her hand. “He told me you’d say that, and he also said to tell you to shut it.”

  “Yep, that sounds like him.”

  Four hours later, and after endless tests, she was released with a caution to take it easy, which she knew she’d ignore if any information on Abbie came through. James had raised an eyebrow as he made her sit on the couch in Ian’s home. The man was refusing to go to a safe house still so King and Caitlin were going to stay there and try and work with Imari on the laptops by going through CCTV from the DNA center were the tech was killed.

  Ian had pulled her to him for a bone-crushing hug. “Worried me sick, girlie.”

  “Ditto, old man.”

  “Takes more than a punch to bring this man down.”

  “Thank God for that.”

  James brought her a warm cup of hot chocolate, which she accepted gratefully. “Tell me what Imari found.”

  James sat beside her, and she leaned into him, wanting him to feel her love even though she hadn’t said the words. “Not too much as of a few hours ago. Can you remember anything about your kidnapping?”

  “I remember meeting Scorpion. He was actually pretty well spoken. I was expecting much more cussing, but he wasn’t like that. It made him seem more dangerous because he was so calculating, but I can see why they think he’s charming. He said Abbie was with her mother now, which was weird because he also said he was still looking for Beth.”

  Nick shrugged. “Perhaps he meant his mother or his new old lady?”

  “Maybe? He said Beth took something from him and he’d get it back.”

  “Why did they keep you alive?”

  Mercy glanced at James, who made a sound low in his throat at Ian’s question.

  She reached for him, her touch settling them both. “He was selling me for my organs. He said a dead body would attract attention, but a missing person would eventually get forgotten.”

  “Never!” James was practically vibrating with rage.

  Mercy gave him a sad smile. “Maybe not with me because I have all of you but for some people, that’s the sad reality.”

  “You think they’re kidnapping people they think won’t be missed and selling them for their organs?”

  Mercy nodded. “Yes, they seemed to be knowledgeable about it.”

  Nick was on his phone before she finished her sentence. He relayed the information to Shane, who was with Imari.

  Nick looked up sharply, and her heart jumped at the look in his eyes. “I’m putting you on speaker.” Nick placed the phone on the wooden coffee table in front of them. “Imari, tell James and Mercy what you just told me.”

  “Mercy, it’s great you’re okay. Right, I heard what you were saying about Rao and did some digging, and it seems he was married when he was nineteen to a woman called Jolene Jensen. Who is also Cody Hull’s half-sister through their mother.”

  Mercy gasped and looked at James as the information gave them a new thread to pull another chance to find Abbie and Beth. “What happened to her?”

  “She died of heart failure ten years ago.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  So many things made sense now, although James had trouble wrapping his brain around the new fact. How could the FBI have overlooked such a crucial piece of information? On the other hand, once inside the system, a man like Rao could play it like a violin for his malicious purposes.

  Mercy leaned forward, her eyes on him but spoke to Imari through the phone. “It’s big, but it was ten years ago. The FBI may rap Rao over the knuckles for hiding the information, and will probably remove him from the Henchmen cases, but if he hasn’t done anything wrong since then and even built a case around them, it’s not enough to get him investigated.”

  Nick shook his head, and James could see the look of disbelief on his face. “You
can’t be serious! Don’t you remember his disdain and ego when we asked for his help? It’s clear he’s in it with Hull. And it started with the sister. We don’t know the kind of case he’s put together. It may be a big, empty folder for all we know.”

  Imari groaned on the other end of the line, and Mercy lifted her hand to appease Nick so the hacker could speak. “I know, and I’ll be the first in line to wring Rao’s neck, but we need to be careful. The FBI doesn’t like to acknowledge a bad apple in their midst. That’s why I’ve started digging into Rao’s complete FBI file and Hull’s police reports, pictures, data, addresses, invoices. If we can get enough breadcrumbs or a few undeniable links between them, we may have a chance to sway Rao’s supervisor and plant a seed of doubt in his mind. And while I was digging, I found something that may be of interest, or it’s at least strange.”

  Two images came side by side. They were two identical tattoos—a minimalist drawing of three small mountains in different shades of blue.

  “What am I seeing?”

  As James held the phone for everyone to see, Mercy and Nick came closer, with Ian taking a look too. Mercy inhaled sharply and grasped his wrist to bring it closer. “I’ve seen this before! It was in the journal Bethany left in her apartment. She’d drawn this so many times, it made me wonder what it meant.”

  Imari had a smirk in her voice on the line. “On the left is one of the pictures taken of Hull’s ink last time he went in prison, the one on the right is from Rao’s FBI file.” The stunned silence was broken by Imari who continued, “You want something to shake Rao’s boss?” The images changed again, replaced by a new one, another tattoo with an identical design. “It was just a hunch, but I pulled Hull’s sister’s autopsy file, and look what I found.”

  James felt joy at the noose tightening around Rao’s neck. “You’re amazing, Imari. I honestly didn’t think you’d get all this information so fast.”

  The hacker snorted. “Not that fast. It took a few hours.”

  “I thought you were about to say a few days.”

  “Normally, I’d require an extraordinary amount of coffee and chocolate for this kind of favor. But I’m giving you a freebie because of Abbie and Bethany. Next time, it’s going to cost you a huge box of chocolates, and I mean really huge. On a more dire note, I continued searching for Bethany and Abbie, but couldn’t find anything. Rao is mostly staying in hotel rooms, and it would be impossible to hide people there. As for Hull, so far there’s nothing about Bethany. I’m focusing on finding Abbie as the man confirmed having his daughter. The trouble with MCs is that they move constantly, and they use the names of people way lower on the food chain to book in or rent accommodation. I’m still on it, but if time is of the essence, I may be too late.”

  Silence descended over the room until Ian spoke for the first time. “Everything you’ve done so far is great. From the point of view of bringing Rao down, I’m incredibly impressed. I wish I had your resources when I was on the force, but there’s something that’s bugging me. It’s what Mercy said. Hull said Bethany was only breathing because she had something that belonged to him, and that she’d die either way.”

  James nodded. “Yes, he’s obviously referring to the drugs she snatched. Hull wouldn’t tolerate losing a woman to begin with, but having one steal from his gang, that would’ve been unacceptable.”

  Ian nodded, but it was clear he wasn’t totally on board. Mercy came closer and sat beside her former partner. “What are you thinking? What doesn’t jive for you?”

  For the first time, James saw how the former rookie and the old-timer worked together. If not for what he’d built with Mercy, he might have been jealous, but instead, he saw the connection he could have with her, the partnership he’d always dreamed of, both in and outside work.

  “You’ve met him and described him as calculating and smart, never letting an opportunity slip past. You falling into his clutches was unexpected, and he turned it to his advantage but I don’t believe he thought about black market organ trading on the spur of the moment. It had to have been planned way before you. You were convenient, falling into his lap when he attacked us to retrieve his daughter. I believe they left me behind because I’m damaged goods and they didn’t kill me because they didn’t want to bring more attention to themselves than necessary. As he said, they don’t want the police after them, and killing a former cop would have brought hell down upon them. In my book, that’s evil calculation.”

  The image and planning Ian unveiled felt even more disturbing than their initial deductions.

  As James processed the new information, Nick sat for the first time, clearly shaken. “Is Hull that evil? Everyone who crosses his path or angers him, he turns into money by butchering them?”

  Ian was grim. “It’s not that common yet in the US, but it’s a growing business in Asia and the Middle East. I wouldn’t be surprised if it became attractive to criminals here. MCs encounter a lot of people in vast areas. It wouldn’t be difficult for them to make them disappear. Nobody looks for homeless guys, drug addicts, or vagrants. Also, new MCs are becoming more powerful politically. They aren’t the stupid little gunners of twenty years ago. They want power and money but also influence, and that fits Hull’s profile.”

  “And Hull might have seen Rao’s relationship with his sister as an opportunity. We don’t know when Rao crossed over to the dark side but it must have been a question of time at that point.” Mercy’s words rang true.

  “Oh my…” Imari’s soft voice came through the line. “Guys, while Ian was holding court, I did a search of my own, and I’m probably adding another brick to your case. We all know that Hull’s sister died of a heart attack, but it’s more complex than that. In her autopsy file, it states that her heart problem was genetic, beginning in childhood, and guess what, the only thing that would’ve saved her was a transplant. Unfortunately, she didn’t find a compatible donor in time.”

  Another piece took its place in the puzzle, and for James, the picture got clearer. “The tattoos, Hull’s sister, their unlikely association, the organ trafficking… We have a solid case against Rao. But what about Bethany? Why do you think we’re mistaken?”

  Mercy put her elbows on her knees, pushing her wild, blonde hair away from her face. “I don’t think Hull was referring to the drugs she took when he said that she had something that was his. The quantity was next to nothing and not worth all this trouble to get it back. Not when her body is worth twenty times more on the black market. In the MC, you belong to the gang, your life and your death aren’t yours, and that fits Hull’s MO. Harvesting Bethany would give him sole guardianship of Abbie, and repair his wounded ego from the insult of her leaving with his drugs and daughter.”

  Nick ground his teeth. “And there’s a chance Bethany stole the drugs to have money so she and her daughter could start a new life together.”

  A wave of nausea threatened to engulf him, especially at the thought that Bethany hadn’t come to him earlier, but James held on as a spark of hope blossomed. “If he wasn’t referring to the drugs, it means he doesn’t have Bethany.” James got to his feet, his energy surging. “That’s why Rao is still hanging around. He’s searching for my sister. All we have to do is find Bethany first. Once she’s safe, we can bring down the Henchmen and their trafficking ring, and get Abbie back in one fell swoop.”

  Imari came back on the line. “James, want me to update Shane so he can report Rao to his FBI contact?”

  “Tempting, but not yet. Ian’s right. If Hull thinks he’s being followed, he won’t risk what he’s built. He’ll retreat, making it even more difficult to corner him. So will Rao if he even suspects his boss is onto him. Instead, we’re going to search for Bethany, but also keep an eye on Hull and Rao. They’re probably closing in on her, and we’re going to use their knowledge against them. I think it should start with you, Imari.”

  “Why am I not surprised? I’ve contacted Alex and started scanning everything about Hull and Rao, cross-checking the
m and theirs. I’ll keep you updated of any potential leads. In the meantime, stay put. At Daytona, you’re closer to Georgia than Miami. Shane and Emme are coming in soon, so I’ll tell them about your plans, and that I’ll probably need more hands on deck. I don’t know how long it will take, but I promise I’ll do it as fast as humanly possible.”

  James’s gut settled a little, glad to have Imari and her skills on his case. “And I’ll organize the biggest box of chocolates you’ve ever seen once this is over.”

  When he hung up, it was as if the weight of the world pressed down on his shoulders. James sat on the sofa beside Mercy and put his elbows on his knees, trying to center himself again. Mercy’s hand came to his back and rubbed soothingly along his spine.

  Nick stood. “I think we should eat. If you’re brave enough to risk my cooking, I can see what’s in the fridge and make something.”

  Ian, who’d remained silent until then, groaned. “I think everyone here needs something a little better than that. Gimme half an hour, and I’ll heat one of my wife’s dishes. Marnie always stores extras in the freezer.”

  As Ian rolled away, Nick went with him, but James needed another moment, indulging in Mercy’s touch, gathering what strength he had left for what was to come.

  Chapter Twenty

  It was amazing to Mercy how easy it was to fall into a pattern and how it became vital to your existence. Lying in James’s arms was precisely that for her, his muscular body offered comfort and security that she hadn’t known she needed until he wrapped himself around her again, and a sense of home she’d never experienced before eased through her aching body.

  The residual effects of the hypothermia were beginning to dissipate, and she was feeling more like her old self. Ian had heated some of Marnie’s chili, which had warmed her from the inside out, taking the edge off the chill. However, she wondered if that was in her head.