“Is that really necessary?” Phoenix says, standing and turning around to face Joel.
I, carefully, stand too with hands raised in surrender.
“Yes. You don’t know who Liesel is, what she’s done. If you did, you’d agree with me, Phoenix.”
Phoenix looks at me with new eyes, seeing the monster that I am.
“Shoot me, Joel. If you think I’m so awful, just shoot me. There is no way I’m going to let you tie me up,” I say. And then I run.
I run until I feel the sting of a bullet in my shoulder.
26
Langston
“What’s the plan to get Siren?” I ask as I walk into Zeke’s house without saying hello.
“We don’t have a plan yet. We don’t have any leads. There has been no ransom, no security feed. We don’t have any current known enemies,” Zeke says.
I could kill Zeke for letting Siren get kidnapped like this. They’ve been married, what—less than a year, and he’s already failed at protecting her.
“You have one job as her husband,” I say through gritted teeth.
“Don’t lecture me, asshole. Why do you think I called you and Enzo?”
I look past Zeke and see Enzo using a laptop on the kitchen counter, already searching for a clue as to where Siren might have been kidnapped.
“Where’s Kai?” I ask.
“She has all the kids in a safehouse with Beckett,” Enzo answers.
“Good, now move and let the master work,” I say, pushing Enzo off the barstool so I can sit behind the computer.
Enzo doesn’t complain. He knows I’m the best behind a computer. I can hack any system, find any missing person.
“Where was Siren last seen?” I ask Zeke.
Zeke runs his hand through his ridiculously long hair while he paces back and forth.
“Zeke!” I growl.
His head snaps to me.
“Focus. Where was Siren last seen?”
“I, uh, I don’t know. She told me she had some errands to run. She told me she would pick up Cayden from the nanny and meet me for dinner.”
“What errands?”
Zeke shrugs. “I don’t know. She didn’t tell me. I didn’t think to ask.”
My eyes flick to Enzo, and we exchange annoyed looks.
I start typing into the computer, searching for Siren’s cell phone.
“Her cell phone is turned off,” I say a second later.
“Where is the nanny’s house?”