“That’s enough, Liam,” I say.
Liam’s body stiffens and he raises his foot, bringing it down quickly and crushing the man’s throat under his heavy boot. He turns on me with his loaded weapon, releasing the safety on the pistol, then tilts his head to the side. As much as he might want to kill me, I know he will not. I am too important to Malia, and he would not do that to her. Not after everything we know she must be going through since she has not saved herself yet.
We will not speak it, but we all know it.
I cross my arms tight against my chest, looking between the now dead man and Liam as he glares at me behind his pistol.
“You don’t get to tell me when enough is enough until she’s back here!” Liam yells.
“Picking small-time criminals off the street isn’t going to find her. Get your fucking head on right,” I snap back. “The men we need are the kind of men that can clear their names of the crimes they commit. With pockets so deep they hold Hell in their palms.”
Liam snorts, then drops his gun, switching the safety back on and tucking it in his jeans. My eyes rake over Liam’s blood-covered bare chest, the new, but familiar tattoo stares back at me. Malia’s chest piece—a skull centered between two pistols and roses. He got it two weeks after she was taken, Donovan a week after, and I followed the trend last week.
Something of her that is always with us, even if she never comes home.
“I don’t see you doing shit about trying to find her,Omen,“ Liam hisses, shouldering me as he walks past.
My hand snaps up and grips his shoulders. Those blue eyes narrow on me, and I have to stop myself from stepping back. Joseph looked at me the same way before he figured out where Nadya was., when I tried to stop him from going off half-cocked, to wait till we came up with a plan to do it properly. The last look he gave me before he was murdered.
“Do not test me, boy. Malia is my goddamned daughter,” I spit. “I have my men working day and night trying to locate her, or anyone else who could be tied to this, while you’re plowing through petties.”
Liam runs a bloody hand down his face, stopping to rub the tension from his eyes, then lets it drop to his side.
“Maybe she just took off,” he croaks, then raises his gaze back to mine. “What if it wasn’t Martinez?”
If I did not know my daughter, I would say that could be an option. Malia does not quit, and she does not run. There is nothing to run from. At this point, though, that might not be entirely true. I have denied her the one thing she has ever asked for and, as much as I wish I could change the past, I cannot. Besides, without the choice I made, she would not have been as strong as she is now.
I shake my head.
“No,” I say with a sigh, squeezing Liam’s shoulder. “You may not have known Malia long in her adult life, but in most ways she is as transparent as they come. She cannot hide who she truly is—too independent and stubborn as hell. I may have raised a machine, but she wouldn’t abandon her family, or even you, Liam.”
Liam watches me for a moment, looking for the lie in my words, and I only hope to give him some comfort. Looking at him now, the carnage he has begun to cause, I might not just be losing a daughter if she does not come home. I am afraid that Liam will succumb to his darkness as well. He has lost everyone but his sister. Everyone. And all to the same man.
“Tawny is going to be our Hail Mary in this search,” I remind him. “Don’t backtrack and start thinking up crazy scenarios. Any doubt will ruin any progress we’ve made.”
Liam shoves my hand from his shoulder and leans into me.
“What fucking progress, Nathaniel?”
He steps in closer.
“Do you not realize the shit she could be going through right now if he sold her to some sick fuck? I don’t havedoubts. I have hope that maybe it was her choice to leave, then maybe she’d be fucking safe. You’re the one who gave her the shit end of the stick, denying her something she deserved. I can onlyhopeshe decided to do something for herself.”
His eyes bounce between mine as he takes a step back.
“Because we both failed her.”
He starts to walk out of the room, the door opens, and my eyes fall to the dead man on the ground.
“You need to believe in her. Go home and straighten your shit out, then come back when we can work together on this. Don’t fall apart yet, Brenner. She needs us. She needs you. We won’t bring her home unless we’re united in this fight.”
The heavy door slams shut, and I blow out a breath, digging out my cell phone from my pocket.
“Dad?” Donovan says on the first ring.
“Need clean-up in the basement. Once you get that sorted, you and Breckin need to go to Limbo to talk to Tanner.”
“On it,” he responds, then cuts the line.