Vengeance (The Protectors 5)

Ronan handed me my phone and I sucked in a breath and looked at the picture. I tried to ignore the terror in Tristan’s eyes and the way little Tanner was pressing himself against his brother’s body and focused on their surroundings.

Which wasn’t much. Drake had been careful to take the picture against a plain, concrete wall.

“Can you tell where he took them?” Ronan asked as he looked over my shoulder at the picture.

I shook my head as I tried to concentrate.

“What about your parents’ home?” he asked.

“I had it torn down after the murders,” I said. “I kept the land, but never rebuilt on it.”

“What about some place that you rented or once lived in?”

When I shook my head again, Ronan fell silent. I finally picked up on what was bothering me about the picture. I pointed to what looked like sunlight above Brennan’s head. “Does this look like different colors to you?” I asked as I used my fingers to zoom in on the spot.

“Yeah, kind of yellow and orange, some blue and red,” he murmured. “But broken up, like it’s coming through several small windows.”

“Fuck,” I said as excitement ripped through me. “I know where this is.”

I was glad when Ronan didn’t ask any questions, but instead yelled, “Dom, let’s go!” To me he said, “You have weapons in your car?”

“Plenty,” I murmured as I put my phone in my pocket and grabbed my keys.

But as far as I was concerned, I wouldn’t need them. Because as soon as I found Drake, I was going to rip him apart with my bare hands.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Brennan

I could hear my name being called, but it sounded far away and the pounding in my head hurt so bad that I didn’t want to open my eyes to see who was talking to me. My body felt cramped and my arms ached as I tried to turn over so I could try to ease the pain in my head, but I couldn’t make my body respond.

“Brennan.”

It took me a moment to realize that the voice wasn’t actually loud; in fact, it was barely a whisper. And I knew that voice. Even through all the pain and confusion, I knew that voice. I would always know that voice.

“Tristan,” I managed to grate out, though my mouth felt dry and my tongue heavy.

“Brennan, wake up,” Tristan called again and I realized he must not have heard me. I struggled to open my eyes and nearly passed out from the stabbing pain. Why the hell did my head hurt so fucking bad? Even on the rare occasions where I’d gotten drunk, the morning hangover had never felt like this.

“Tristan,” I managed to say louder after swallowing a few times. I could tell I was sitting upright, but my head was against a hard surface – a wall or something probably. I tried to use my hands to brace myself so I could straighten, but they didn’t work.

“Is Brennan okay?” I heard a small voice ask and that jarred me from my fog more than anything else. I knew that voice too. Tanner, Tristan’s eight-year-old brother.

I forced my eyes open and fought the nausea that threatened as I straightened my body. I blinked several times before things finally came into focus. Fear rattled through me when I saw Tristan sitting about five feet away from me. His hands were behind his back and Tanner was pressed up against his side. Tanner’s hands were bound at the wrist, but his feet were free.

“Tristan,” I called in confusion as I tried to get up, only to discover why I couldn’t move my arms. They were tied behind my back, with zip ties from what I could tell, and I was secured to some kind of anchor in the wall. My feet were also bound with zip ties. Panic tore through me as the memories started to come back, one by one.

Me and Tristan walking hand in hand to Tanner’s school, as he’d read the text Memphis had sent to him.

Picking up Tanner and walking through the alley behind the school to get to our car.

A man.

“Fuck,” I cried out as I tried to get my hands free.

There’d been a man with a gun. He’d grabbed Tanner who’d been walking ahead of us. We’d been forced into a van and when I’d tried to grab the gun, he’d hit me with it.

“Tristan, are you guys okay?” I asked as I tried to pull whatever was anchoring me to the wall loose.

“We’re okay,” he said. “We’re not hurt.”

It was a small measure of comfort.

“How long have we been here?” I asked.

“A few hours, I think,” Tristan answered. “You’ve been in and out,” he added. “Brennan, he took our picture. He…he told us to smile nice for Memphis.”

I stilled at that as something tugged at the edge of my memory.