Axle's Brand (Death Chasers MC 3)

“I thought it had to be you. No one is seen on the cameras. They were disabled minutes after my wife walked out. John was found dead in an elevator. You’re the only ones I could accuse besides Lathan. And I wanted it to be you.”

The tears teetering on his eyes and his lip wavering as he stares at us has me lowering the gun.

“I need to know everything. Now. Because I sure as fuck didn’t take her, but I am going after her. Is it just you?”

He shakes his head, and suddenly seven guys on each side turn the corners and start approaching us with guns trained on our bodies.

Sarah grabs her phone from her hip, rolling her eyes when she reads the screen, never moving her gun away from Smitty’s head.

“Well, I just got a text saying fifteen or more guys from New York just crossed Halo’s borders a few minutes ago.”

Smitty’s lips twitch when he arches an eyebrow at her.

“I sort of hate you right now,” she tells him, but I talk over them before they can say more to each other.

“Lathan isn’t at his warehouse. He’s got to be somewhere else near there, though,” I say as I dart inside.

“Drex!” I shout down through the basement entrance of the warehouse.

“What?”

“Get every fucking drug dealer or drug runner we know on the phone, and find out where Lathan is, because he’s not at the other warehouse.”

“Can it wait? We’ve kind of got a lot of other shit going on right this minute.”

I start calling numbers, not bothering to answer.

“Maya is missing. It can’t wait!” Sarah calls down for me.

I don’t even hear what’s being said after that. I barely even notice Drex as he comes topside, a flurry of motion as he starts pulling out every phone number source we have.

My heartbeat is in my ears, making it a struggle to even ask questions to the guys I actually have good rapport with. No one knows a Lathan.

No one.

Everyone has heard of him, but no one knows him.

Smitty leans over a counter, looking as though he’s trying to compose himself. The fourteen militant men all drape around the counter, waiting on us to put forth the next move.

That’s the moment I lose it.

My phone tumbles out of my hand as I charge the asshole, and he turns just as my fist collides with his face. He’s thrown to the ground as Dash and Jude tackle my arms, holding me back.

“You were supposed to protect her!” I shout at the fucking asshole on the ground, fighting like a caged animal to break free from their hold. “Two fucking days she’s been gone, and now you come to me?!”

He wipes the blood from his lip, snarling as he stands. “I’ve been looking every-fucking-where for her. That warehouse was armed to the max, and we’ve been watching it for Lathan. I only came here to find out if you’d sold her out to him, and to pry information about where he might be.”

Jude curses as he digs his feet in, and Dash yanks me back when I try to go after the son-of-a-bitch to rip his head off.

“I sent her there to be safe!” I roar. “You’re her fucking family! You have men everywhere and money to buy even more! Why was one fucking guy supposed to be guarding her on his own?”

Smitty just continues to stare at me like he wants me dead as badly as I want to kill him.

“The entire fucking building is secure. It’s her Family’s building! Only one guy was in the rink, but twenty or more were on that floor. She doesn’t like a damn audience when she’s trying to de-stress. I force her to let one man be at her side. Twenty fucking men. There’s no way they could have gotten out!”

“Unless someone trusted to be there didn’t raise suspicion and he took her out during a shift change,” Drex points out, phone still at his ear as he turns away and resumes his conversation.

“Get the fuck off me,” I growl at Jude and Dash.

“Not until you’re less murderous,” Jude snorts. “War, and all that.”

“There’s going to be a fucking war if anything happens to her because you let some half-ass loyal son-of-a-bitch that close to her,” I say to Smitty.

“Everyone on that floor was born into this world,” he defends, his face turning a furious red. “Every one of them is tied to her from birth. Either they saw her born or they grew up with her.”

I stop fighting, breathing heavily as I think back to anything and everything Maya said when she was with me. She mentioned all the names of her closest protectors. The men she trusted with her life. None of them stand out.

“No one went missing?”

His jaw grinds. “Only my son went missing, but he has a small addiction of his own. Women. He was holed up in some hotel with one of his whores. Per the usual.”