Sparrow

He took a step closer, his heat against my cold body. “I’ll do it when you won’t even notice, out of nowhere. You’ll have your back to me. Deal?”

TROY

I STORMED INTO Rouge Bis in search of Brock.

No one had seen him that day, and nobody had spoken to him in recent hours.

Stalking into his office, I froze when I noticed the little clue he had left for me.

A toothpick. My toothpick. Sitting pretty in the middle of his newly empty glass office desk. A toothpick still tangled in the green fiber of Brock and Catalina’s bedroom carpet.

His laptop was gone, so were the stacks of papers, pictures of his family and everything else he personalized the place with. Just my toothpick. And I knew why he put it there.

He realized I was fucking Catalina. Realized what I was half begging him to find out for fucking years. And now it was backfiring big time, blowing up in my face.

There were too many coincidences that day, and I knew the two disappearances had to be connected. He took her.

He took my wife.

A part of me wanted to smash the whole place down, walls included, but I didn’t have time to fall to pieces. It was now my job to glue them together, to make sure Red was going to be okay.

I called my little pawn at the Metro police. John was one of the greediest bastards on my payroll. For the right price, he would have volunteered his own daughter to be diced up into steaks and served at Rouge Bis.

“How can I help you?” he asked

I gave him Brock’s full name—both names, just in case—asking him to issue an APB.

“This could take a while,” he said immediately. “Lotta paperwork involved.”

“I’ll pay whatever to make it happen fast.” It wasn’t like me not to negotiate, but time was not on my side.

Next in line were Sparrow’s friends.

A half hour later, Lucy stormed through the backdoor of Rouge Bis, her face flushed. “It’s all your fault. You, her stupid dad… For God’s sake, I’ve never seen someone with as little luck as Birdie when it comes to the men in her life.”

I couldn’t agree with her more, so I gave her a nod, throwing my set of keys into her hands from where I stood. She caught them in the air, cocking one eyebrow in question.

Daisy, Red’s other friend, followed her into the restaurant and looked around like it was the first time she’d walked into a fucking room. All wide-eyed and smiling, you wouldn’t suspect her friend was missing.

“Go look for her in your culinary school, at her dad’s, where-fucking-ever. Where does she usually hang out?”

“Yeah, why would you know?” Lucy growled. “You’re only her husband, right?”

I saw Sparrow had taught her friend how to be snarky, too. I didn’t answer her, and I ignored Daisy when she asked me how much it costs to rent Rouge Bis. I just shook my head and paced, trying to calculate my next move.

Instinct told me Red was with Brock, but I tried to convince myself I was being paranoid, thinking he’d harm her. Maybe they were just having an affair. Maybe Brock’s goody-two-shoes façade got to her, too. But I knew that wasn’t it. Red was pretty much bullshit-proof. She had more Boston in her fingernail than Brock had in his whole body. She was not to be messed with. And she couldn’t be having an affair with him.

Because I knew it was only my name she screamed in bed.

“Lucy, just fucking cooperate, okay? You don’t know what we’re dealing with here.” And neither do I, I refrained from adding.

Lucy’s pulled out her cell. “That’s it, I’m calling the police. This is my best friend we’re talking about.”

Daisy swung from staring at one of the paintings in the restaurant to staring at Lucy, her expression confused. “I thought I was your best friend?”

Idiot.

“No one calls the police,” I said calmly, though inside, it felt like my heart was going to explode. I knew what I needed to do and didn’t want to do it. “Now get your asses into the car and go look for her everywhere you can. In our old neighborhood. At her culinary school. Where she usually runs. Do whatever you can do and keep me updated.”

That was also my order to everyone else around me. Employees. Colleagues. Ex-mob soldiers. Every single person on my payroll was already looking for Brock and Red. If they really were together, they’d be found—hopefully before I completely lost my shit.

I’d called Sparrow’s friends because I was worried that I might be missing something, a place I might have overlooked, some place she could stay. Though deep down, I knew she hadn’t run away.

A chill ran down my spine as I dialed Jensen’s number for the fourth time that day. “Any news?”