“Thank you.” Pop shook the man’s hand while Zio pulled out his phone, already speaking to Desi. The computer expert could hack the cameras and find out everything we needed to know before we could even try to get the transportation department to answer their phone.
“Track their phones,” Garret said. “Ciana’s. Nova’s… Fuck, why didn’t I put a tracker on Lis? Why? Stupid motherfucker.” He thrust his hands into his hair, pulling at the roots. “Ryan, find my sister. Nova wouldn’t leave Lis. Where one is, the other will be. Right?”
“Desi said both Ciana’s and Nova’s phones are off,” Zio informed us, pocketing his phone. “But Ciana has been acting off ever since she got home from that fucking vacation, so I had him put trackers in all of her shoes while she was at work one day. He’s got a read on her location, and they are headed north. But from the speed the tracker is going, he suspects she’s possibly on a helicopter.”
“Let’s go. There’s no time to waste. If they are in the air, they will already have a huge lead on us,” Pop said before either Garret or I could voice the command. He caught my wild gaze. “We’ll get them back, boys. Just keep your heads.”
* * *
We had two jets but no helicopter of our own. I was going to have to fix that as soon as I got Nova back. Until then, a few phone calls got me what we needed, and we were in the air. While we were in flight, Desi sent Zio all the video footage of the accident he could get, and he and I watched it as we flew closer and closer to the Canadian border.
Not five minutes after the limo and SUV left Medusa’s, the SUV was taken out. The carnage left between it and where I found the destroyed limo was like watching some stupid action movie. Only, this was reality, and at the end of the scene, the reason I got out of bed every morning was pulled out of the top of the limo, looking lifeless.
A guy in a ski mask climbed in and handed Nova to his partner. He tossed her unconscious body over his shoulder like she was nothing more than a rag doll, while the guy extracted Cali next. But instead of taking Ciana, they left her behind just as another military-grade vehicle slammed on its brakes at the front of the wreckage.
The guy made a run for it, as if he were scared of who was in the new vehicle, Cali’s body flopping as he ran with her over his shoulder.
Whoever the newcomers were, they waited until the other men left with Cali and Nova before three men got out. Unlike the other two, these men didn’t bother trying to cover their faces, but I didn’t recognize a single one of them. They climbed in through the top, and moments later, Ciana was carefully lifted out of the top of the limo.
“Maybe they took Nova and Cali to different locations,” I mused aloud, but even as the words left me, the new vehicle drove off in the same direction as the other had.
Zio’s fingers clenched around his phone so hard the screen began to crack around the edges. “Maybe,” he muttered, his eyes glued to the final footage of his daughter being taken away.
“Anya is in the air with Dante and Adrian,” Pop said into our headsets from where he was sitting with the pilot. “They will only be about five minutes behind us at this rate.”
“Bennie and Vito are at home?” Zio asked, his voice tight with emotion.
“Yeah, fratello,” Pop said with a nod. “Zariah is locked up tight with Scarlett, and Zayne is on his way back from Chicago as we speak. We will have all of your babies home by the end of the night.”
Zio clenched his eyes closed. “Christ, I hope so.”
I squeezed his shoulder, offering him comfort even as my mind was pure chaos with thoughts of what could be happening to the three girls. From my other side, Garret was tapping his head against the window, cursing himself over and over again, feral rage in his green eyes that were so like his sister’s.
They were going to be okay. All of them. They had to be.
It felt as if it took forever to get to where the tracker said Ciana was located. By the time the pilot landed, we were all so on edge, we feared brushing against each other in case it sent us into a violent rage. Men I didn’t know but Pop said were friends met us, and I was pleased to see the cases of guns they brought with them.
By the time we were all armed, another helicopter was landing. The thing was barely on the ground before the door opened and Mom jumped out, running toward us with her head down low. Her brother Adrian was right behind her, along with Theo and Dante.
She ran right to me and hugged me hard. “We’ll get her back,” she promised, and I wrapped my arms around her tight. “I promise, l’venok.”
Too choked up to speak, I nodded and handed her a gun.
It was a ten-mile drive to get to Ciana’s location, and the closer we got, the denser the trees became until we reached a gate. The headlights of the lead car showed a sign proclaiming the area private property, while another one read NO TRESPASSING. Fresh tracks led up the dirt road beyond the gate.
One of Pop’s friends jumped out and used bolt cutters on the chains locking the gate in place. Once the gate was open, we all slammed on the gas of our vehicles and hauled ass, going in hot. I had no idea how many men would be waiting on us, but there was no doubt they would expect us. How could they not when they had three of the most important females in the world to my family? Those idiots knew what they were getting into when they took Nova, Ciana, and Cali. Now they would have to face the consequences.
Bullets rained down on us just as a huge cabin came into view in the distance. The place was massive, two stories, and looked more like a small hotel rather than someone’s home. It was lit up, shining like a beacon in the dark night, but the surrounding area was still pitch dark, making it impossible to see where the shots were coming from.
“Anyone have any night vision?” Mom grumbled, taking a rifle from the guy sitting beside her and looking through the scope. “Aww, perfect,” she said with an evil grin. “This is mine now. Get out of the way.”
The guy scrambled to the middle as she maneuvered her small body over and rolled the window down enough to stick out the barrel of the gun. “Get ready for some shouting,” she warned just as she pulled the trigger.
It was a symphony of pained screams all the way up to the cabin. She’d thinned out the herd a good bit, but there was no way we could just jump out and run inside. Instead, the driver floored it and took us right into the first floor of the cabin.
“Motherfuck!” Mom shouted. “Warn a bitch before you do shit like that.”
“You okay?” I asked, but my gaze was on the dust and debris falling outside the SUV.
“I’m good,” Mom assured me, tossing the rifle aside and checking the magazine of the other gun I’d given her earlier. “Let’s get the girls back, shall we?”
All four doors opened, and the six of us got out, guns drawn, our bullets flying just as five men appeared near the stairs we’d stopped short of when we came through the living room area. Garret was the first to start shooting, hitting all five of them before any of us could even squeeze our triggers.
“Up or down?” he snarled, his chest rapidly rising and falling as he scanned for more enemies.
“They were coming from upstairs, so I’m going to take a wild guess and assume they were protecting something up there,” one of Pop’s friends called out. “You three take the second floor.” He indicated Garret, one of his own men, and me. “Anya, you’re with us. A place like this must have a basement.”