Jasper scoffed, even as Milo cut him a dark look. “Don’t,” Jasper retorted, shocking the shit out of me, and even Kellan straightened. “You made plans and cut the rest of us out of them. So no, you don’t get to tell me what we can and can’t believe. Liam walked the fuck away, cutting ties with us almost immediately. Now you want to say it was something you arranged and couldn’t be bothered to trust the rest of us with?”
I scrubbed a hand over my face, even as Milo sighed.
“We don’t have time for this,” Freddie interrupted before the fight could even begin to escalate. “It’s been hours since she called. Hours. We still don’t know where she is.”
“Liam followed her to the Narrows,” Jasper said. “She boarded a private plane and it took off. So far, none of our contacts can even tell us the plane’s registration or destination. We’re all assuming it was a Sharpe family plane, we know they have two of them.”
“I know someone who might be able to help,” Doc said.
“And you’re just telling us now?” The sharp reprimand in Kellan’s voice was hard to miss. “Why haven’t you called them already?”
If Kellan’s tone bothered Doc, it didn’t show. “Because until now, no one mentioned she’d gotten on a private plane.” The last was said with a glance at Jasper, who at least had the grace to grimace.
“Can we please stop pissing on each other?” Freddie demanded. He was still dancing his knife around in his hand, the sharp blade seeming to narrowly miss his fingertips over and over. “This isn’t about us, it’s about Boo-Boo!”
A headache pounded behind my eye. “Then call their house,” I said. “We know where they live.” We’d always known that. We had a list of all the Sharpe homes. Dove tended to stay with her uncle when she wasn’t touring because her parents traveled so much and he seemed more settled.
Milo met my gaze and raised his brows. “You just want us to pick up the phone and call them?”
“Yes.” I tossed the wallet onto the desk and dug out my own phone. “I can fucking do it if you want. If she went home, and she’s not answering the phone I gave her, then it makes sense we should be able to get a call or at least a message to her there.”
Jasper’s scowl deepened. “The last thing she wanted was us contacting her family.”
“That was for ransom,” I pointed out, but Jasper still shook his head. Phone in hand, I debated it. We needed to know. If they took her and she didn’t want to be there, then we’d burn it down to get her back.
But if she wanted to be there…
Did I want to know if she really wanted to leave us?
“Call her,” Freddie said abruptly. “I’ll bet you money they won’t put her on the phone.”
Doc rubbed his jaw, then he shared a look with Milo. “Your call, kid.”
“No,” Kellan said and the ferociousness in that single syllable startled me, and seemingly everyone else present. “It’s not just his fucking call. Sparrow belongs to all of us.”
I liked the sound of it.
Jasper quirked a brow.
“Milo wanted her gone. He doesn’t get to make the call.” For Kellan to take that stand meant a lot and I nodded.
“Agreed. Love you brother,” I said to Milo when his dark gaze collided with my own. “Believe me when I say that, I mean it. But Dove is ours. We took her. We protected her. We care and you wanted her to go back to that world. I didn’t.” It was the first time I’d admitted it aloud, but the truth was right there. I wanted Dove here. I wanted to be able to wake up to her, make love to her, play with her…
I wanted it all, and when she’d asked me for that tattoo, there was nothing in anything she said or did, that told me she wanted any different.
“We need the number for their place—” A fist hitting the door interrupted and Freddie, being the closest, jerked it open and had JD against the wall with a knife to his throat before any of us were moving.
“What the fuck do you want?” Freddie asked.
“Easy,” Jasper said, having already closed the distance and he had a hand on Freddie’s shoulder. A little trickle of blood appeared on JD’s throat where the knife touched him. I shifted to grip Freddie’s other shoulder. Right now, we didn’t need more bodies to dispose of, even if JD was a pain in the ass—he was still one of the rats.
"Answer the question,” Milo said in a dead neutral tone. The grit of each syllable was colorless and forced. “What do you want?”
JD’s eyes cut to where Milo stood. “There’s something you need to see.”
“What?”
“News report…in the clubhouse.”
“What the fuck were you doing in the clubhouse?” Kellan asked. “You guys were warned.”
“Yes,” JD said and the man looked like he wanted to squirm, but Freddie’s white-knuckled grip on him kept him still. “Went to grab a drink, television was on. News report.”
News.
“What news?” It was my turn to ask, and JD’s whites were showing when he cut a frantic look at me.
“The princess is home.”
“She doesn’t like that name,” Jasper growled. Something JD should fucking remember. Rome had laid his ass out the last time he called her that.
“I know,” JD raised his hands. More blood trickled down his neck. “I didn’t call her that. The dude on the news did. She was getting off some plane with him and reporters were everywhere—”
Reporters.
Dude.
Plane.
I let go of Freddie and stalked out of the office. In no time, I was in the clubhouse and staring at the television. There was a picture of her on the screen as a news reporter talked about the return of the Sharpe heiress and that the family was asking for their privacy to be respected. No details on where she’d been or who had held her were forthcoming. Then it cut to live footage as she walked next to her uncle. He had a hand on her arm and their security made them a way to the car.
Nothing in her demeanor said anything about not wanting to be there. If anything, she was unreadable, but I looked for something—anything to tell me what the fuck was going on.
“After months of speculation following her disappearance, the Sharpe heiress has returned home. The family has not answered any questions on her whereabouts or what transpired, but sources tell me that the FBI and law enforcement will be interviewing her in the coming days. For now, we wish the Sharpe family good fortune and we’re glad to see them reunited once again.”
The last image was her uncle wrapping an arm around her as she turned her face from the cameras and he spoke. She looked so small next to him.
Something shattered behind me and I didn’t bother to look. But when I glanced to my right, Kellan stood there. “You believe that?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I know what I want the truth to be, but I don’t know if that’s what it is.”
Fuck.
“Then we call—” I started, but Milo cut me off.
“Leave her alone.”
“Milo,” Doc began, but Milo didn’t even give him a chance to finish before he cut him off.