Mom’s ringtone.
He ignored it. Naked in bed with his wife was not the time to be talking to his mom. Especially since Mom would lose her shit she hadn’t gotten to attend the ceremony.
It stopped only for a second before it started again.
It could mean only one thing.
Trouble.
14
Stefan’s body tensed as he answered the phone. He didn’t start with the pleasantries but went right to the point. “What’s wrong?”
“Tyson is missing.” A panicked rush of words from his mother that Nimway heard easily.
She sprang into motion. She grabbed her phone and fired off a text to the pack hub, Tyson Hubbard. Location.
As she waited, she kept an ear on Stefan.
“What do you mean missing?” Stefan exclaimed as he rolled out of bed, lean and sexy. He activated the speaker before tossing the phone onto the bed. He needed his hands to fumble on his clothes.
“I don’t know where he is!” His mom huffed hotly.
“Then what makes you think he’s gone?” Stefan paused, shirt in hand as he waited for a reply. The eye candy was fun, and she ogled it.
“I received a text that said Kids in danger. Keep inside. Only I didn’t see it until too late. Tyson had left the house, and he’s not answering his phone.”
“It could be someone screwing with you,” Stefan suggested.
“What if it’s not? What if—"
The voice cut off abruptly. “Mom? Fuck. The line dropped.” Stefan frowned at his phone. “That’s weird. No signal.”
“We can be there in twenty minutes if we move,” she said, finishing dressing. She’d yet to receive a text back from the pack hub.
“Fourteen if I don’t hit any lights or disturb cops.” He slid on his shoes as she tried to send a new text.
It failed. No signal. Maybe they were in a bad service zone.
A stony-faced Stefan uttered a dry, “I swear, if that boy’s off smoking catnip again, I will beat him to within an inch of his life.”
“Has he ever disappeared on your mom before?”
“Only that one time. Fuck me. I hope it’s something dumb like the kid getting high.”
“We’ll find him.”
“We who?”
She almost rolled her eyes and reminded herself he’d yet to truly grasp how the pack worked. “The pack will help find him.”
“He’s probably in the woods,” Stefan remarked as they exited the room.
Yet, he couldn’t completely hide his anxiety that something might have happened. She could only hope it was benign and that Tyson hadn’t been taken because that would make things complicated. Surely the text the mother got was a joke. The hub would trace it, and the prankster would get a stern talking-to.
She glanced at her phone. Still no bars.
The elevator opened almost as soon as they jabbed the button. As they boarded it, others already inside the cab were muttering about their phones and the lack of signal. Nice to know they weren’t the only ones, even as it annoyed to be cut off. She’d not realized how much she depended on her phone, on being connected. They were moving blind.
As they left the hotel, people in the lobby and at the front desk were exclaiming over the widespread service interruption, city-wide apparently. A sign of something nefarious afoot? How hard would it be to disrupt cell service and internet? No idea, just like she had no clue if there was a coordinated effort to come after them. Nimway couldn’t call her brother to warn him, not even to reassure herself. What if he needed her?
Stefan needed her, too.
Pack or husband?
Wasn’t Stefan pack now?
The decision tore at her, but she knew what she had to do.
Nimway clung tight to her new husband as he raced from downtown Ottawa to Richmond. No fear as he took some corners leaning. She followed his lead, and they were one with the machine, so in tune with each other it was uncanny.
Was that why she’d married him? Because she’d been firmly opposed when her brother suggested it. Told him to take his idea and shove it, only to turn around and pretty much arrange the whole thing. She’d pulled in favors and done the unthinkable. She didn’t just marry him…
I slept with him, too.
Actually, no sleep was involved. She’d fucked the shit out of him with no protection.
And she would fuck him again, because, damn it, why shouldn’t she be allowed to enjoy it? Although she did feel a little guilty. While they’d been baptizing that motel room with orgasms, his brother might have been abducted. If the anonymous text could be believed.
Could the boy be fucking with them? Playing a nasty prank? If that were the case, he’d deserve a whooping. She knew in the pack that kind of thing wouldn’t go unpunished.
What if it were real, though? What if the boy had been taken? What if the entire Hubbard family was in danger? After all, if someone had the balls to kidnap one kid, why not all of them?
The very idea chilled because the Hubbards could expose the pack, putting them all in dire danger. Dear God, it made her feel ill to realize that the emergency evacuation they’d prepared for all their lives might finally come into play.
This was why she clung to her husband as he raced home. She had to find out what happened with Tyson, hoax or threat, and then make sure the pack could proceed with the right information.
As they pulled into the driveway, she noted the light blue minivan, purple Jeep, and a Hyundai four-door sedan in gray parked out front. Before the bike even stopped in front of the house, the eldest Hubbard ran out the door, her face tear streaked.
“Stefan!”
“I’m here, Mom,” Stefan said, yanking off his helmet. “We’re going to find him. Where is everyone?”
Through a voice rough from tears, Nanette Hubbard said, “Dominick is in the woods with Maeve. Raymond is in the basemen yelling about bugs. I’ve got Anika sitting with Daphne and Pammy. Pammy’s a mess.”
Their older sister wasn’t the only one.
“Tell me again what happened.” Stefan had reached his mother and grabbed her hands, steadying her. It didn’t help the woman had already given in to full-blown panic.
“I don’t know,” she wailed. “One second, Tyson got home from home from school, and the next, he’s taking his bike through the shortcut to meet the boys.”
“What shortcut?” Nimway interrupted.
Stefan pointed behind him to the woods. “You can cut off almost half a kilometer to the corner store by taking the path through the forest.”
“He does it all the time. And it’s only been an hour since he left. I didn’t think anything of it,” Nanette admitted, hanging her head. “I wouldn’t have even worried for another few hours except I got that message.”
“Can I see?” Stefan asked.
Nanette handed it over, the text already loaded. Simple. To the point.
Kids in danger. Keep inside. From a private number.
“It is rather vague,” Nimway pointed out.
“She’s right, Mom. This sounds more like someone fucking with you than anything.”
“Then why isn’t he answering his phone?”
“Probably because they’re down right now?” Stefan suggested.