"Where is Sam?" I asked again. The helplessness I was feeling was doing a number on my head. I knew I needed to be satisfied with Ronan's word that Sam and Ryan were safe, but I wouldn't believe it until I saw them for myself.
It wasn't that I didn't trust Ronan.
It was that I needed Sam. I needed to touch him and talk to him. I needed to hear his voice and see his smile.
Ronan stared at me for a moment and then reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. He hit a couple of buttons on it and then put it on speaker.
"Yeah?" I heard a man say.
"Marek, do you have him?" Ronan asked.
"Yes. He dropped the kid off—"
"Ryan," I interjected. "His name is Ryan."
I avoided the look of surprise Ronan shot me and kept my eyes on the phone. There was a brief pause and then Marek, a guy I knew more by reputation than anything else, murmured, "He dropped Ryan off at a classmate’s house. Looked like there was a birthday party happening or something. Wittier is on the move. South of the city."
"Who's got eyes on Ryan?" Ronan asked.
Marek rattled off four names I didn't recognize.
"Let me know where Sam is headed," Ronan said and then he disconnected the call.
"The guys watching Ryan… are they the best?" I asked. For the first time in my life, my knees felt shaky and I was actually afraid I wouldn't be able to support my own weight.
"Yes," Ronan said simply.
"Can Daisy find Bishop?” I asked. As much as I hated the idea of asking for help, the stakes had changed. My actions had now jeopardized the lives of two completely innocent people. More than ever, I needed to make sure Bishop was no longer a threat of any kind to anyone. My failure to find my former teammate had crashed head-on into my endless pursuit of Sam and the result was Sam and Ryan possibly never being able to go back to the life they'd known before I’d come into it.
"She's got some leads she’s working on," Ronan said gently, which was a sign in and of itself. If his tech expert couldn't locate Bishop, it meant Sam would never be able to rest. He'd spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder and cursing me as he did so.
Instead of the rage I'd relied on for so long to keep me moving forward, all I felt was complete numbness. Despite the helplessness that was firing throughout my body, there was still only one thing that I was one hundred percent certain of.
"Sam. I need to get to Sam."
Before Ronan could respond, his phone was beeping. "We have a location,” he said.
"On Bishop?" I asked desperately.
"No, on Sam. We know where he was headed." With that, Ronan handed me his phone so I could see the text for myself. As relieved as I was to know he was still safe, I was more than a little bit surprised to see where he'd ended up. I handed the phone back to Ronan and then hurried from the yard, making no attempt to conceal myself in the process. I had only one destination in mind as I reached the street and trotted across it to get to my car.
As I got behind the wheel and started the car, the same question began repeating on a loop in my head.
Sam, what the hell are you doing?
Chapter 18
Sam
It took a phenomenally long time for the door in front of me to open. When I finally saw why, I felt a mix of relief and pain go through my chest. The little girl peeking through the open crack couldn't have been more than four or five years old.
"Hi?" she said with a soft smile.
"Hi," I returned. "Is your daddy here?"
"Which one? I got three." The little girl held up three fingers as she spoke.
"Sierra, honey, what did Daddy Jagger tell you about opening the door without one of us?" I heard a man say. A moment later he appeared in the doorway, his hand settling on the little girl’s shoulder. There was a beautiful golden retriever at the man's side. The dog thumped its tail when it saw me, but it didn't move from its position next to the man.
"Daddy Jagger is fussin’ over Daddy Declan," the girl announced.
The man knelt down in front of the child and said, "Okay, honey, but next time come get one of us before you answer it.”
"Okay, Daddy." With that, the girl turned her attention back to me and said, "Bye!" And then she waved her hand at me.
"Bye," I called but she was already gone. The man in front of me opened the door wider. I guessed him to be in his early thirties. I already knew who he was, though I'd never met him before. I had a long and complicated relationship with the Barretti family. The man before me was Ren Barretti. His brothers, Dom and Vin, ran a security company that was well known in the Seattle area. My investment firm had been using their services for many years. The complication had come into play when Declan, the man who'd turned his back on Mac, had come out as gay and had begun a relationship with not only Ren, but another man as well. The three of them were living together in what appeared to be an equal relationship. When I’d learned that the man who'd turned his back on Mac for being gay had come out himself, it had been a cruel twist of fate. And if that hadn't been bad enough, Declan and his two partners had gone on to have children of their own.
Complicated didn't even begin to cover it.
I still couldn't believe I was standing on the man's doorstep, but I was beyond desperate.
Two weeks.
Two weeks and not a single word from Matias. I'd tried hard not to care that he hadn't called or texted, but when I’d learned from Cruz that he hadn't heard from his brother either, my anger and disappointment had shifted to something else entirely. I hadn't been able to question Cruz the way I'd wanted because I would've given away too much about my relationship with his brother, so I'd tried and failed to get that information on my own.
I'd waffled back and forth between trying to not care what had happened to the man and making myself sick with all the different scenarios to explain his disappearance. The reality was that I was desperate to know if he was alive or dead.
That desperation had landed me on Declan Barretti's stoop.
"Sorry about that," Ren said. "She's in that phase where she wants to be the first one to answer the phone every time it rings or open the door as soon as she hears the bell. Sierra isn't exactly known for her patience. She gets that from her father."
It was on the tip of my tongue to ask which father, but I managed to keep the question to myself. As it was, I was afraid of what would come out of my mouth when I finally did open it.
"Can I help you with something?" Ren finally asked. Some of the friendliness had faded from his voice.
Probably because of my own lack of social graces.
"I'm Sam Wittier," I blurted, though that hadn't been what I'd wanted to say. I'd meant to ask to see Declan. So much for thinking I was in control of myself.
Ren stiffened and what little had remained of his smile disappeared instantly. Several things flashed in his eyes at once. Pity, nervousness, and ultimately, confusion. He stepped back and opened the door all the way. "Would you like to come in?" he asked softly.
No, I really didn't. But I managed to nod and stepped forward.