“Miss LaRue, I thought that I would never be graced with your voice again,” Kirill purrs.
“Do you know where he is?” I demand, my voice sounding so much shakier than I intend, but I’m terrified.
There is a moment of silence and I wait, it feels like a lifetime, my gaze lifting to the men around me who are all wearing matching expressions of anger.
“Who?” Kirill asks, but the way he says it, I know that he is trying to find out how much I actually know.
“Ford,” I shout. “Where is he?”
“Ford?”
I growl, tired of the back and forth. I want answers and I want them right now. “I don’t know what you’ve done, what you know or anything else. All I know is that you promised me I was not on your radar any longer. I leave LA for a week. My boyfriend is missing and his horse was slaughtered in his barn. So, where the fuck is Ford?” I end on a scream. My breathing coming out in heavy pants.
Kirill hums but doesn’t speak right away. I want to yell at him, to scream, but I don’t. “I will be there with my men by tomorrow morning,” he states.
“And then what?” I ask. “Do you know where he is?”
“No,” he says simply. “But Sebastian has been vocal about not loving the way that he’s been making money to pay me back. I have a feeling he’s attempted to do something very stupid. If it wasn’t him, I’d be surprised. Either way, my men and I will come down there and sort all of this out.”
“How will you find him?” I ask.
He laughs softly. “Do not worry over much, karsavitsa. I have my ways, yes?”
“Okay,” I murmur.
“Text me the address of where you’ll be staying. We will meet with you before we hunt.”
My eyes widen at his words and I lift my gaze up to meet Wyatt’s. His brows rise in surprise, then a slow smile appears on his lips, as if he likes the idea of hunting Sebastian down. I can’t deny that maybe I like it a little too. He has been a pain in my fucking ass since the day he swept into my life.
“Okay,” I agree.
The call ends and I glance down to make sure that Kirill is off of the line. When I lift my gaze back up, I’m met with three curious looks. Although, I have to admit, I’m glad they are no longer angry expressions.
“That was interesting,” Louis mutters.
“So, he knows Sebastian is missing…” Rylan points out.
Nodding, I don’t know what to say. I feel numb from the inside out and I know that something is happening, something big. I just hope that Ford is okay, wherever he is. Deep inside, I feel as though he isn’t. I just feel so lost and sad. I don’t voice any of that though, these men don’t want to hear it.
“Ford wouldn’t like him coming here,” I whisper.
Louis’ body jerks. “Why?” he demands.
“I know why,” Rylan mutters. “He doesn’t want Stephanie or himself indebted to the mafia. I mean, think about it, do you want to be?” he asks Wyatt and Louis.
Louis clears his throat at the same time Wyatt lifts his hand and runs his fingers through his hair. “They could be anywhere. If he’s the one who has him, they could be anywhere. There are thousands and thousands of acres surrounding us where they could be hiding out.”
“Kirill, he said something,” Wyatt says. “He said Sebastian didn’t like what he was doing for money. Maybe we can figure it out and it could be a lead?”
“When did we become the Hardy Boys?” Louis asks.
“The moment Channing was kidnapped and nobody would help us,” Rylan snaps.
“That’s true,” he mutters.
Picking my phone up off of the coffee table, I find the Safari icon and Google Sebastian’s name. The first thing that pops up, it makes my stomach clench.
“What is it?” Wyatt demands.
Lifting my eyes to meet his, I grimace. “Porn. He’s been in porn,” I breathe.
“Which means what exactly?” Louis asks.
I shake my head. “I’m not exactly sure, but maybe he kidnapped Ford to blackmail me? I mean, how much more could he make if Sterling LaRue was starring in a film?”
“Fuck,” Wyatt hisses. “Fuck.”
“Ford is beautiful, I know you guys don’t see it, but he is. He’s strong, he’s masculine and people would pay to see him in his glory, trust me,” I whisper. “There are videos on here, some with Sebastian and other men.”
“You think he’d try to blackmail Ford into doing that? He wouldn’t do any of it, he’d fight him,” Louis grunts.
Licking my dry lips, I shrug a shoulder. “He got to him, took him somehow.”
“Drugged him,” Rylan rasps. “It’s the only way someone could get that big bastard off of his land, the only way they could get to Starlight. He loves that horse.”
“He chased her in the middle of a lightning storm,” I point out.
Wyatt snorts. “More than once he chased that horse down. When the storms are really bad, he would sit in that now broken chair next to her stall to keep her calm. He fucking loved that animal.”
“He’d never let anything happen to her,” Louis rasps.
“Call Beaumont, get him here. We’re going to need all of us if we’re going to get him back,” Wyatt barks.
“He’s on a plane already,” Louis announces. “Called him right after I called Deputy Hernandez.”
Thank God. We need all of the help we can get, because I have a feeling whatever Sebastian has planned could break my Cowboy.
Chapter Thirty-Six
FORD
The door flies open and I’m not surprised to see that it’s Sebastian, followed by a man. He’s big and looks menacing. This must be his hired hand. I should have known he had some kind of help. There is just no way he could have brought me down all by himself, he couldn’t have even carried me away from my barn by himself.
“What happens now?” I ask.
Sebastian grins, tilting his head to the side. “Now? We wait. I just wanted to make sure you were still breathing. Naturally, I knew you’d have use of your body again, so I needed to have backup in case you tried to overpower me.”
“You think that you can drug me and force me to make porn? That’s your plan, right?” I ask.
He nods his head, pressing his lips together. He looks thinner than he did a couple of weeks ago, in fact, he looks gaunt. He’s probably been doing drugs to cope with going from being a shitty actor to a shitty porn actor. I refuse to call him a pornstar, he’s no fucking star.
“I don’t think anything,” he snaps. “I know.”
“And you don’t think you’ll be found out?”
He shrugs a shoulder. “Told you, I’ll have Sterling here doing it too. Once I’m debt-free, I don’t give a fuck what happens to either of you. In fact, I’ll probably just have you disposed of.”
I laugh, shaking my head. “Good fucking luck on any of that.”
He leans over, his eyes finding mine as he snarls. “I don’t need luck.”
Without another word, he spins around on his heels and marches away from me. His goon follows, and the door is slammed before I hear the sound of the lock clicking into place. Pinching my eyes closed, I wonder how much longer I have until I’m going to need to fight for myself and for Stephanie.