“Enough,” Forrest snapped quietly.
“Don’t make me take you down,” Siah said to me as we cleared the fence and moved swiftly through the trees. “You start bein’ stupid and I’ll drop your ass.”
“I won’t,” I said through my teeth. Fuck, we were so close. I was hyper focused as the house came into view, the driveway and front porch lit up like a fucking Christmas tree.
There was a car out front, and everyone dropped to the ground as a man came out the front door, closing it behind him. He didn’t rush as he walked to the car and put a box of shit on the front seat. My head jerked in surprise when I realized he was whistling as he rounded the hood and climbed inside.
“It can’t be that fuckin’ easy,” Forrest breathed into the mic. “Once he’s out the gate, move in. Slowly.”
It felt like it took an hour for the car to drive off the property, but it had to be only minutes. Then we were on the move. Slow and steady, watching for any movement, keeping out of camera range, pausing as Wilson checked for an alarm system and then muttered that it wasn’t armed. Breaching the back door quietly with Siah’s unparalleled lockpicking skill. Moving into the mud room, then the kitchen, then the hallway. Meeting up with the rest of the team in the foyer, ignoring the opulence of the house as the sight of a woman’s bare feet came into view from a room opposite the stairs. Forrest and Wilson checked on the woman as the rest of us cleared the bottom floor of the house. The place was empty.
We moved up the stairs slowly, waiting and watching.
“Cameras are down,” Wilson said into the comm. “Got two cold ones down here. Man and a woman.”
We moved faster once we didn’t have to be careful of the cameras, but the house was fucking enormous. I had no idea what people did with so much space. All the rooms were furnished and came with a walk-in closet and private bathroom, and we cleared every single one. Each time I opened the door to a closet, I braced myself, but most of them were empty. The few that held anything were still so bare that no one could hide in them.
The master bedroom took the longest to search because it had so much shit in it. This was the bedroom that was actually lived in. Instead of a perfectly made bed and tastefully arranged furniture, there were clothes thrown over a chair back and shoes nearly covering the floor of the closet. Books were stacked on one nightstand and a laptop on the other. The bed was sloppily made, as if they’d just thrown the comforter over everything and called it good. Apparently, these people didn’t have a live-in maid, because the living spaces hadn’t been straightened up for a few days. At least we knew that there wasn’t some other innocent hiding or dead somewhere in the house.
My patience grew thin as we went through the room, because I knew she wasn’t in there. If she had been, she would’ve identified it to Casper so we’d know where to look. Still, we had to make sure that the house was empty, every inch of it.
When we hit the fifth bedroom, the one directly next to the master, something clicked into place. It was a nursery, painted a pale yellow, and like the rest of the guest bedrooms, it looked unused, but something niggled at the back of my mind. Something was off. I held up my hand to stop the men behind me, and looked over the room. A crib was in the corner with a blanket tastefully thrown over the edge. On the opposite wall was a changing table, diapers and wipes and bath supplies perfectly aligned on the shelves, like they hadn’t been used yet. A rocking chair sat in the middle of a fuzzy area rug. Next to that was a baby swing that hadn’t even been plugged in.
My gaze snapped back to the rocking chair. Something—yeah, someone had been sitting on the cushions of that chair. The rest of the room looked untouched, but that chair had been used. There was a slight depression in the light gray cushion, not where their ass had been, but oddly, where they’d rested their head.
“She’s in here,” I said, inaudible beyond the comm in my ear.
I checked the bathroom first, just to be sure, but I knew it would be empty. Then, as if they knew to wait and let me go in first, I met Josiah and Ephraim at the door to the closet.
Taking a deep breath, I swung open the door and reached for the switch. The closet was full of shit, racks and racks of women’s clothes from one end of the space to the other. A damn near perfect place to hide. I stepped forward, but instinct made me pause and pull the mask up to the top of my head. Holding my weapon at the ready, I turned my gaze toward the side that was thickest with coats.
“Cec?”
I barely breathed as a long fur coat twitched and then was slowly pushed to the side.
Then there she was, blinking against the bright lights of the closet, pointing a .38 directly at my crotch, with a baby nursing at her breast.
“Mark?” she asked, her eyes widening with shock.
I tried to reply, but couldn’t. It felt like my tongue was stuck to the roof of my mouth.
“We’ve got two in here,” Eph murmured into the comm as he looked over my shoulder. “Cecilia and a newborn baby.”
“I’m gonna fuckin’ kill you,” Forrest growled. He didn’t have to specify who he was speaking to.
“I didn’t know,” I rasped, still staring at Cecilia. “Jesus Christ.”
Chapter 3
Cecilia
It felt like I was staring at a ghost. His face had greasepaint all over the skin not covered by a full beard, and he was about a thousand times broader than when we were kids—but I’d know his blue eyes, the nose that slanted slightly to the left from being broken by a right cross when we were fourteen, and the wide mouth that had gotten him teased—anywhere. I’d know him anywhere.
“Time to move,” the man behind him said. When Mark didn’t even shift his weight, too busy staring right back at me, the man shoved his way into the closet and extended his hand. “I’m Ephraim. Let me help you up.”
I shook my head, trying to make sense of things, and lowered my weapon. “Sorry,” I murmured as I pressed the safety and stashed it back in my purse. “Give me a second.”
Reaching around the baby, who was still nursing drowsily, I grabbed first the bag and then my purse, slinging them over my shoulder.
“I can get those for you,” Ephraim said, reaching for my stuff.
“No, thanks, I got it.” I used my free hand to brace myself as I rolled to my knees, barely holding back a groan. I was stiff and sore from sitting on the floor for so long, but I wasn’t about to complain. As soon as I was on my feet, Mark snapped out of his daze.
“Let me help you,” he said, taking the bags from me without waiting for a response. “Come on.”
Holding the baby snug against my body, I followed Mark out of the closet.
“Wait,” I said, jerking to a stop. “I left a dirty diaper in there on the floor.”
“Don’t think they’re gonna mind,” Mark said.
“Nice save,” Ephraim said at the same time. “Better to leave no trace you were here.”
“You better get it the fuck together,” a new man muttered to Mark, taking a couple steps forward. He looked at me. “I’m Josiah. Glad you’re okay.”
“Got it,” Ephraim said, holding the diaper. “Let’s go.”