Page 4 of Plain Sight

“Jameson.” Gabriel. “Jameson, come on. We have to figure out⁠—”

“We can figure it out later. I’m going to get her.”

“You don’t know where she is.” Gabriel’s trying his best to sound calm. I cannot believe how sunny and warm and perfect it looks outside when Lily’s not here. When someone stole her out of the bridal suite, which should have been impossible. Mason has guys everywhere. “You can’t afford⁠—”

“I can’t lose her! I can’t!” My shouting has reached an unhinged level, but what the fuck? Why would they try to stop me? Why are they wasting precious seconds when I could be finding her?

August steps into my line of sight, his hands moving slow and crisp like he thinks I’ve lost my mind.

Who the hell knows? I probably have. My tux feels like it’s melted into my skin. My heart has merged with my ribs and my whole fucking rib cage pounds. There’s a sound like somebody’s slapping my ears over and over and over.

I have to find Lily. Standing here isn’t finding her.

“One of the men on the security team didn’t belong,” Julien says. He sounds strained. August gestures at his camera. “I have a photo, but he’s left the property, and he can’t be questioned if he’s not here.”

“That bastard.” Poseidon sounds like he’s using a term of endearment, which makes no sense until I follow his gaze to an access road for the cathedral. Hades strides across the asphalt, dragging a man in a dark suit by the collar and moving too fast for the guy to keep up. The man’s tie is loose around his neck. The blade flaps around while he fails to get his footing.

If I wasn’t dying right now, I’d probably have more room in my brain to appreciate how effortless it looks. Hades could be tugging a helium balloon along behind him and not a full-grown man.

He drags him all the way across the sidewalk surrounding the cathedral, then jerks him upright with his fist still in the man’s collar. The guy just barely has his toes on the ground. He dangles like a fish on a hook.

“So?” Hades says to August.

August gives him a very definitive nod.

I should probably let them handle this. Hades and his brothers are taller and stronger and they have a weird aura around them like they could take anything that crossed them. And I’m out here with Gabriel and Remy and a bunch of useless security guys who deserve to get fired for what happened and Lily’s ten thousand bridesmaids, who didn’t know she was being taken, otherwise they’d have stopped whoever it was. They’re not less dangerous because they’re wearing pink dresses.

But what I should do is never the first thing on my mind.

I’ve got my hands in the asshole’s lapels before anyone can say Jameson, let us talk to him.

I’ve got my face so close to his that I can see a broken blood vessel in his eye. I watch his pupil dilate with animal fear.

“I didn’t—” he starts.

“Where the fuck is she?” His head snaps back and flies forward again, which is my main clue that I’ve shaken him. “Answer. You have to the count of three. If I get to four, I’ll kill you.”

2

LILY

I mean.

I mean.

What in the separate federal court system is this?

Obviously, it’s a kidnapping, but my brain doesn’t want to accept it, and it’s not because the guy driving the car is hot. He isn’t. He’s got graying hair to match his gray eyes and sun-damaged skin, and every time he glances in the rearview mirror, I decide he’s a different age.

It doesn’t matter how old he is. What matters is that he’s dressed in the same kind of dark suit the security team members were wearing. He had a gun like them, too. He aimed it at me, promised he’d shoot me if I screamed, made me write a note, and then walked me out of the cathedral in full view of the other guards.

In plain sight.

He goes through an intersection just after the light turns red. A bunch of cars honk at us.

No reaction.

It’s totally unhelpful to compare this man to Jameson, but I can’t help it. Every breath I take feels strangely cold, like I’m breathing in winter air, but my skin is hot. It was simply never in my life plan to be part of—not to mention the center of—two separate kidnappings. This situation would be impossible—nay, laughable—to the person I was a month ago. Back then, I had no basis for a comparative analysis.