Alexei and Ranger.
My heart stopped.
Restarted as if I’d plugged jump leads into it.
We scrambled to our feet and sprinted for the bikes. Of us all, Saint was fastest on dry land, but I surged ahead of him, reaching my hog in seconds.
Sensing my mood, he jammed the location into my phone, and I took off without waiting for the others to gun their engines.
I hit the road at top speed, burning rubber as hard as I dared without wiping out. The location was six miles away, on the outskirts of Crow land. We’d scoured the area already, but there was every chance we’d missed something. Or that the shitbirds we were tailing had doubled back, counting on us to show up and spoil the party.
A thousand possibilities blasted through my brain, but I didn’t take my hand off the throttle. If I was flying into a firefight, so be it.
My hog ate up the miles. I roared around the last bend and saw Ranger up ahead, waiting for us on the road.
I skidded to a stop and sprang from my bike.
He held up his hands, expression grim. “We found his ride and his phone.”
“What?”
“Over here.”
Ranger led me over a stile and onto a dirt track—a shortcut from town to the A-road that only locals knew about. Ditches lined either side, shadowed by thick, unforgiving hedgerow, the perfect place to dump a body.
Fuck.
My stomach rolled and I almost walked into Alexei crouched low on the ground, hunched over a phone.
Locke’s phone.
To the side of him, I spied the bent wheel of a battered Dyna.
Locke’sbike.
Horror seized me and I spun around, searching for the one thing I knew I couldn’t face. Locke’s broken body in the dirt. His lifeless eyes, wide open and staring.
Alexei surged upright and caught me. “He is not here. There is old blood, but signs of a struggle. Locke is strong fighter, no? Perhaps it is not his.”
The words washed over me, all but four.He is not here. “Are you sure? You’ve looked everywhere?”
“We have looked.” Alexei dug his fingers into my arms. “The others will look again. Not you. You will stay with me now.”
“Why?”
Alexei held up Locke’s phone. “Because we have another problem. This phone... it has not moved since the day Locke went missing, but since I opened it, there is much activity. His daughter. Hisbrother.”
The phone buzzed,Twin1flashing on the screen with an incoming message.
Logan.
“Shit.”
Alexei grimaced. “Yes. I do not know this man, but a bond like theirs? He is out of the country right now, but when he returns, it is only a matter of time before he knows something is wrong.”
“Logan won’t sit around waiting for us to tell him.” Folk came up on us, expression grave. “He’ll be down here in a heartbeat.”
Alexei thrust the vibrating phone at him. “Then you must fix it, Veles. Before Locke becomes a liability for the stupid people who have him.”