Page 106 of Beneath The Truth
My stomach hit thefloor.
“He’s not going to touch her.”I cut my gaze to Carver.“Get on the phone.Call the guys at the house.Make sure she’s still in lockdown and there’s been nomovement.”
He already had his phone out as I reached into my pocket to see a missed call on minefromAri.
Fuck.I called her back, but got noanswer.
“She’s in the safe room?You’re sure?”Carver asked.“Can you confirm via camera feed?”We waited for several moments before he froze.“What do you mean, the camera feeds are down?”He asked the question quietly, but it blared through my brain like he’dshoutedit.
No.Not fuckinghappening.
I called Ari’s phone again and let it ring until it went straight tovoicemail.
Where the hellareyou?
I snatched the phone from Carver’s hand.“Have there been any disturbances?Anything?”
“No, sir.Well, something tripped a sensor on the back perimeter, but there was nothing there when we checked and none of the house sensors were triggered.I went to check the feed to see what it was, and just saw it was black.We’re trying to figure out what happened.The safe room door is stillengaged.”
I thought of the day the man came up on a boat and scared the shit out of Ari while she was outside, and how she’d locked herself in the safe room without setting off the alarm for Carver to know.None of that system was foolproof.If she could get around it, so couldsomeoneelse.
“Any boats?Coming orgoing?”
A moment of silence.“Now that you mention it ...I heard a boat motor as we came around the house tocheck.”
Fuck.“We need confirmation Ari is in the safe room.Go pound on the fucking door, if you have to.I need to hear her voice.Callusback.”
“Onit.”
I hung up and handed the phone back toCarver.
“Where’s Sampson?He know his sister is locked down in a safe room?”This camefromRix.
“No fucking clue where he is.MIA.But we got a head in a box from the cartel this morning.One of Ari’s employees.Saw pictures of another one.Now the asshole who did it is here, and I’m not stopping until we put him down so he can never touch heragain.”
Rix’s eyebrows went up.“You’re gonna need more backup if you’re going to war with the cartel.”He’d done it before.Hewouldknow.
“Youoffering?”
“I can’t do it officially, but I’m here.Let’sdothis.”
I glanced to Carver.“We got another body on the team.Now we gotta figure out where the fuck thisassholewent.”
60
Ariel
One stolenboat and one borrowed car later, I knew I made a huge mistake the moment I walked into my dad’s empty house and someone grabbed me, wrenching my arms around my back.All my training deserted me, and I froze when I saw Carlos standing in the living room, his white shirt perfectly pressed but spattered with a faint spray of red.Blood.
I could hear Rhett’s voice yelling in my head tofight.I yanked, trying to twist out of the grip of whoever held me, but all I did was waste myenergy.
Carlos waited until I stilled to speak, shaking his head.“You should have done what I told you to do, Ariel.Instead, you had to befoolish.”
Foolish?Foolish was coming herealone.
“What did you do with them?Wherearethey?”
There was no sign of either my dad or my brother in the room.Movement came from my right, and I whipped my headaround.
