Chapter 44

Chapter 44
Willa

Sebastian’s eyes immediately land on me when he walks out of his room. I am trying so hard not to show how scared I am but when he walks toward me and wraps his arms around me I lose it. His arms tighten around me when my body starts to shake. I’m crying against his chest when I hear a scared sound come from Michael. 

“Willa? Are you there?” I hear him whisper.

I pull away from Sebastian and rush over to the phone. “I’m here buddy. What’s happening?” 

“I hear someone. I don’t think I can talk much longer.” His voice shakes.

My eyes move to Lan who looks to be still working on locating the signal of the phone. 

“Just be as quiet as you can, okay? We’re going to find you. I promise.” I reassure him but the words sound hollow. 

Can we find them? I trust Lan has the skill but Sebastian’s father is smart and had to put precautions in place for this sort of thing. He has things planned ten steps ahead, and we’re barely in the game yet. We’re playing offense and it’s making us weak. A loud bang startles me and a sound that will haunt me forever echoes through the line. 

“Willa!!!” Michael screams my name as I hear the sound of a struggle. 

“Michael!!!” I yell his name but I don’t know if he can hear me anymore. 

There are several voices on the other end. Shouting and cursing ensues until the call ends.

“Oh god.” My legs can’t hold me up and I drop to my knees. 

A second later strong arms wrap around me and I let out a cry. The sound of my brother’s screams ring in my ear as I let out cry after cry. I’ve never felt so powerless before, and it’s terrifying. Anger, fear, and pain hit me one after another as I start to imagine what they could be doing to my family. 

What if we’re too late? 

What if this phone call is the reason they all end up dead? 

“Willa…baby…” Luke’s voice is so gentle that it doesn’t sound like him at all. 

He’s my rock. The one who never wavers. 

“Luke…” I say his name but no other words are getting out. 

It hurts too much. 

“I know. We’ll find them. I promise we’ll find them and then we’ll kill everyone that played a hand on them.” He promises. 

“None of them will be left alive.” I hear Sebastian add. 

“They messed with your family, and that means all bets are off. Luca has crossed a line my family won’t forgive.” Maxim says. “I’m going to find out how the hell Luca got past our protection though.” 

I look up to see him head back into the room and return with his phone already to his ear. He’s speaking in Russian and whoever is on the other end of the line is getting an earful of Maxim’s wrath. He walks over and crouches down next to me and Luke gives me a kiss on the head and walks away. I take an extra second to breathe before I let Luke help me to my feet. He keeps his arm wrapped around my waist while we join Lan behind his desk. 

“Were you able to get a location?” Luke asks. 

Lan’s quiet for a moment, no doubt too deep into what he’s doing to realize Luke said anything. So I reach out and run my fingers through his hair. His fingers stop moving and his eyes close. I smile to myself as I watch him melt under my touch. It’s adorable and for a split second, I forget about our world falling apart. It’s short-lived though. My fingers slide down the side of his face before I drop it. His eyes snap open and he’s all business again. It’s nice to know that small things like that can help him relax, even for just a minute. 

“The signal bounced off several cell towers and into several other countries. Luca is clearly using scrambling software to make the signal hard to pinpoint. If he has put this much effort into protecting a lower-level enforcers phone, he mostly likely is using something a lot stronger for himself.” Lan explains. “See here. The signal moved between these four towers more than once, inadvertently creating a pattern. Nothing is ever truly random, even when it comes to sophisticated software.”

“So did you get the location or not?” Luke snaps. 

I elbow him in the stomach but he returns my warning with a small grunt. 

“I narrowed it down to a ten square radius but it’s unlikely that they will still be in that location.” Lan sighs. 

“We still need to check it out. Maybe we can find a clue to where they’re going.” Luke says. 

“It couldn’t hurt,” Lan says and pushes his chair back. “Let’s get going. The sooner we get there the more we might be able to find out. They’re no doubt panicking and that makes people sloppy.” 

“I’ll call our backup crew,” Luke says and releases me with a kiss to my temple. 

I feel the loss of him but Lan doesn’t wait to take his place. He takes my face in his hands and tilts my head back so I can look up at him. 

“We will get them back Willa.” He says.

“What if we’re too late? I can’t lose my family. Me and mom…we…I was so upset and wasn’t sure I could fully forgive her but now…what if it’s too late for us to fix things?” My voice cracks and I try to look away, but Lan doesn’t let me. 

“You will have the chance to make things right with your mother. Do not give up hope yet.” He wraps his arms around me and once again I relax into the arms of one of my guys. 

Maxim was right. There is a time to break down but this isn’t the time. Right now my family needs me to pull myself together and help them. 

“So where are we going?” I ask Lan.

An hour later the guys and I are decked out in dark clothing and combat boots. A little cliche, but you don’t mess with what works. Plus, it hides blood pretty well and something tells me a lot of blood is going to be shed today. 

“Here.” Luke hands me a gun holster that I slip my arms through. 

“Pick your poison.” He says holding out two different guns.

I smirk at him and take them both, slipping them into the holsters.

He smiles. “That’s my girl.” 

“Our girl,” Maxim grumbles from behind him. 

Luke rolls his eyes. “She was mine first, so fuck off.” 

“I married her, so that makes me number one,” Maxim says with a cocky grin. 

“Like hell-“

“Guys! Now is not the time. We got some serious ass to kick, can we do the dick measuring later?” I call out. 

They glare at each other, and I get a grumbled apology before they go back to loading their own weapons. 

“Sweetheart wait.” Sebastian’s voice startles me as he comes up behind me. 

The endearment is cute and for some reason makes me blush. I think it’s simply because it’s coming out of his mouth. When I turn to face him my mouth drops open slightly when he drops down to one knee and lifts one of my legs. He sets my foot on his leg and slides a knife sheath up my leg to my thigh where he tightens it. When his eyes move up my body to meet mine there is a fire in them. We haven’t had our time yet, but that time will come. Once we have my family back.