Chapter 164 The Hunt

Chapter 164 The Hunt
Pete's POV

The words on my screen refused to make sense.

HOPE YOU GOT OUR MESSAGE?

I read them once, then again and again.
My eyes remained fixed on the screen, but the words seemed to blur together.

Our message.

My fingers suddenly felt cold around the phone and I swallowed hard.

Our.

The word shouldn't have mattered, but it did. It felt deliberate…Almost intimate. As if whoever had sent it knew exactly what had been happening on this side of the phone, and that thought made my stomach turn.

A cold shiver ran down my spine.

The phone call, Matt's voice; Daddy, please come, the bad man has us.

That hadn't been a mistake. They had wanted me to hear him and they had wanted me to know he was alive.
Or at least they wanted me to believe he was.

My stomach twisted.

Then another thought struck me.

They knew.

My breathing slowed.

They fucking knew I had received the message. Which meant they knew where I was. They knew I had found Mike and they knew I was standing in this hospital right now.

I slowly lifted my eyes toward the corridor and suddenly, every stranger looked suspicious. The nurse walking past, the man sitting near the reception desk, the security guard standing by the entrance.
Even the cameras mounted above us seemed different.

My skin prickled.

Were they watching me?

The thought made my stomach twist.

If they could take Diya and Matt without anyone noticing, what stopped them from watching me now?

My fingers tightened around the phone and I immediately called the number again.

It was unavailable.

I called again.

Still unavailable.

“Fuck.”

I tried a third time. Nothing.

I lowered the phone slowly.

Who the hell were these people? And what did they want from me?

“Pete.”

Diya's mother's trembling voice pulled my attention back to the people standing in front of me. She looked terrified.
Shantel was staring at me too, tears already gathering in her eyes while Prisca stood beside them, still clutching the teddy bear against her chest.

“Where is my daughter?” Diya's mother asked.

The question hit me harder than it should have, because I didn't have an answer.
I was her mate's family, I was Matt's father and I was the Alpha who had promised to protect them. And yet I was standing in front of her with nothing.

No daughter, no grandson and no explanation.

My throat tightened.

I wanted to tell her everything was fine. I wanted to give her the kind of certainty a mother needed at a moment like this, but I couldn't lie to her. Not about this.

She stepped closer.

“Pete, where is Diya?”

Her voice cracked.

“And where is Matt?”

I glanced toward the door behind me.

“I don't know.”

The confession barely left my mouth before she shook her head.

“What do you mean you don't know?”

She moved toward the hospital room.

“I need to see my daughter.”

I caught her arm.

“Wait….”

She turned sharply toward me.

“Wait?”

Her eyes filled with tears.

“I'm asking you where my daughter and grandson are, and you're telling me to wait?”

“Please.”

“No, Pete!”

Her voice rose.

“Something has happened. I can see it on your face. Your shirt is covered in blood. Where is my daughter?”

I swallowed hard.

“I don't know.”

My voice broke slightly.

“I don't know where they are.”

She stared at me but I forced myself to continue.

“I got a call from an unknown number.”

Her face went pale.

“They called me while I was at the council.”

“The council?”

I nodded.

“They let me hear Matt.”

Shantel covered her mouth.

“What?”

I looked at her.

“He was crying….”

My throat tightened.

“He called me Daddy.”

The memory hit me again.

That frightened little voice. ‘Daddy, please come.”

I closed my eyes for a second.

“They said they had him and obviously they had Diya too.”

Diya's mother brought a hand to her mouth.

“Oh, Goddess…”

“I came back as quickly as I could.”

I glanced toward the room.

“And I found Mike.”

Shantel's face changed. For a second, she simply stared at me as though she hadn't understood the words.

“Mike?”

I nodded.

“He's been stabbed.”

Her lips parted, but no sound came out.
Then she shook her head.

“No.”

It was barely a whisper.

“No, I…I just saw him.”

Her eyes immediately filled with tears.

“He was fine. He was standing there. He told us to go.”

Her voice cracked.

“He told me he'd stay with them.”

She took another step backward.

“Oh Goddess…”

Her knees suddenly buckled and she staggered backward. I caught her before she could fall.

“Shantel.”

Her hands grabbed my shirt.

“Mike…”

Her voice broke.

“Is he…”

“No.”

I held her firmly.

“He's alive.”

She began crying.

“The doctors are with him. They're doing everything they can.”

Her tears soaked into my shirt as she buried her face against my chest.

“He'll be okay,” I whispered.

I didn't know if that was true. The lie tasted bitter in my mouth. I had no idea whether Mike would survive the next five minutes, let alone the night, but I couldn't tell her that. She was already breaking apart in my arms and if I allowed myself to break too, there would be nothing left for any of us.

“He'll be okay.”

She shook her head against me.

“It's my fault.”

“No.”

“I left him.”

“Shantel, listen to me.”

I pulled back slightly and looked into her tear-filled eyes.

“This isn't your fault.”

“We left them.”

“You didn't know.”

“We should have stayed.”

“So should I.”

The words escaped me before I could stop them. She stared at me, but I looked away.

“I should have stayed too.”

For a moment, neither of us spoke. Then Diya's mother asked quietly,

“Who did this?”

I looked at her.

“I don't know.”

“Who took my daughter?”

“I don't know.”

“Then what are you going to do?”

I looked at them. At Shantel crying against me, at Diya's mother trembling as she waited for an answer I didn't have, at Prisca standing silently with that stupid teddy bear still pressed against her chest.
And something inside me twisted.

I was terrified. I wanted to scream. I wanted to run through every door in this hospital until I found my family. I wanted to tear apart whoever had done this with my bare hands, but none of that would help me. Panic wouldn't find Diya, anger wouldn't bring Matt back and standing here doing nothing certainly wouldn't save Mike.

I dragged a slow breath into my lungs and straightened my shoulders. If I couldn't afford to be Pete right now, then I had to be Alpha.

I gently released Shantel and straightened.

“Where is the hospital security?”

One of my guards nearby immediately stepped forward.

“Alpha.”

Whoever had done this had entered the hospital, moved around unnoticed and gotten everyone away from Matt's room.
I wasn't going to let them do it again.

“Lock this hospital down.”

The entire corridor seemed to freeze.

“Sir?”

“You heard me.”

My voice hardened.

“Nobody leaves this hospital.”

The guard straightened.

“Yes, Alpha.”

“And nobody enters without being searched and cleared.”

He nodded.

“Every entrance, every exit…. Lock them down.”

“Yes, Alpha.”

I turned toward another guard.

“Get every CCTV recording from the last six hours.”

“Every camera?”

“Every fucking camera.”

My eyes narrowed.

“I want the footage from the parking lot, the entrances, the elevators, the corridors, the emergency exit…everything.”

“Yes, Alpha.”

“Find out who delivered that package.”

The package. The fucking package.
It was too convenient. Someone had known exactly what would get them out of that room.

“And find out who contacted Shantel.”

The guard nodded.

Shantel looked at me.

I continued.

“I want the number they called from. The name of the person who spoke to them. Where they were when they received the call. Everything.”

“Yes, Alpha.”

I turned toward the hospital staff.

“And nobody touches anything in Matt's room until security clears it.”

The nurse standing nearby nodded quickly.

“Yes, Alpha.”

My breathing was finally beginning to steady and my mind was clearing. Not because I was less afraid. I wasn't, in fact I was terrified. But fear wasn't going to bring Diya and Matt back.

I needed answers. I needed someone to make a mistake, and I needed to find them before they decided to hurt my family.

“Find the people who attacked Mike.”

My voice dropped.

“I want every detail.”

The guard nodded.

“We'll start immediately.”

I turned back toward the room and through the glass, I could see movement. Doctors surrounding Mike, machines, blood and his body lying frighteningly still beneath the hospital lights.

My chest tightened and suddenly, something didn't make sense.

They could have killed him.

I stared through the glass and my mind refused to move past the thought.

They could have killed him. They had already stabbed him more than once and they had left enough blood behind to make me think, for one horrible moment, that I had lost him.

So why hadn't they finished it? Why leave him alive? Why leave him where I would find him?

I felt something cold settle in my chest.

Unless…

My eyes slowly narrowed.

No.

I shook my head. I didn't want to believe it.
But the more I thought about it, the more obvious it became.

They hadn't failed to kill Mike. They had chosen not to.

My hands slowly curled into fists.

They wanted me to see him and they wanted me to feel this…The helplessness, the fear and guilt. They wanted me standing outside that room wondering whether the man I'd trusted with my life was going to survive.

And suddenly, the phone call made sense.
Matt's voice, the message, Mike.
None of it had been random. They were putting pieces in front of me.

They wanted me to understand exactly what they were capable of.

They were sending me a message.

“We can reach your family.”

My jaw tightened.

“We can reach the people protecting them.”

I looked at Mike again.

And one final thought settled into my mind.

“And we can reach you whenever we want.”

My wolf snarled beneath my skin.

I looked at Mike one last time. Then I thought of Diya and Matt. My son calling for me through that phone.

“Daddy, please come.”

My jaw clenched so hard it hurt.

Whoever had done this thought they had broken me. They thought fear would make me helpless.

They were fucking wrong.

Fear had shown me exactly what I was fighting for, and anger had given me something even more dangerous.

A target.

I turned away from the glass.

“Find them.”

My voice was quiet. Deadly quiet.

“I don't care how long it takes. Find them.”

Because whoever had taken my family had made one mistake….They had left me alive to come looking for them.