Right now his face was stoic but determined and he rose a few notches in my book.
Life wasn’t fair but Melody deserved happiness. She deserved to know that the man she’d been pining over the last year did, in fact, care about her.
I had to find her. I had to fix this.
Ryan stepped out of the room and stood in the doorway. He rubbed a hand over his face, trying to hide the moisture in his eyes.
I hung back, letting him have his moment.
“I need to make a few calls. I—” he exhaled on a harsh breath.
He needed time alone to process all of this. I knew the feeling. But we didn’t have the luxury of time. The longer we took, the less of a chance we’d have of finding her.
“I know this is hard.” I signaled for him to follow me into the kitchen and took a seat.
Reluctantly Ryan sat, taking the seat across from me. “But I need to ask you a few questions and we need to create a timeline. When was the last time you saw Mel? Has she had any visitors? Has anyone that you didn’t recognize been by this week? Has her behavior been off in any way? I need you to tell me everything.”
He sighed. He wanted to refuse, I could see it on his face. But after a few seconds he nodded and we got down to business.
Twenty minutes later, I had all the information Ryan could give me and muttered a silent curse.
I stared at my notepad in frustration. It wasn’t much but it would have to be enough.
“Go home. Get some rest.”
He rubbed his eyes with the backs of his hands. “I don’t think I could sleep right now.”
“You need to. You look like you just got in from a gig, am I right?”
He nodded.
“Alright then. You need sleep. You won’t be any help unless you’re at one hundred percent. Get some rest and sit tight.”
He shook his head, a silent refusal. “I can’t just sit on my hands and do nothing.” A furrow formed between his brows and he turned away, his jaw clenched.
“You won’t be. Keep your eyes and ears open. Whoever took her might come back. They might decide to clean up the scene. If anyone suspicious comes by, call me.”
“You’ll find her, right?” The hushed whisper was filled with more despair than I could process. “I never had the chance to tell her…” he didn’t need to finish.
I reached out and grasped his hand. “I’ll find her.”
I was going to hell for this. I shouldn’t make promises I couldn’t keep, but I couldn’t handle Ryan falling apart in front of me either.
I would find her. And who ever took her way going to pay.
8
After leaving the apartment, I headed to Sanborn Place and Declan headed out to take care of some Pack business he had in the city. We wouldn’t be having that lunch date after all.
Disappointment wormed its way through me. With Melody missing, I didn’t have time to go on a date, but I was still royally bummed out about it.
Declan and I never had any alone time. Living in the Compound with hundreds of shapeshifters made it difficult to ever spend quality time together. There was always a problem to fix or a dispute to settle. It came with being the Pack Alpha.
I sighed. No point in dwelling on the drawbacks of mated life. It wasn’t like I could change them.
Declan had given me the go-ahead to utilize any and all Pack resources. Since this was personal, not business, I had no issue taking him up on of his offering and dialed Brock Tarrow, head of Pack security’s phone number, asking him to meet me at my office.
Brock was young. Only twenty-five years old, yet he’d managed to make himself one hell of an asset to the Pack, managing the Pack’s security like a well-oiled machine. His mind worked in surprising ways. He saw the little details most people would overlook. I could use someone like him to find Melody.
Brock stood outside Sanborn Place waiting for me when I arrived, but he wasn’t alone. Standing beside him wearing an I’m too cool for school expression on his face was Caden Castillo.
What the heck was he doing here?
Caden was a ward of the Pack and barely over seventeen. We’d rescued him from the H.A.C.’s facilities where he’d experienced God only knew what.
He still wasn’t talking about it. Not to me. Not to anyone else in the Pack as far as I knew.
He and Inarus had developed a friendship of sorts given his role in the rescue but from my understanding, Inarus didn’t push Caden for details and Caden never offered any.
A part of me hoped he was talking to someone. Anyone. The amount of baggage the kid carried could weigh down a linebacker and one of these days, it would catch up to him.
I hadn’t seen him around Inarus’ room. Now that I thought about it, given how close they’d grown, that was surprising. But seeing him standing beside Brock, maybe it wasn’t all that odd after all.
Both Brock and Caden were lion shifters. Brock might be taking Caden under his wing.
I couldn’t complain about that. Caden could use all the positive male role models he could get. Being orphaned was no walk in the park. I’d lost my parents when I was Caden’s age too. It was no picnic but I was glad to see him forging connections within the Pack.
I parked the Pack Hummer in the lower level parking garage and jogged up
