Series: Lee Savino
Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 66414 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 332(@200wpm)___ 266(@250wpm)___ 221(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66414 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 332(@200wpm)___ 266(@250wpm)___ 221(@300wpm)
Out the window, Vegas glows. To a tourist, it might look like one giant party, loud and bright enough to turn the night sky into a murky blue. To me, it looks sinister.
Between Wren’s psychic abilities and Kylie and Hutch’s tech abilities, we figured out that Maisy was most likely kidnapped by men working for Allen’s boss, a man who goes by the dubious moniker, Lucky Lou. Kylie’s still digging into him, but he’s a small-time hustler with delusions of grandeur. He probably has something to do with this.
What we don’t know is why Maisy’s involved. It makes no sense.
They pinpointed Maisy’s dad’s apartment. He’s been living below the poverty line on the edges of the city.
That’s where we’re headed. We can’t get there fast enough. I’m grateful I have friends and family who banded together to figure out a good place to look for Maisy. Lana loaned us her jet, and Teddy got us here in record time, but the minutes it takes to land and get to the rental bus seem endless.
I carry my doctor’s bag—I brought my emergency medical supplies, in case Maisy’s hurt. I don’t have a weapon, but I don’t need one. My bear is more deadly than a loaded machine gun. I’m trying to be cool, but it’s taking everything to keep me from roaring and shifting and smashing through the Strip on my way to hunt down Allen.
Mate, my bear reminds me.
We’ll get her, I say. And then I’m going to release the bear.
We all cram into one giant party bus. When Teddy turns it on, neon lights start flashing and club music blasts out of the speakers, but Teddy hits a button, and the music stops. Not even the triplets are in the mood to party right now.
We speed away from the Strip as Kylie calls again. “I got a hit on Allen. Looks like he checked into a hotel near Fremont Street.”
“That’s old Vegas,” Darius reports. “Off strip.”
“Why would he get a hotel room?” Axel asks. “He lives here.”
“Nothing confirmed, but hearsay says that the old casino next door is a known business holding of Lucky Lou,” Kylie reports.
“Take us there,” I say. “To the hotel.”
“Should we split up?” Teddy calls from the driver’s seat. “We can drop you off, and the triplets and I can go to Allen’s apartment to check it out?”
“No. If Lucky’s at the hotel, I might need backup.” Maisy is our priority.
Teddy slides across three lanes of traffic to swerve onto the next exit.
“I have more information,” Kylie says. “About Allen and Lucky Lou’s plans.”
“Can it wait?” I want to kill Maisy’s father. It goes against everything I vowed as a doctor, and I don’t care. If he hurt Maisy, he won’t live long.
He didn’t count on his daughter having friends. Or a werebear who’s crazy about her.
The only reason I’d spare him is if Maisy asks me to. But I will make it clear to everyone that I will destroy worlds for her.
“You’re gonna want to hear this. It’s from texts between Lucky Lou and Allen. They took Maisy to settle a debt between them, and here’s what they plan to do…”
Chapter Eight
Maisy
I huddle on the hotel bed, my head in my hands. Allen left shortly after dropping the bombshell, leaving me under the guard of the two thugs who picked me up in Bad Bear.
It’s after one am, and I’m still groggy, but I can’t sleep.
I felt well enough to take a shower and change into the I heart Vegas shirt my dad brought me. I figured I might as well do what I can to feel like myself.
In the morning, I’m going to marry a mobster unless I do something.
I need to think clearly to figure out a way out of this. Allen said he owes someone named Lucky Lou money, and in exchange for cancelling his debt, Lucky Lou wants to marry unlucky me.
“Don’t trust atoms,” I whisper a joke to myself. “They make up everything.”
It doesn’t help.
Like always, I imagine what it would be like to deliver that joke to Matthias. What he would tell me to do in this fucked up situation?
Run.
But how? Can I somehow trick the guys outside the door into leaving? Or letting me get by? Maybe if I set a little fire near a fire alarm sensor, then it would trip the alarm for the building and the firemen would come. I scan the ceiling, spotting what looks like a sprinkler. That could work…except I have no matches.
Maybe I could bum a cigarette from one of the guards? I definitely smelled stale cigarettes on them.
I draw in a breath, trying to work up the nerve. I’m the girl who gets flustered when the hot town doctor walks into the cafe and orders coffee. Am I really capable of flirting with the low-lifes outside the door to convince them to give me a cigarette? I’m not Missy. I’m no actress. And even if I do convince them, I don’t smoke! I’d probably gag and choke when he lit it for me, giving my scheme away.