Unwanted Blood (Harper) novel Chapter 47

Chapter 47

#288 (Vouchers

Chapter 47

Ryder’s POV

I’d been standing in the warehouse doorway, watching the vehicle shrink. But for some reason, an uneasy feeling refused to leave me. My phone pressed to my ear with Torres’s direct line. I’d called the number twice. Both times it went straight to voicemail.

I called the FBI field office in Vancouver. The receptionist told me there was no Agent Torres in their Financial Crimes Division.

The world tilted.

“Colton.” My voice came out lower than I intended. “That wasn’t the FBI.”

He looked up from where he was helping Ethan into a car. His face went from confused to sharp in half a second.

“Run the plate,” I said. “The SUV. You got it on the security cam?”

“Already on it.” His fingers were flying across his laptop before I finished the sentence. “Give me thirty seconds.”

Thirty seconds turned into three minutes. The warehouse was being cleared out by the tactical team-except they weren’t tactical. They were private security. Hired muscle in uniforms that

looked real from a distance.

Marcus was gone. They’d cuffed him, loaded him into a different vehicle, and driven him somewhere I couldn’t track.

Colton’s face was pale when he looked up from his screen.

“The plate is registered to a shell company,” he said quietly. “Westbrook Holdings LLC. Same company that paid for Marcus’s lease.”

I stood there in the grey harbor light and felt something inside me break.

“They staged the arrest,” I said. “The whole thing. The FBI badges. The agents. Marcus being handcuffed. All of it was theater.”

Colton nodded. “And Harper walked right into it.

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Chapter 47

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Hotel room 8 47 pm.

I threw my phone across the room. It hit the wall and cracked the screen, but I didn’t care I grabbed the edge of the desk and flipped it-papers, laptop, coffee cups, everything scattered across the carpet.

Colton didn’t flinch. He just sat on the edge of the bed, his laptop open, his face unreadable in the dim light.

“Adrian Westbrook,” he said, reading from the screen. “Twenty-five. Took over family operations 3 years ago after his father’s death. He’s been consolidating power-cleaning house, cutting loose ends. Marcus was one of them. He was never loyal to Adrian. Just to the old guard.”

I turned on him. “I don’t care about his family politics. I care about Harper.”

“And you should.” Colton’s voice was calm. “But Adrian didn’t take her to kill her. If he wanted her dead, he would have done it in the warehouse. He took her to control her. The evidence. The decryption key. He needs her alive to get everything she has.”

I pressed my palms against the wall. The plaster was cold. My hands were shaking.

“I don’t care what he wants,” I said through my teeth. “I want her back.”

I pulled my another phone from my pocket, and dialed.

Logan answered on the first ring. Grayson on the second.

“Everything you have,” I said. “Every resource. Every contact. Every dollar. I want it all pointed at Westbrook. Now.”

Logan’s voice came through steady. “Ryder. What happened?”

“Adrian Westbrook took Harper away.”

“What?! Damn it! But we can’t storm it. Westbrook has lawyers, press connections, political donors. If we go in hard, he’ll paint us as aggressors. We’ll lose the legal ground we’ve gained.”

“Harper was in his hands,” I said. “Every minute she’s there, she’s in danger.”

Grayson’s voice cut in firmly. “She might be the best position she could be in, Ryder. Think about it. She’s inside. She can look. She can search. She can find what we can’t reach from the outside.

I closed my eyes. My jaw ached from clenching.

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“Give her time.” I said finally The words tasted like ash. “But if she gets hurt, if one hair on her head is touched because of him, I don’t care about legal strategy I’ll burn his place to the ground”

No one argued

Harper’s POV

The room they gave me was almost nice.

It was spacious, larger than my apartment in Vancouver. High ceilings. Cream-colored walls. A king-size bed with crisp white linens. A writing desk by the window, a walk-in closet, an en-suite bathroom with marble countertops and gold fixtures.

The door had no handle on the inside. I tested it anyway. Locked, obviously.

I sat down on the edge of the bed and looked around. No phone. No computer. No way to communicate with the outside world. The curtains were open but the window was sealed- painted shut, maybe, or wired. I couldn’t tell from here.

I didn’t panic. Panic was a luxury I couldn’t afford.

So the only thing was I sat back down and waited.

–

Dinner came at seven.

The door opened from the outside. Adrian stood in the frame, holding a tray. He’d changed out of his suit-now he was wearing a dark sweater and trousers, looking more like a graduate student than the heir to a corporate empire.

“Are you comfortable?” he asked.

I looked around the room. Then back at him. “What do you think?”

He smiled, then he set the tray on the desk and stepped back into the hallway.

“Roast chicken. Rice. Vegetables. I don’t know your preferences, so I guessed.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“You should eat.” His voice was mild. “Tomorrow is going to be a long day.” He turned and was

about to leave.

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