It was easy to locate Ethan. If he wasn't in the training room with the youths, he was in his office. I stormed into the office without knocking. His warning growl did nothing to slow my pace. Storming around his desk, I grabbed him by his shirt colour and pull him up. A grunt fell from his lips when I slammed him against the wall with my forearm pressed to his neck.

"I really want to fucking kill you," I snarled.

Ethan smirked. His body relaxed against the wall. "Go ahead brother. Kill me."

Something wasn't right here. He wasn't fighting me or pushing me away. I frowned at him as he continued to just stare at me. Why wasn't he fighting me?

"You had phone sex with my mate."

He rolled his eyes. "So? We've been over this before, Silas. She belongs to us both."

"What the hell is wrong with you?" I yelled.

Ethan pushed me away and fixed his shirt. Giving me a glare, he took a seat behind his desk again and focused on the paper he was busy with before. My fists clenched at my side as he continued to ignore me. The urge to punch him was still there, but I wasn't going to do anything if he wasn't going to fight back.

"She was asking about you," he muttered.

"So?"

He glanced up at me. "So? You wanted me to tell her that you can't talk to her because you're training for the fight I had set up weeks ago?"

I flinched. Yeah, I didn't want Lara to know that I was still going to fight Kyle. The less she knew about it, the better. I had managed to talk my mother into staying with Mel until after the fight. It took a while to get her to agree but in the end she understood. Lara didn't need the added stress of the fight. She already had enough on her plate.

With a sigh, I walked around the desk and sunk down in a chair in front of his desk. My eyes darted over my brother. I took in his pale cheeks and messy hair. Ethan looked thinner. How much weight has he lost? Why was he losing weight?

"Ethan?"

His eyes snapped up to mine. "What?"

I swallowed. "Are you okay?"

His brows dipped into a frown. "What?" he repeated.

"Are you okay?" I questioned again.

"I'm fine." He moved the paper aside and reached for another. "Don't you have to be somewhere?"

"Lara called me," I told him.

His froze and slowly glanced up at me. "Yeah? Is she okay?"

"She feels guilty." His eyes dropped. "You can't keep doing this Ethan."

"Doing what?"

I leaned forward and ripped the paper from his hand. Ethan glared at me and reached for the paper, but I moved it out of his reach. Ethan sighed and leaned back in his chair. His eyes darted around the room for a few seconds before darting back to mine.

"You made up your mind when you chose Avery. You can't keep leading Lara on. When you walk away it's only going to hurt her more. I see the way she looks at you when she thinks that no one is watching."

His eyes widened in surprise. "How does she look at me?"

All I picked up from his question was pure curiosity. I leaned forward with my elbows on the table. Dropping the paper in front of him, I looked him in the eyes before answering.

"She looks at you like she wished she could have you. She looks at you like she wants to walk over to you and—"

The office door burst open before I could finish my sentence. We both jumped to our feet and spun around to face the intruder. David came to a stop when he saw us. He blinked and then focused his attention on me. I noticed the phone he held clutched in his hand.

He swallowed loudly and then stepped forward. My confusion deepened when he gripped my shoulders and pushed me down on the chair I had just stood up from. David placed the phone on the desk and then crouched in front of me.

"I need you to remain calm."

I was instantly on alert. "Did something happen to Lara? The baby?"

"Will you remain calm?"

"Tell me what the fuck happened to my Lara!" I tried to stand up again but he pushed me back down.

"Lara," he paused. "Lara was kidnapped. We your mother found a note addressed to you next to her phone."

***

"Lara wanted to go for a walk. She didn't want either of us to go with her. She wanted to be alone."

"And now she's gone!" I yelled into the phone.

"Silas—"

"You should've sent an escort with her! Someone should've been watching her!"

"She was only going to be gone for ten minutes. When the ten minutes were up, we started searching for her."

"But she was already gone! Someone took my mate! She's pregnant. What if—"

"Nothing will happen to her," Devon interrupted. "We will find her before anything happens."

I turned away from them and swallowed the lump in my throat. My Lara and my baby were out there somewhere, probably scared and all alone. What if they were injured? She needed me and there was nothing I could do.

"Alark has been informed. He has his men out there looking for her," David said softly. "They will track her scent and find her."

"What did the note say?" I asked.

The room fell silent. My stomach twisted in fear. I had a gut feeling that whatever was in that note was going to be impossible to do. Why else would they hesitate to tell me?

"Dad?"

He sighed and ran a hand down his face. "They said that you should wait for the call and then follow the commands."

I stared at him with narrowed eyes. "Why are you lying to me?"

"I'm not lying. You can ask your mother." His eyes darted away for a few seconds.

She would lie with him. They wanted me to sit at home and wait for Alark's men to find her, but I wouldn't. I couldn't! She needed me and I was going to do anything I possibly could to find her—both of them. All I had to do was wait until they went to sleep and then I would leave. I'll read the note myself.

***

The house was deadly silent as I snuck down the stairs. I paused at the bottom and listened carefully for any movement. It was almost two in the morning and the perfect time to leave. Mom had called around midnight to let us know that the trackers were tracking Lara's smell, but they hadn't found her yet.

Twelve hours and they were still missing.

I shook the troubling thoughts away and concentrated on what I was doing. My steps were quiet but determined as I walked towards the door. I grabbed Ethan's keys from the hook and unlocked the front door. It creaked when I opened it, making me freeze. I held my breath but when nothing happened, I blew it all out. Nobody was going to stop me. I thought that everyone was asleep so imagine my surprise when I reached the truck and found Ethan leaning against it.

He straightened when I stopped in front of him.

"You're not stopping me, Ethan," I snarled at him.

"I'm not going to. I'm going with you."

"Why?"

He shrugged. "What's the use of asking questions if you already know the answer to it?"

I pursed my lips. Walking around the truck, I paused and then turned and walked back to Ethan. I held out the keys to him.

"It's been a while since I've been to Alark's place. I can't remember the way."

He took the keys without a word and walked around the truck. Within a minute we were on the road and heading in the direction of Alark's pack. I stared out the window as we drove. The truck was silent and I was happy with that. They last thing I wanted to do was make useless conversations. My mind wondered back to Lara's phone call.

"He wants six million," Ethan suddenly said.

My eyes snapped to him. "What?"

"The note they found." He briefly glanced at me. "The man wants six million in exchange for Lara."

"Why didn't they tell me that?"

His hold on the steering wheel tightened. "They don't think you have that kind of money. Mom's afraid that you might do something stupid, and dad wanted to find her and get her out before the man could hurt her."

"Did he leave a name?"

"Yeah. A name and a number."

"What's his name?"

Ethan hesitated but then uttered a name that made my blood run cold. It wasn't a name I would easily forget. The man hated me. I had placed him behind bars. What was he doing out? He was supposed to stay in there for life.

"You know him?"

"I had him locked up."

"For what?" he asked as he glanced at me.

"For murder, abuse and rape."