Hunter's Alpha (gxg) ✓

44. Chicory

Elijah eyes don't leave my body as I scrape back a chair and sit down.

"Hunter Easton," he says, his rich brown skin dimpling. "You made it."

I don't have time to waste—Jude is waiting for me. I cut right down to it. "They took Daniel and Alisa. Those two—" Strippers might be offensive to him. "Lovers of yours, the ones I saw in the club."

The memory comes back to me: Daniel's hollowed green eyes, his curly black hair. Alisa's red corset and gold fishnet leggings.

"I have the kidnapping on tape," he says, and he slides a phone into the center of the table.

On the screen, I see Daniel and Alisa outside of the club. Daniel is smoking; Alisa is shivering in the cold. In one moment, they are standing—in the next, there is a tall and slender woman with sleek black hair and uptilted eyes, taking each of them down with swift movements.

She is so fast—so sharp—it seems impossible.

An assassin. Mikayla told me she was an assassin.

"She didn't kill them?" I ask carefully, sliding the phone back once the video is done.

"No, she hauled them into a van. We lost track of it."

That leaves us with a problem. We will have to contact the Yakuza in order to get Daniel, Alisa and Alistair back.

Not that it wouldn't be a shame if Alistair didn't come back.

My sister's fiancé was always enough to make me shiver. That oily look in his eyes.

"Do you have any way to reach the Yakuza?" he asks, and I think of Mikayla.

"Yes," I say.

Another thought crosses my mind. Jude's mother.

We both agreed that maybe it wasn't true—maybe I had just imagined it, in the heat of the moment, but . . .

If Jude's mom is alive, I need to ask her.

I need to ask her why.

"Listen," I say. "Here's what we're going to do."

First, I am going to contact the Cai boss.

They are going to tell us what they want in exchange for Daniel, Alisa, and Alistair.

Whatever it is—and it will be money—we give it to them.

They'll want to have an exchange. The money for the hostages. And they'll give us a location—probably an abandoned warehouse—that we can go to.

We are going to meet each other there. Just you and me, Elijah.

No back-up. No ambush. We can't risk it.

Then, once we are there—

"What the hell are you doing?" I bark at Elijah, who has interrupted my well-strategized plan.

He is dialing a number on his phone. He lays it flat on the table, humming. Waiting.

"We're calling Imai Todoroshi," he says.