Leaving the room he checked the door quickly before stepping across the hall to the room that had once been Isabelle’s and was now Ashley and Emma Truing’s.
On each side, Isabelle’s sister Chelsea and her friend Liza were still registered. The two girls had come to the room the night before after Isabelle had called them. They had been as outraged over the lies that had been told to Isabelle’s father as Isabelle was.
Turning up the hall he moved quickly to the small meeting room the hotel had set up for the Breed visit. Rule had sent a text earlier that the Martinez family was on their way for the meeting. However, the chief had warned him that Terran had no intentions of revealing the identity of the individual who had called.
Perhaps he didn’t. Perhaps he wouldn’t. But Malachi would make damned certain he knew the risks to his daughter and the consequences should Isabelle be hurt because of his refusal to speak.
Sliding the key card into the lock, Malachi stepped into the room, then came to a slow, wary stop. The Martinez men weren’t the only ones who were awaiting him.
Rule stood to the side of the room watching silently as Isabelle’s friend Liza dried her tears and Chelsea hung her head, staring at the floor somberly.
There was more going on here than whatever information Terran was hiding.
“Mr. Morgan.” Terran rose to his feet, his expression more heavily lined than it had been the evening before, his dark eyes filled with sorrow. “I hope you will pardon my transgressions yesterday. I beg your forgiveness as I will be pleading with my daughter for hers after this meeting.”
Malachi lifted a brow curiously as he glanced over at Rule. The other Breed shrugged with a discomforted shift of his shoulders. The formal politeness of the apology and the pain that flowed from Terran was thick enough to cause Malachi’s hackles to rise.
“Chelsea?” He looked over at the younger girl. “Is everything okay, little sister?”
Her shoulders jerked, her breathing hitched as a sob nearly escaped. Placing her hand over her lips as she lifted the other in a gesture to stop, she turned her back on him.
Malachi could smell the tears.
The evening before, he’d noticed both girls had acted oddly after Isabelle had told them what her family had done. Her father’s anger seemed to have especially upset both girls.
“Everything’s obviously not okay,” Liza spoke up at that point, her red-rimmed eyes full of not just pain, but anger as she turned back to Malachi. “Isabelle is like a sister to me, Malachi. She’s the best friend I have in this world. And when she told us last night what happened, I had a feeling I knew exactly who had done it, and I was right.”
His gaze flicked to Terran. The other man looked grief- stricken, and filled with rage. He turned back to Liza.
“Are you going to tell me who it was?” he asked, his eyes narrowing on her.
Her lips trembled for a brief second before she steadied them, lifted her chin and said, “The man who attacked her in her own home and nearly raped her. If Chelsea and I hadn’t come home when we did, he would have raped her in her own living room.”
Tears spilled from the girl’s eyes again, but she continued bravely. “My dad had given me a gun. I pulled it from the closet and hit him in the back of the head with it. It gave her time to get away from him. When she jerked it from me, Chelsea and I kept her from filling his ass with buckshot. We should have let her do it. But all I could imagine was him suing the three of us and getting away with it.”
It had been known to happen. Which was neither here nor there. It didn’t matter in the end. Once he had the identity of the man, the three women wouldn’t have to worry about being sued, they would only have to worry about what color to wear to his funeral. Black for grief, though he doubted they would choose such a respectable, somber color for the event. Perhaps red, he thought, for the blood the son of a bitch was going to shed.
“Liza, I want that name.”
“You’ll kill him,” Chelsea cried out as she swung around to face him. “Then Isabelle will be pissed with us. And God forbid you be arrested for it, because she would kill us. You don’t know what she’s like when she’s pissed, Malachi.”
“Obviously, courageous and daring,” he stated with no small amount of pride. “But, I prefer she not have to be courageous and daring again with this particular individual, and there’s no doubt he won’t attempt it again.” He glanced to Terran. “It’s the same man that called you?”
“She’s my daughter,” Terran rasped. “I’ll take vengeance.”
“God save me from all this familial guilt and self- punishment,” he snapped, growing more furious by the moment. “I’ll have his name and I’ll have it now. If I don’t, I promise the two of you I’ll take Isabelle as far as possible from this place and you’ll be lucky if she can convince me to visit once every five years.” He turned to her father. “And if that’s the case, then you can forget knowing any grandchildren she’ll have because my faith in your ability to tell us anything that could endanger that child would be nil. Now one of you had better fucking open your mouths.” His voice rose with the last words, his anger beginning to slip past the calm he always forced upon himself.
Chelsea and Liza stared back at him in shock.
“Holden Mayhew.” Terran gave him the name he wanted. “He’s the manager . . .”
“Of the Tri-Bar Ranch bordering yours.” Malachi nodded as his fists clenched, his body tightening with rage.
The man had fists like anvils. Not that he was any match for a Breed, but for a woman as delicate and fragile as Isabelle, it would have been like being mauled by a grizzly.
“I’ll take care of it . . .” A piercing phone alarm began emanating from both Rule and Malachi’s phones.
Malachi’s eyes widened as he jerked it from his belt activated the display.
“He has her, Mal.” Emma’s face was already swelling while blood oozed from her nose and split lips. “Ashley’s down . . . Ash . . .” The phone fell.
Malachi was racing for the door the second the words made sense and running the short distance down the hall. He was aware of Rule behind him, shouting orders and pulling in the team being kept on a lower floor. The Martinez family was running behind, the father on the phone now, shouting orders as well as they all raced to Malachi’s room.
Stygian was slamming from the door further up the hall as Malachi made the turn down the wing where his, Ashley and Emma’s rooms were and skidded to a halt at the opened door of his room.
Ashley was down. Valiant, primpy, girly Ashley with her artificially colored locks, her fake nails and girlish innocence. The pride of the coyote packs, and everyone’s little sister.
Emma was beside her, weak, but still valiantly trying to stem the blood pouring from her sister’s chest wound as she sobbed with heartbroken fear.
“Ash . . . Ash please . . . Please don’t leave me, Ash . . .” she was crying, her voice weak, dazed and in shock as Malachi and Rule slid to their knees beside her.
“She won’t wake up, Mal,” Emma whispered, turning her face to him as Rule quickly began assessing the wound and Stygian raced to them with a med-kit.
What the phone display hadn’t shown was the other side of Emma’s head. Her hair was coated with blood, dripping with it as she stared back at him with eyes nearly black with shock.
“We have her, Emma.” Gripping the coyote female’s shoulders he quickly ran his gaze over her as the room began to fill with Breeds. “Where is Isabelle, Emma? Did you see where he took her?” He was screaming at her. Panic and terror were clawing at his guts with razor-sharp talons.