That was good, at least. The last thing I wanted was my head of security trying to argue me out of firing his men. There was something else on my mind at the moment though and I needed to get it out there.

“The cops think she might have gone out to a club or taken a trip – tried to get away from me for a while.” It was hard to even get the words out.

To my surprise, Doug’s eyes slid away from mine.

I turned slowly and took a step toward him. “Doug?” There was a warning in the word.

“Sir.” He inclined his head. “Please keep in mind, you turned the running of the household over to Miss Isadora six months ago. That being the case, there have been a few times when she has…asked our help in taking some time away.”

I clenched my hands into fists and tried to control my temper. “And the bodyguards?” I asked.

“They were told that Miss Isadora would be staying in for the evening.”

“And my security team?” I had a feeling I was going to be firing a lot of people tomorrow.

“They saw only me leaving.” Doug met my eyes dead on, and I could see he was prepared for whatever I planned to do or say.

“You realize I’m likely to fire you over this.”

“Yes, Sir.” A faint smile curled his lips. “However, I consider it odd that you would fire me when she was always safe on the excursions I arranged, but on an evening when she was home with both you and your security team present…”

It was a blow I hadn’t expected, and I realized in that moment that Doug was angry.

He’d hidden it, but he was angry.

“You want to tell me what the problem is?” The question came out more harshly than I'd intended, but I didn't apologize for it. My sister was missing and he was pissed at me.

He hesitated a moment and then rocked back on his heels, linking his hands behind his back. He served time in the military – security details, my father had told me. Old habits died…never.

“Permission to speak freely, Mr. Lang?”

“That’s not what you’ve been doing?”

His lips twitched in what might have been a smile. He inclined his head slightly. “I’ve considered how lucky you are on a number of occasions, you know. Had Isadora been any less of a sweet child, or if she’d decided at any point in her life that she didn’t want to always make you proud of her…things could have been very different. I’ve thought, often, about how easily you could have lost her too.”

“Why do you think I want her safe?” I demanded. Of all people, I'd have thought he would understand.

The anger in his eyes faded away to something else. Sadness. “If I may, Sir. There are other ways to lose somebody than by burying them. Isadora is a sweet young woman…and an insightful one. Many people, including you, often don’t realize just how insightful she is. She always knew why you fought to protect her and why you treated her as though she were made of glass. It’s why she’s tolerated it for so long. But her patience was…is…growing thin. I don't know if this has anything to do with her disappearance, but there's more to your sister than you know.”

I drew in a slow breath. “What's been going on that I don’t know about?”

“Perhaps…” He gestured to the couch. “We should sit down.”

***

It had been nearly an hour since Doug had finished talking to me.

Fifty minutes had passed since I'd torn out of the underground garage in the Bugatti, the need to tear something up burning hot and fast in my gut. The road happened to be available, so the road it was.

It was Monday night, which meant fewer people would be out late in general, so it hadn't taken me long to get to roads with enough room for me to actually move.

It wasn’t doing anything to help my state of mind, though. A light in front of me turned red, and I would have blasted through, but at the last minute, I saw lights pooling on the road and I hit my brakes. A car on the cross street came through and I stopped, shoving the heels of my hands against my eyes.

Shit!

I was being stupid.

Anger did that to me.

But it didn’t always make me careless. And what just happened was fucking careless. My parents died because someone hadn't been paying attention when they were driving.

I had to slow down and I had to think.

No. What I had to do was find Isadora. Maybe she had just left, taken off for the night like Lieutenant Green said. I didn't want to believe it, but I supposed it was better than the alternative.

If she really had slipped out voluntarily, then I just had to figure out where she would've gone. After a minute, I knew. She would've gone to see that lousy boyfriend of hers. So…

“I’ll go see that lousy boyfriend.”

I whipped the wheel to the right at the next available chance and headed for Brooklyn. It hadn’t escaped my notice that Toni only lived about a mile away from Isadora’s boyfriend.

For all I knew, Isadora had slipped out and Toni was covering for her. Toni liked my sister. Everybody liked my sister. I scowled. I loved my sister too. I just put her safety before her happiness. How did I know Toni hadn't decided that Isadora's happiness should come first?

But I wasn’t going to think along those lines yet.

I’d see Colton first.

I’d talk to him.

We’d be calm and rational.

***

I was partially right.

Colton Stevens, although clearly freaked out by my sudden and angry appearance, had managed to be calm and rational.

I, on the other hand, had listened to him for all of thirty seconds before I grabbed him by the front of a wrinkled Star Wars T-shirt and hauled him up until we were nose to nose.

“Where the fuck is my sister?” I snarled.

“She's not here.”

“The hell she's not.”

He pushed away from me. He might've been lean, but he was still strong. He fell back a few steps. “She's not here.” His eyes widened suddenly. “What happened?”

“Like you don't know.” I swung at him, my knuckles cracking against his nose as he took the hit.

He came to his feet in a fast, easy bounce, blood dripping down from his nose. He wiped it on the back of his wrist, flinging the drops away without even looking at them.

Either he’d taken a few punches before or I’d hadn’t broken it. Maybe both. I had to admit, the fact that he came back up so fast was pretty impressive. Even more impressive was how level his voice was, despite the nasal twang.

“I’ll give you that one,” Colton said. “Now tell me what the hell is going on.”

Shit. He was either an extraordinary liar or he really didn't know. As pissed as I was at the guy, I tended to believe it was the latter…but I wasn't going to give him any details. Just in case I was wrong.

“She's not at home and she's not picking up her phone. I figured she was here.” I hoped he'd think I was just being an asshole brother and not that I was freaking out because I didn't know where Isadora was.

Blood continued to drip and he muttered something under his breath, then turned. I stared at his back, feeling a little sick as he turned away and strode down a small, cramped hall. He had an efficiency apartment. Since it wasn’t right smack dab in downtown, it had more room than some, but the entire place would've fit inside my home office. It was clean, though, and judging by the décor – heavy on the geek – he’d put his stamp on it.

When he came back in, he had a rag shoved up against his nose and his eyes were snapping.

I tucked my hands into my pockets and studied him, hoping to figure out what it was about this twenty-six year-old meat packer with the messy bronze hair that had entranced my baby sister so much that she'd been sneaking out for six months to see him.