Page 57 of Hitched to the Vampire King
Sam slowly opened the door, and we stepped into what had to be Nash’s office. It looked ransacked. There was paperwork scattered everywhere, and a filing cabinet hung half-open. No sign of a computer, laptop, or phone though.
“They cleared out,” I whispered. Inside, I was screaming. The bastards hadleftand taken everything with them. Because of course they had. Only an idiot would have believed we wouldn’t come back for them.
“Just bring back whatever you can,” Josh chimed in through our earpieces.
I started gathering up the papers and searching the room for anything and everything that might seem helpful. We had to find this prick before he found Avery, and before Adrian and Elias found Gabriel. It was as simple as that.
Once I had an arm full of paperwork, I straightened and found myself staring out a window that overlooked the storage half of the warehouse.
“Sam,” I called, gesturing at the window. “Look at this.”
He joined me, his gaze following mine.
“That’s maybe half the cages I saw when we were here.” When no one spoke, I asked the first question that came to my mind. “So where are the other half? Did he sell them already? Or is he just moving them because we escaped?”
“Neither option is good,” Sam replied.
A sudden clatter from below jolted me and Sam into action. Cursing, we ducked out of sight, and I tucked the papers aside in case I needed both hands to fight. After a few moments, in which no one came rushing upstairs to attack us, I rose on my knees and peered out the window. The bay door stood wide open, filling the warehouse with blinding sunlight. A large truck sat just outside the doors, and there was a crew strolling inside, heading straight for the forklift.
My heart skipped a beat, and I lowered back onto my haunches, staring at Sam in disbelief. This wasexactlythe break we needed. If we could question these people, we might find out where they were moving the cages to—and, by extension, Nash’s location. Because I would bet my last dollar, wherever the cages were, Nash was.
“We need to get down there,” I whispered to Sam, urgency lacing my words.
He quickly informed the rest of the group what was happening, then crept through the office, ensuring to keep out of sight of the window, just in case.
We descended the stairs as quietly as we’d come in, then slipped out the single door and circled around the back of the warehouse. Hugging the exterior wall, we moved into position, but kept out of sight. The murmur of their voices and the clang of metal on concrete reached us, telling me they didn’t suspect a thing.
Finally, something was working out to our benefit.
I stole a quick glance around the corner and noted three men. Human, from the smell of it. Returning to Sam, I held up three fingers, and he nodded.
I quickly stripped out of my leather harness, so as not to frighten the normies, and set it aside. Sam did the same, placing the stakes next to mine. Once we looked like regular Joes, we casually rounded the corner. Being that they were human, the crew didn’t notice our approach until the last second, when we stepped inside the bay doors. All three turned to us with identical shocked expressions, but not a single one shouted out for help. They simply stared at us.
“Can we help you?” one finally asked.
I took in their uniforms with the company name sewn into the shirt, and smiled politely. “We just want to know where these cages are going?”
One mover, a burly guy with a thick beard, said, “What business is it of yours?”
I almost laughed. They had no idea who they were dealing with. I ran through my options in my head. Option A, I could threaten and terrify them into answering my questions. Or, I could take option B, which was a more traditional approach, one with a higher success rate than scare tactics.
“Would a hundred bucks buy us the answer?” I asked.
The guy’s bushy brows shot upward. He shared a glance with his two co-workers, who both seemed intrigued by my offer. He grabbed a nearby clipboard and flipped through the pages. “Looks like we’re taking them to some new storage facility across town.”
“Where?”
“Someplace out by the old mill. Here’s the location.” He handed me the clipboard, and I quickly memorized the address, a spark of hope igniting within me. This was it. This could lead us right to Nash.
“Who hired you?”
The mover shrugged. “Some guy named Nash.”
“Have you seen him at this facility at all?”
“He came by last night. I think he’s one of them vampires, if you ask me. Has that hungry look in his eye, y’know?”
“What time last night?” I pressed. I needed more to go on than “at night.”
