“They’ll be here in time for you to help Grandma cook dinner.” Despite the fact Mouse had told his parents they didn’t need to drive into the city to see Lolly, that she was fine, they loved her like she was their own, and while they’d held back on coming yesterday, they had told him they’d be coming today. It wasn’t like he could really complain, he loved that his parents loved his little girl, and they had been a godsend after Emily died. Without them, he didn’t know what he would have done.
“Yay,” Lolly cheered. She loved helping cook or bake, he wouldn’t be surprised if he had a little chef in the making. “What are we having for dinner?”
“I don’t know, bumblebee. Grandma said she was bringing everything with her.”
“Can I have a snack?” she asked already heading for the kitchen.
The doorbell rang before he could answer, and Lolly changed direction to head to the door instead. Checking he was behind her, when he nodded to let her know that the door cam had told him who was there and that it was okay for her to let them in, she flung the door open.
“Uncle Surf.” Lolly giggled as Surf picked her up and swung her around.
“Hey, cutie pie, how are you?”
“What’s a cutie pie?” Lolly asked.
“You,” Surf replied.
Lolly made a face. “Pie isn’t cute though it’s yummy.”
“Can’t argue with that.” Surf laughed as he set her down on her feet.
“We brought donuts,” Arrow said, holding up a box.
“Yay, are there ones with sprinkles?” Lolly asked. She was a little obsessed with sprinkles. She loved them on donuts, ice cream, waffles, pancakes, and French Toast. Basically, if he let her, she’d eat them on anything.
“You really have to ask, munchkin?” Arrow asked with a laugh.
Lolly took the box and skipped over to the couch where she plopped herself down, turned on the TV, and scrolled through Netflix to find one of her favorite shows, and Mouse knew she would settle in and watch until his parents showed up.
“Two donuts is all you can have,” he told her.
“Okay, Daddy,” she said, but her voice was distracted, he’d lost her to TV land.
Leading the guys through to the kitchen, he grabbed mugs and started making coffee while Arrow set a second box of donuts down on the table. Once they were all seated, Mouse looked around at the men he thought of as his brothers. They’d been through a lot together, watched each other’s backs more times than he could count, and they’d been there for him yesterday when the bottom had fallen out of his world.
There was nobody he trusted more than the men on his team.
“Do we have anything?” Mouse asked. Nobody at Prey was prepared to let Lolly’s attempted abduction slide. They would do whatever it took to identify the men who had tried to steal his daughter, and the van they’d been using. The cops had spoken with his former in-laws, but they had denied being involved. Since their last petition for custody had been denied they were no longer represented by the firm his gut said was shady, they had also denied involvement, citing they had no motive and that they did not conduct business that way.
“Nothing much yet,” Bear replied.
“We did find out the dog they used to try to lure Lolly away was stolen,” Domino informed him.
“A woman walking her dog in the park was mugged. They took her purse and her dog. Purse was found in a trash bin by the playground, and the dog was found wandering around the park not long after we found Lolly,” Brick elaborated.
“Obviously, they were planning on using a dog to try to lure Lolly away, probably thought since she was a little girl it would be an easy sell,” Arrow said.
“Only your smart little girl didn’t fall for it,” Bear said.
“No, she didn’t,” Mouse agreed. He was so proud of his daughter. She might be sweet and bubbly, but she was also smart. Growing up around him, his team, and Prey she had been taught how to be safe, aware of her surroundings, and had also been given self-defense classes from the time she could walk.
When she’d been approached at the playground yesterday afternoon by a man with a dog who asked her if she wanted to come and see the dog’s puppies, Lolly had said no. Having their ruse fail one of the kidnappers had shown Lolly a gun and threatened to shoot her friends unless she went with them.
His heart ached for the choice his barely seven-year-old daughter had had to make, but so proud of her sweet little heart that hadn’t wanted anyone else to be hurt. There was also a healthy dose of anger toward the people who had put his child in that position.
“Anything on the van?” They knew where the van had been parked thanks to Phoebe, and they knew what time it had taken off. Surely they could get a number plate and track down its owner.
“It was found abandoned a few streets over,” Bear told him.
Frustration burned inside him. He wanted those men, wanted them punished for what they’d done to Lolly. “So that was a dead end too?”
“Cameras caught three men getting out of the van but no clear shots of their faces, so we can’t identify them,” Surf told him.
“So, we have nothing.” He huffed. He’d known it was a long shot that they’d be able to trace the kidnappers, but he felt an urgency to find them he couldn’t explain. There was no way to know if her own grandparents were behind it, whether or not Lolly had been targeted, and if she had whether she had been targeted specifically because of him or just because she had met some set of arbitrary requirements when the kidnappers had seen her.
If she’d been targeted because of him, he would never forgive himself.
It wasn’t like in his job they were usually targeted by anyone. Usually, no one even knew they were there, they went in, did what they had to do to rescue a victim or take down a high-value target, and then left. But there was always a chance that someone had a grudge against them, or him in particular.
If the attempt had been a targeted decision to destroy his team by taking his daughter, then Lolly wasn’t the only one he was worried about. Phoebe had saved his daughter’s life. There was no denying that, but she had also put herself on the kidnappers’ radar by doing so.
Was she in danger now?
When he’d gone to ask her out this morning, she’d been edgy, looking around as though she expected the bogeyman to come jumping out to grab her at any second.
Had something happened?
“Did you go see her?” Bear asked, his brown gaze much too astute to even bother lying.
“Yeah.”
“It didn’t go well?” Arrow asked. Apparently, all the guys seemed to have figured out that he was a little infatuated with his daughter’s savior. It was more than the fact Phoebe had saved Lolly though, it wasn’t until last night when he was lying in bed not sleeping that he’d realized she was the jogger who had caught his attention when Lolly had disappeared. Something about her drew him in, but it didn’t seem like she was interested in even giving him a chance.
“She turned me down flat when I asked her out to dinner,” he admitted. Although he’d sensed that there was more to it than that. The look on her face was fear. He knew it, had seen it many times before. Pure unadulterated fear.