“You’re fucking kidding me.”

“No. Hurry. I’m grabbing my bike. I’m going to try to follow them. Call me when you get anything.”

I pushed open the back door to Voodoo and Delilah was standing at the front. “What the hell just happened? Cops just swarmed Your Favorite Hole. They wouldn’t let me go in.”

“Eden’s gone. Someone took her. I’m going after him.” I ducked into the break room and grabbed my keys off the desk, not giving a single shit about the person still sitting in my chair. Delilah could deal with them.

I ran out into the alley, intent on getting on my bike as fast as fucking possible, but three cops with drawn weapons stopped me in my tracks.

“Stop right there!” one officer yelled. “Who the fuck are you?”

“I work at the tattoo shop, and some asshole just grabbed my girlfriend and shoved her in a car. Get the hell out of my way so I can go after them.”

“No way, man. We’re questioning everyone. You’re staying right here.”

Rage roiled in my gut. “Did you not fucking hear me? Someone just grabbed my girlfriend and shoved her in the back of a car and took off. If you’re not going to go after him, I sure as shit am.”

“Come with us. Inside.”

Gritting my teeth at every second I was losing, I realized I didn’t have much choice unless I wanted to ruin my ink with the new addition of bullet holes.

The woman with the toddler was sitting in one of the chairs, rocking the boy back and forth. She looked up when she saw me.

“Did you get her?”

I shook my head, and the cop started asking her questions.

“Can you confirm what this man is telling us? His girlfriend was abducted?”

“Yes. Yes, he tried to get her to go with him and she wouldn’t, so he knocked her out and carried her away.”

“Now can I fucking go?”

The cop made notes on his little cop notepad as Delilah stepped into the doorway.

“Ma’am, step back,” another officer said to her.

“You can use the tattoo shop if you want to clear people out of here. We have room.”

The woman stood with her little boy and looked at the officer. “I want to get out of here.”

“Fine. We’ll move this next door.” He looked at me. “Everyone can move next door.”

I wanted to knock that fucking look off his face. Every second that slipped by made it less and less likely that I’d find Eden.

“Where is she?” Delilah demanded as I followed the cop out front. “Where the hell is Eden?”

The woman replied before I could. “He said she had to go. She couldn’t talk to the cops. Her dad would be mad.”

What the hell?

“Ma’am, if you could hold on until we’re ready to get your full statement, that’d be helpful.”

Delilah led the way into Voodoo, and the cop gave the woman the go-ahead to give her statement, but wouldn’t let me out of his sight.

By the time the woman was done, I was more confused than ever, but that didn’t change a fucking thing about needing to go after Eden.

“So you’re sure she knew him?”

“It seemed like it.”

“But he still hit her and carried her out anyway?”

She nodded.

“Something doesn’t seem right,” the cop said.

“No shit,” I interrupted. “I’ve got the plate number. Call in a BOLO. Get every cop in this city looking for her.”

He glared at me, but I rattled the number off anyway and he wrote it down.

The door to Voodoo swung open and another cop came in holding a plastic bag with a purse inside. Eden’s purse. I went toward him.

“Can you confirm this belongs to your girlfriend?” he asked me.

“Yes. It’s hers.”

“Elisha Madden, right? I’ll run it and see if we get anything.”

I frowned and shook my head. “Eden Madden. Not Elisha.”

The officer’s brows furrowed. “That’s not what the ID says.”

“Let me see it.”

Rather than telling me to fuck off, the cop slipped on a rubber glove and pulled it from the bag, holding it in front of my face.

“This her?”

The picture was Eden. The last name was right. The first name was not.

What the hell? I pulled out my phone and snapped a picture of it before he realized what I was doing.

“Hey—”

“Like you really fucking care.”

“So this isn’t her?”

“It’s her. But that isn’t her first name. It’s Eden.”

“You sure about that?”

I didn’t know what to say in response. Apparently I was fucking wrong about my girlfriend’s name.

The cops finished questioning the woman as Fabienne showed up and started making demands about what the hell had happened to her shop.

During the distraction, I called Con. Without a greeting, I launched into what I needed. “I need you to run a different name. Cops found Eden’s ID and it’s her picture, but the first name is Elisha. I got a picture. I’ll send it.”

“I’ll get him this ASAP, and I’ll call you back. You find any trail?”

“Cops wouldn’t let me go. They’re putting a BOLO on the car. Hoping like fuck they find it.”

“Good. That’s actually better than you roaming the streets hoping to catch a glimpse. I’ll call Rix, and hopefully he can give us the inside word from the cops. We’ll find her, Bish.”

I’D CRUISED FOR AN HOUR on my bike looking for any sign of the Lincoln and had found nothing. According to Rix, the cops were getting hits on the BOLO, but none of them were the right car. Something had to break soon.

My phone rang and I grabbed it. Con.

“You got answers?” I demanded.

“Not all of them. But I can tell you one thing for sure. My guy ran the license, and even though it’s a good fake, it’s definitely a fake. He can’t find an Elisha Madden or an Eden Madden. He’s digging further. Going to see if we can figure out where it came from.”

“New York City. That’s where she came from.”

“That’s what I told him, but there are a lot of people who make fake IDs in that city.”