We move fast.
Ten minutes later, I’m in the war room—a converted office lined with maps, radios, monitors, and enough firepower to stop a small army.
My heart pounds so hard it hurts.
Twitch bursts in, tablet in hand. “Got something. Traffic cam picked up Tiffany’s Jeep stopped on County Road 17. Blue sedan blocking the lane. Then signal cuts.”
The car looks familiar, but I’m distracted as he pulls up another feed. “Dark web, found a loop hole into a private server feeding this to a mobile phone.”
I see Holley’s face, the fear.
Her soft voice whispering my name in the dark.
Her bruised cheek in the warehouse I didn’t know existed.
I didn’t protect her.
I didn’t protect Tiffany.
Smoke speaks first. “We need to assume they’re being moved. Nothing stationary. Professional, maybe. Or someone with enough desperation.”
Desperation.
That hits something deep.
Holley told me her ex was unstable. Debt-ridden. Dangerous in ways she never spoke aloud.
My stomach drops.
“It’s him,” I whisper after seeing the car on the video.
Smoke turns. “Who?”
“Holley’s ex-husband.”
Smoke swears. “Name?”
“Eric Colson.”
“Description?”
I tell him. Everything.
He scribbles notes, jaw tight. “This isn’t random then.”
“No,” I say darkly. “It’s personal.”
My pulse spikes.
Smoke mutters, “Shit.”
Twitch keeps swiping through footage giving a play by play that only fuels my rage more. “Right after that, two men drag them out of frame. No plate numbers.”
My knees threaten to buckle.
I grip the edge of the table so hard the metal groans.
Smoke steps beside me, voice low. “Hold it together, Tony.”
