“Hope,” I breathe. “Where are you?”
The screen suddenly lights up, switching from audio to video without warning. Hope's face fills the frame, pale and tear-streaked, her dark blonde hair tangled around her cheeks. Her eyes are wide and red-rimmed, darting somewhere off-screen like she is watching someone just beyond the camera's view.
“Sage,” she repeats, her voice cracking around my name. Her hands shake as she lifts a crumpled piece of paper into view. The edges are torn, and the writing scrawled across it looks hurried, almost violent. “I have to read this. Please just listen.”
My heart pounds so hard I can hear it in my skull, a drumbeat that drowns out everything else. I force myself to breathe and stay upright when every instinct tells me to collapse.
“I’m listening,” I assure her, keeping my voice as calm as I can manage. “I’m right here.”
She glances at the paper, her lips moving silently as if rehearsing the words before she speaks them aloud. Her shoulders hunch inward, making her look smaller than she is. My little sister, who used to laugh too loudly and steal my clothes without asking, now looks like a shadow of herself.
“You have to come alone,” she reads, her voice trembling with each syllable. “If you bring anyone, if you tell Luka, or if you call the police, I will die.”
Her words crash into me, digging into my chest so firmly that I can hardly breathe. I grip the side of the bed with my free hand, bracing myself against something solid.
“Hope,” I interject, trying to cut through the script she is reading. “Are you hurt? Did they?—”
“Please,” she interrupts, her voice breaking completely. “Just let me finish.”
I bite down on the inside of my cheek, tasting blood, and nod even though she can’t see me clearly through her tears.
She continues, her words rushed and uneven. “You have one hour. There is an address. It’s an old warehouse near the docks marked number three. The building has a green door on the south side. You have to come through that door. One hour, Sage. If you are late, or you bring help, I die.”
Her voice breaks on the last word, and she drops the paper. It flutters out of frame. Her hands come up to cover her face, and she sobs, the sound ragged and raw.
“No,” I whisper, my throat closing around the word. “No, please, I’m coming. I’m coming right now. Just hold on.”
The screen goes black as the call ends abruptly, the sudden silence louder than her sobs. I stare at the phone, willing it to ring again to let me hear her voice one more time. But the screen stays dark.
My hands shake so hard I nearly drop the phone. I clutch it tighter, my nails digging into the case, and push myself to myfeet. The room tilts sideways for a second before righting itself. My legs feel unsteady, my knees threatening to give out, but I force them to hold me.
“Luka,” I gasp, turning toward the door. “I need Luka.”
I stumble into the hallway, my bare feet slapping against the hardwood. The cold seeps into my soles, but I don’t stop to put on shoes. I run, my breath coming in short bursts, my vision tunneling until all I see is the corridor ahead of me.
“Luka!” I shout, my voice echoing off the high ceilings. “Luka, where are you?”
No answer.
I reach the main staircase and take the steps two at a time, gripping the railing to keep from falling. My chest burns, my heart hammering against my ribs. When I reach the second floor, I spin in a circle, searching for any sign of him.
The library is empty. The sitting room beyond it is empty. The study where he sometimes works late into the night is dark and silent. I know he’s not here, yet some desperate part of my mind is hoping he’ll appear in a doorway and pull me back from this rising panic.
I call out for him again. A maid steps out from a side hallway, her expression pinched with concern as she asks if I am alright, and when I press her for Luka’s whereabouts, she tells me he’s not here. I ask where he went, but she only shakes her head and explains that she doesn’t know.
I pull out my phone and dial his number with unsteady fingers. The screen glows in the dim light. The call connects, then goesstraight to voicemail. His voice fills my ear, calm and detached, instructing me to leave a message.
I hang up and dial again. Voicemail again.
“No,” I whisper, my voice breaking. “No, no, no.”
I try Misha next. Voicemail. Then Kolya. Voicemail. Every number I have stored in my phone leads to the same automated response. They’re all gone. All of them. Luka must have taken his men somewhere, a meeting or operation that pulled them away from the house at the worst possible moment.
I stand in the center of the foyer, clutching my phone, and feel the walls close in around me. The staff moves through distant rooms, their footsteps muffled, and their conversations too quiet to hear. They can’t help me. They’re not trained for this. They’re here to clean and cook and maintain the illusion of normalcy, not to storm warehouses or negotiate with kidnappers.
I’m alone.The thought slams into me. I’m alone, and Hope is running out of time.
I glance at the grandfather clock against the wall. The hands tick forward, each second a countdown I can’t stop. One hour. Less now. Maybe fifty minutes. I wasted time running through the house, calling numbers that won’t answer. I can’t waste any more.
