“You were supposed to watch her.”
“She was fine?—”
“You wereallsupposed to fucking watch her.”I shove past him.
People shrink back as I stalk the floor.I rip coats off chairs, check bathroom doors, flip the catering table.Nothing.Not even strawberries anymore.Air won’t go in.Won’t come out.
I push into the side hall where the sound dies, and the cinderblock sweats cold.I brace my palm to the wall and count like she would.In three.Out five.In seven.Again.Again.Not rage.I know rage.This is something that’s never existed for me.
Fear.
It tastes like metal.It tastes like the night I killed my father, except worse, because this time I could lose the only thing I’ve ever wanted.
Sava slips into the corridor sideways so she can watch the door and me at once.
“Breathe,” she says, clinical.
“I have to find her.”
“You will,” she replies, low.“But not if you break.”
I drag breath.In three.Out five.
“Machine,” she says.“Not man.”
My chest unlocks with a click I hate.“Copy.”
I’m steady now.I round on the room.Sava stays in the shadows, never giving anyone her full face.The why scratches my brain, but I don’t follow that fucked up thread because every wire in me is firing hot with finding my wife.“Who talked to her?”I shout.“Who saw my wife leave?”They flinch.
“These people—” Caleb tries again.“They’re just staff.They don’t know anything.”
“Someone saw something,” I growl."And if you’d done your fucking job for five goddamn minutes, we wouldn’t be in this mess.”
My voice cuts through the lobby like a blade.Silence follows.Then my burner lights up with anunknownnumber.
“I didn’t know, man,” the voice blurts.“I didn’t know she was yours.They didn’t tell me.You gotta believe me.She just said grab the girl.She didn’t say she wasyours.”
“Where is she?”
“I can drop a pin.I swear I didn’t touch her.I didn’t fucking touch her.”
I breathe through my nose.My voice stays cold.“Send it.”
While I wait for the idiot to text where to go, Nikola, Dominic, and Marco approach.
The pin comes in and I forward it to Travis with a message.
Stand by.Do not move unless called.
The last thing I need is Travis rolling up with a bunch of fucking cops.Nikola, Dominic, and Marco gather their own people with texts and rushed phone calls.I’ve never called The Accord for help, never had any reason to, but it was born from us vowing to die to protect the people we love, to honor the ones we’ve lost.We protect all innocents, kill all spiders, but when something happens toourpeople the rules shift.And monsters start watching their own shadows.
Sava meets me at the car, already sliding into the passenger seat.She doesn’t say a word as I drive like hell through the city.Wind howls through the cracked window.Her hand stays clenched around her phone.
“Whoever took her, they didn’t know,” I say low.“But they will.”
We pull up on a warehouse on the edge of the river, ice crusting over the cement.Lights flicker inside.I kill the engine, check the feed from the external cams.Two men.One watching the back door.One pacing the perimeter.
Sava is already moving.She ghosts along the side of the building, eliminates both guards with a quiet snap of their necks and disappears toward the back.I go straight through the front.A third man standing inside, maybe who called me, doesn’t even have time to reach for a weapon.I’m on him in seconds.His face meets my elbow.His ribs catch my boot.I drag him into the center of the room, zip-tie his wrists, and take out my knife.
