Then to Isabella and Charlie. “I need everything you know about this man. Where he’s staying. What kind of car he drives. Any associates. Financial information.”
“I can do that. I’ve already did background checks on him,” Charlie said, already pulling out her phone. “I have his hotel information, his rental car information, financial records?—”
“Good. Forward all of it to me.” Gabe demanded, “I want to know everywhere this man has been since he got to St. Augustine.”
He looked around at all of them. At the family that had formed over the past few days. At people who’d become essential to him in ways he was only beginning to understand. His mother, pale but composed. Jack, grim and ready to help. Charlie and Logan, both looking determined. Isabella, terrified but not falling apart. Christopher, standing ready for orders like thesoldier he’d been.
And Jane, sitting on a gurney with blood matting her auburn hair, guilt written across her face, even though none of this was her fault.
“My daughter and Maddy are out there with that man,” Gabe said, his voice cutting through the sound of waves and sirens and panicked breathing. “Trinity is scared. Maddy is scared. And that man thinks he can use them as leverage.” He paused, and when he spoke again, his voice carried the weight of every promise he’d ever made, every oath he’d ever sworn as a Marine. “I will get them back. Whatever it takes. Do you all understand me? I will get my daughter and Maddy back.”
And everyone standing there knew he meant it. Knew that Todd Berkley had just made the worst mistake of his life.
Because he hadn’t just taken two little girls for ransom.
He’d taken a Marine’s daughter.
And that Marine was coming for him.
17
CHRISTOPHER
Christopher stood in the inn’s dining room, watching the chaos of emotion swirling around him like a storm. Everyone had gathered here in the past twenty minutes, drawn by the crisis like moths to a flame. The room that had been filled with laughter and Christmas planning just hours ago now felt heavy with fear and desperate hope.
Isabella sat at one of the tables, fidgeting. She looked beside herself with panic and guilt, her face pale and tear-streaked. She kept wringing her hands and glancing at her phone on the table beside her, unable to sit still for more than a few seconds before standing up to pace, then sitting down again when her legs wouldn’t hold her.
Holly was trying to comfort her, but Christopher could see his surrogate mother’s own fear showing through the cracks in her composure. Her hands shook slightly when she reached out topat Isabella’s shoulder. Her eyes kept darting to where Gabe stood, as if afraid he might disappear too.
Charlie had taken over one end of the long dining table, spreading out everything she had on Todd Berkley like a general planning a campaign. Hotel information. Rental car details. Financial records. Credit card statements showing his recent purchases in St. Augustine. She’d built a timeline of his movements over the few days, color-coded and precise.
Jack was on the phone with the police again, his voice low and controlled as he answered their questions. The local police were treating this seriously, but Christopher knew how these things worked. There would be protocols. Procedures. Time wasted on paperwork and jurisdictional questions while two little girls were out there somewhere, terrified.
And Gabe stood in the center of it all, deadly silent.
That silence was what worried Christopher most. Not rage. Not panic. Not the desperate fear that any father would feel when his child was taken. Just cold, calculated silence. The kind of silence that preceded violence.
Gabe was watching everything, listening intently, processing information with the tactical mind of a combat veteran assessing a mission. His eyes tracked every piece of information Charlie laid out, every word Jack spoke into the phone, every tear that fell from Isabella’s eyes.
Christopher recognized that look. Had seen it before in combat zones. It was the look of a man who had already decidedsomeone was going to pay dearly today, and was simply working out the logistics of how to make it happen.
Logan ended a phone call and crossed to where Gabe stood. “Front desk at his hotel says Todd isn’t in at the moment. He left about two hours ago and didn’t say when he’d be back. They didn’t see if anyone was with him.”
Gabe’s jaw tightened, but he just nodded. Then he turned to Christopher, and their eyes met across the room. That look said everything.
“You know who to call,” Gabe said, his voice low and hard. “I don’t care what it takes. Get me Todd’s phone’s location.”
Christopher nodded once and walked toward the hallway, pulling his phone from his pocket. He needed privacy for this call. The kind of favor he was about to ask wasn’t exactly legal, and the fewer people who heard the details, the better.
Isabella followed him into the hallway, her footsteps quick behind him.
“This is all my fault,” she said, her voice breaking. Tears streamed down her face again, and Christopher’s heart squeezed painfully in his chest.
He turned to face her, wanting desperately to pull her into his arms but knowing he needed to make this call first. Every second counted now.
“No,” he said firmly. “It’s the fault of a desperate man. And desperate people are the most dangerouskind. Like feral animals backed into a corner. They’ll do anything to survive, anything to get what they think they need.”
Isabella swiped at her tears with shaking hands. “If anything happens to the girls...” She couldn’t finish the sentence. The thought was too terrible to even speak aloud.
