“What do you mean she’s not here?” James stumbled out of his room, wincing as the movement pulled at his wounded shoulder. “Where would she go?”
“I don’t know.” Reed was already moving, checking every room, every closet, every possible hiding spot. “Elena! Answer me!”
But the cabin was empty. She was nowhere to be found.
Terrel appeared in the hallway, his expression grim. “The car’s still outside. If she left, she didn’t drive.”
“Then someone took her.” The words tasted like poison in Reed’s mouth. “Someone took her, and we didn’t hear a thing.”
“That’s not possible,” Walker said. “I was on watch until 0300. No vehicles approached, no perimeter breaches?—”
“Then how is she gone?” Reed roared, his composure finally cracking.
His brothers exchanged glances but said nothing. There was nothing to say. Elena had vanished from a secured safe house without a trace, and none of them had any idea how.
Reed forced himself to breathe, to think, to push past the terror clawing at his chest. Panic wouldn’t help Elena. He needed to be tactical. Analytical. He needed to find her.
“Search the cabin,” he ordered. “Every inch. Look for any sign of what happened—forced entry, a struggle, anything.”
They spread out, moving through the small space with methodical precision. Reed headed for the kitchen, the last place he’d seen Elena alive and safe andhere.
The kitchen looked exactly as they’d left it—coffee mugs in the sink, laptop chargers coiled on the counter, the first aid supplies from treating James’s wound still scattered across the table.
And there, in the center of the table, was a piece of paper that hadn’t been there before.
Reed’s blood turned to ice.
He crossed the room in three strides and snatched up the note, his hands trembling as he read the words scrawled across the page in bold, aggressive handwriting.
I have her. Leave this alone or all of you will die.
No signature. No demands. Just a threat and a promise.
“Reed?” Walker appeared in the doorway. “What is it?”
Reed couldn’t speak. He held out the note, watching his brother’s face as he read it.
Walker’s expression went from confusion to shock to cold, deadly fury in the span of three seconds. “Webb.”
“Has to be.” Reed’s voice was flat, emotionless—the voice he used in combat when feelings would get people killed. “He must have tracked us to the safe house. Waited until our guard was down.”
James and Terrel joined them in the kitchen, and Walker passed the note around. Each brother’s face hardened at Webb’s scribbled words.
“How did he get past our security?” Terrel asked. “I had sensors on every approach. Motion detectors, infrared cameras—nothing was triggered.”
“Webb has access to the most advanced surveillance technology on the planet,” Reed said grimly. “If anyone could bypass our defenses, it’s him.”
“So what do we do?” James asked. His wounded shoulder was clearly bothering him, but there was steel in his eyes. “We can’t just leave her with that psychopath.”
“We’re not leaving her anywhere.” Reed’s jaw tightened. “We’re going to find her, and we’re going to bring her home.”
“And Webb?” Walker’s voice was dangerously quiet.
Reed met his brother’s gaze, and something passed between them—an understanding forged in years of combat and brotherhood.
“Webb is going to die.”
The words hung in the air, heavy with promise. None of his brothers argued. None of them flinched.
