38
NICK
I take the frontsteps of the old red-brick apartment building three at a time. Second floor. Apartment 2B. The address Serena supplied, confirmed by the phone ping that hasn't moved in twenty minutes.
Avery is somewhere inside these walls, and the woman who took her is here too, and every second I waste is a second too long.
I don't knock. I pound. Hard enough to rattle the frame, hard enough to announce exactly what kind of man is standing on the other side of this door.
"Avery!"
No answer. Just the hollow echo of my voice bouncing off the narrow hallway.
I pound again. Harder. The wood groans under my fist.
"Nadiyah Marchal! Open this goddamn door!"
Silence. Then, movement. The soft shuffle of feet. The scrape of a chain lock being drawn.
The door opens partway, the chain still engaged, and an elderly woman in a headscarf peers through the gap. Dark eyes,weathered face, an old cardigan draped over a loose housedress. She looks anxious. Terrified. Behind her, a small boy clings to her leg. He’s maybe four or five years old, with dark curly hair. He watches me with the wide-eyed wariness of a child who has learned that strangers can be dangerous.
I've never seen either of them before.
"Where's Nadiyah Marchal?"
The old woman shakes her head frantically. Her mouth works, but the words that come out are fragmented, accented, barely English. She doesn't seem to understand me—or doesn't want to.
The boy tugs at her skirt. "Maman?" His voice is small, worried. "Where's Maman?"
The grandmother—she has to be the grandmother—shoos him back with hushed, urgent words in Arabic if I had to guess.
"I'm looking for Nadiyah." I grip the doorframe, forcing myself to stay on this side of the threshold even though every instinct is screaming at me to tear through the fucking chain and search every room. "I know she's with my wife. Avery. Where the fuck are they?"
The old woman's eyes fill with tears. Distress flickers across her weathered face. And guilt—I'd stake my life on it.
"I don't know," she says. The words are broken, halting. "Sorry. I'm sorry."
She starts to close the door.
Oh, no fucking way. I’m not having it.
I shove hard—one sharp motion—and the chain snaps, the frame splinters, and I'm through. The grandmother stumbles backward with a cry, clutching the boy against her. I'm already moving past them into the apartment.
"Avery?"
My voice echoes off the walls. The space is small. Cramped living room, kitchen visible through an open doorway, a narrowhallway leading to what must be bedrooms. I can see most of it from where I stand.
She's not here.
"Avery!"
Nothing. Just the grandmother's rapid, frightened words tumbling over each other, and then the boy—the little boy who asked about his mother—starts sobbing now, face crumpled, tears streaming down his cheeks as he throws himself against his grandmother's legs.
The sound cuts through me. A child's wail. Pure terror.
Fuck. I'm terrifying a child.
I force myself to stop. Breathe. Pull back from the edge of the rage that’s been building since I read Avery’s fragmented text. I didn’t come here to traumatize a kid. Part of me hates myself for the fear I see in his eyes. The other part of me just wants to find Avery and to hell with any collateral damage.
