NINETEEN
MELLOW
Everything in me goes cold.Not loud.Not chaotic.Cold.The kind that strips emotion down to one thing—purpose.Lucy is shaking in my arms, breaking apart in a way that hits something deep and violent in my chest, but I don’t let myself stay there.Not yet.She needs me steady.Needs me focused.
So I lock it down.
Chux’s voice cuts through the house.“Phones.Now.”
Riot’s already moving, pulling up contacts, barking into his phone.Sages is pacing like a caged animal, running his hands through his hair, eyes wild.
“That’s my sister,” he snaps.“That’s my sister in her own house, she’s supposed to be safe.”
“And we’re getting her back,” Chux states, sharp and final.“But you don’t get to lose your head while we do it.”
Saged goes still.
Barely.
I keep one arm around Lucy while I look at Chux.
“Clint.Clinton Christopher Coe, date of birth December 12, 1998”
The name is a blade in my mouth.Chux nods once.
“Start there.”
Lucy stiffens in my hold.
“I’m coming with y’all.”
“No.”
The word comes out harder than I intend.She jerks back, eyes flashing.“I’m not sitting here while my daughter?—”
“You’re not coming to this part,” I interrupt, forcing my voice down.“You stay here.With people.Where it’s safe.”
“I’m not safe anywhere if Quinn,” I don’t let her finish the sentence.
I cup her face, forcing her to look at me.“She needs you alive.Steady.When we bring her back she needs you ready.”
Her breath shudders.“I can’t just sit here.”
“You can,” I say.“For her.”
That lands.It hurts her.I see it.But it lands.Her hands grip my shirt.
“You bring her back to me.”
I don’t hesitate.“I will.”
No room for doubt.No room for anything else.She nods once, barely holding it together.I press a quick kiss to her forehead—grounding, not soft—and then I step away.
Because if I stay one second longer, I won’t leave.And leaving is the only thing that gets her kid back.
We find Clint in under an hour.Men like him don’t hide well.They lurk.They hover.They circle the same places they always have because they think fear is enough to keep people from pushing back.They’ve never met us.
He’s in a shitty rental on the edge of the next county, beer in hand, TV on too loud, like nothing in the world is wrong.Like he didn’t just set something in motion that ripped a child out of her safe place.
