Not even when she'd learned about Sabine's existence.
"Sabine's missing," she said, voice tight and already breaking around the edges. "Someone took her from school. She's gone."
Everything in the room stopped moving.
The air itself seemed to freeze solid.
My breathing. My heartbeat. Time itself.
I looked directly at Connor immediately, already knowing the answer but desperately needing verbal confirmation, anyway. "You think this might be them? The Consortium retaliating?"
"I don't know," he said with brutal honesty, but his entire body language had already shifted into full combat-ready mode. Mind calculating.
Ellsworth appeared silently in the doorway as if he'd been physically summoned by the sudden spike in tension alone.
Connor snapped instantly into pure military command mode without hesitation. "Get Kane whatever he needs. Weapons.Intelligence. Transportation. Communications. Everything available. We might be dealing with the active abduction of a five-year-old child."
Ellsworth's eyes went absolutely cold in response. Flat. Empty of anything even remotely resembling human mercy or hesitation.
In that single crystalline moment, I saw it with complete clarity.
The older British man had killed before. Many, many times. Probably significantly more than I had, despite my background.
Professional violence that went back decades.
And he would do it again without a single second of hesitation if an innocent child was involved.
"I'll get the wheels turning immediately," Ellsworth said, voice like ice, already turning to move with deadly purpose.
Ella was physically unraveling in front of me, hands shaking, trying desperately to hold herself together and failing. "We need to go right now. Étienne needs help and I promised?—"
"Go," Connor cut in firmly but not unkindly. "There's a car already waiting out front with a driver. We'll be behind you with full backup and resources."
I gave my friend a single nod of profound gratitude and quickly guided Ella toward the exit with my hand firm at her back.
Outside on the quiet street, a black SUV with tinted windows waited with the engine already idling.
Professional. Ready. Dangerous.
The driver turned to look at us briefly through the window.
He looked like he could strangle a full-grown grizzly bear with his bare hands without breaking a sweat or breathing hard. Heavily scarred knuckles. Completely dead eyes. Professional controlled violence barely contained under a thin veneer of civilization.
Exactly what we needed right now.
Ella climbed in quickly, visibly shaking, trying to control her breathing and mostly failing.
And all I could think about—the absolute only thing running through my tactical mind—was that my past sins had somehow directly come back to haunt the woman I was rapidly, irrevocably falling for.
The innocent five-year-old girl who'd wrapped her arms around Ella's legs this morning with complete trust.
Who'd smiled shyly at me like maybe I wasn't as scary as I looked.
If the Consortium had taken Sabine because of me, because of what I'd done?—
If they'd hurt one hair on that child's head to send me a message?—
I would kill every single one of them.
