A piece of paper was taped to Darla’s shoulder. An eerie repeat of that fucking note in Frankie’s mom’s mailbox. I peeled it off and read it, silent rage boiling inside me.
We have the girl. Pay up or she dies.
I handed it wordlessly to Jonathan. His hands shook. Alex cursed under his breath, low and lethal.
Darla grabbed my sleeve, voice cracking. “I—I’m so sorry. They came out of nowhere?—”
“Where’s Frankie?” I demanded, trying to keep my voice even and failing miserably.
“I don’t know where she is now!” she choked. “But I know how it started.”
Jonathan crouched so he was eye-level with her. “Tell us everything. Now.”
Darla swallowed hard. “She…she asked me to take her out. She said she needed something. Something private.”
Alex folded his arms, his posture cold steel. “What kind of errand?”
Darla flinched. “It’s private. Girl code, you know.”
I grabbed the back of a chair and squeezed until my knuckles popped. “Darla, this is not the time for loyalty to her secrets. She’s been taken. We need all the details.”
She shook her head fiercely. “It wasn’t anything bad. It was just personal. Girl stuff. She—she’ll tell you herself, when you find her.”
I looked at the other two. Jonathan’s eyes were blazing. Alex looked like he’d already started planning a massacre.
I leaned in close to Darla. “Whatever she was embarrassed about, she won’t be if we don’t get her back. Please.”
Her lips trembled—but she stayed silent.
She wasn’t cracking.
And honestly? I respected the hell out of it. Frankie trusted her, and Darla wasn’t going to betray that.
But god, it made the fear clawing my insides ten times worse.
Jonathan stood abruptly, pacing a short line across the room. “They’re using her to get to us. To me.” His voice darkened. “I should’ve seen this coming.”
Alex’s jaw flexed. “We don’t negotiate.”
“Not when it’s her,” I snapped. “We’re not risking Frankie. Not now, not ever.”
Jonathan nodded once, sharply. “Then we find them. Fast.”
The three of us shared a look—the kind that meant war.
Frankie was ours. Our responsibility. Our girl.
And someone had stolen her from us.
Alex slid his gun from its holster, checking the chamber with a metallic click that rang like a promise.
Jonathan straightened, all traces of grief and exhaustion burned away by pure rage. “We tear the city apart.”
I cracked my knuckles, adrenaline flooding hot and vicious through my veins. “And when we find whoever did this?”
Alex gave a cold, humorless smile. “They’ll beg us to kill them quickly.”
We didn’t waste another second.
