CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
GHOST TOWN
ZACK
The rain hasn’t stopped, and I don’t think it ever will. It soaks through my jacket, runs down the back of my neck, pools in the cracks of the pavement, and I barely feel it. Because all my attention is locked on the absence beside me where Hazel should be. The passenger door hangs open, light spilling uselessly onto wet concrete, and I still hear her scream echoing somewhere in my skull—sharp, terrified, and cut off too fast to be anything but intentional. I force myself to breathe—slow and steady—because panic wastes time, and time is the one thing I don’t have.
It replays on a loop in my mind methodically, because that’s how you survive moments like this. Dark SUV. No visible plates. Professional movement. Two, maybe three people. Not random. Not opportunistic. Targeted. My hands shake as I lock the car and scan the lot one more time, committing every angle to memory—even though it’s already too late for any of it to matter. Whoever took her knew exactly how long they had and exactlyhow to disappear. This couldn’t have been The Whispering Killer, ‘cause that’s just one person, but not knowing how the fuck they got past me is eating me alive.
My phone vibrates in my hand hoping it’s not the unread message from her, and for half a second I hope against everything I know that it’s her.
It isn’t.
Unknown Number.
The words stare back at me like a dare, and when I open the message, something inside my chest goes cold and precise, like a switch flipping. The memory of the text flashes in my mind, an unrelenting reminder that I don’t have a single fucking thing under control.
You brought her back to where it started.
I told you she wasn’t safe.
The rain blurs the screen—or maybe that’s my vision. I wipe it away with the heel of my hand and read it again, slower this time, letting the meaning settle in. This isn’t about money, leverage, or chaos. This is personal. This is someone who knows me, knows my history, and knows exactly how to cut deep and clean.
Detroit.
I dial Lincoln before the message finishes echoing in my head.
“She’s gone,” I say the moment he answers, because there’s no room for anything else.
There’s a pause on the other end of the line. Not disbelief, but recalibration. Lincoln has always been good at that. “Where?”
“Gas station off the highway. Dark SUV. Clean grab. They planned it.”
“Anyone hurt?”
“Yes,” I say with a swallow. “Her.”
“Then listen to me,” he says, his voice low and sharp. “You don’t chase blind.”
“I’m not chasing,” I reply, already moving, already thinking. “I’m hunting.”
I hang up before he can argue, climb back into the driver’s seat, and peel out of the lot, tires screaming as I follow the path the SUV took, even though I know better than to expect miracles. The city swallows roads the way the ocean swallows wreckage, leaving nothing but ghosts behind, and every turn feels like a coin flip between hope and futility.
I force myself to slow down, to think, because rage is a blunt instrument and I need precision. They contacted me immediately, which means they want control, and control requires proximity. They want me moving—reacting and making mistakes. I won’t give them that. I pull over under an overpass, kill the engine, and sit in the dark with my head resting against the steering wheel, breathing through the pressure building behind my eyes.
Cameron was right.
Every instinct I ignored, every warning I told myself was paranoia, comes roaring back with brutal clarity. This wasn’t a risk that went sideways. This was a trap I walked her into, and the weight of that realization settles heavy and unforgiving in my chest. I don’t let it break me. I don’t let it slow me down. Guilt can come later. Right now, I need it to become fuel.
I scroll through my contacts and make the calls I swore I wouldn’t have to make again, dragging ghosts out of retirementand into the light. Voices answer—some angry, some tired, some relieved—but all of them understand the same unspoken rule:
When one of us is taken, we don’t stop.
I open my notes app and start building a list: cameras along the highway, private traffic feeds, known safehouses that are no longer safe, names that still owe me favors, and names that don’t but will help anyway. I send messages without explanation and receive replies without questions. The city is a machine, and I know where enough of the gears are hidden to make it scream.
My phone buzzes again.
Another message.
