“I—” I swallow hard, my chest tight. “I’ve had cameras in her flat. Even when I thought… even when I thought she’d betrayed us. I couldn’t stay away. I had to make sure she was safe. And now…” My voice cracks. “We’re too late. The flat’s empty.”
“You had cameras in her flat?” He drags each word out slowly, disbelief coating his words.
“Yes,” I admit, shame and urgency coiling tight in my stomach. “I needed to know she was okay. Even when I thought she was involved in this shit, I couldn’t—”
“Matt,” he interrupts gently but firmly, “you did what you had to. But now, focus. Tell me everything you know. Where is she?”
I swallow hard. “I don’t know. That’s why I’m calling. Can you start looking into the street cameras near her place? I’m heading up to Jonathan. I’m sick and tired of playing by the rules, if Salvatore thinks he can take Lily, then it’s all-out war. Fuck playing it careful.”
There’s a beat of silence. Not hesitation—calculation.
“Matt,” Owen says slowly, “you can’t go straight to war on a guess. We don’t know if it's Salvatore.”
“It’s him,” I snap, too fast, too raw. “You said it yourself. They were always planning on selling her. Who the fuck else even has a reason—”
“Anyone,” Owen cuts in, voice steady as a scalpel. “We’ve been hunting this trafficking ring for years. Everyone knows Lily is Benedict’s daughter. There’s bound to be more than one man with a God complex out there, pissed off that we’re trying to stop their operation. But listen—listen to me, Matt—if you walk into Jonathan’s penthouse and start throwing accusations without proof, you’ll start a war we can’t contain.”
My throat burns and I clench my fists until bone grinds against bone.
“I’m not sitting on my hands while she’s out there.” It comes out hoarse, like the words have been ripped from my soul. “Alone.”
“I’m not asking you to sit on your hands,” Owen says, tone softer now, but only by a fraction. “I’ll pull the street cam feeds. I’ll loop Cora in. We’ll get eyes on anything out of the ordinary. But you need to keep your head.Lilyneeds you to keep your head.”
I drag a shaky breath down my throat, forcing it past the tightness. “I can’t—Christ, Owen, I can’t lose her.”
“That’s why you’re going to Jonathan,” he replies. “And that’s why you’re walking in there with facts, not rage. Tell him what you know. Let him do what he does best. But Matt… this means the inner circle will be looped in. You know that, right?”
I do. And even as dread settles heavy in my chest, something else pulses beneath it—relief. Because this is bigger than pride, bigger than secrets. Lily needs everyone.
All of them.
The inner circle.
Da and Uncle Bren—the Butcher Brothers, men who earned that name the hard way, whose reputations alone have ended fights before they began. Seamus, Owen’s father, quiet andlethal, the kind of man who never raises his voice because he’s never had to. Jack—Abigail’s dad—calculating, merciless when it counts. Declan, who’s learned more about power and blood than most men will ever know.
Men who’ve run this city for decades.
Men who terrify half the country without ever needing to announce themselves.
Helen—who once bit a man’s dick clean off to survive a trafficking ring that thought it owned her. And at the head of it all stands Jonathan—the kind of man who would burn this entire organisation to the ground just for the chance to get his hands on anyone who hurt Helen… if she didn’t beat him to it.
Logan and Abbie will no doubt find out what’s happening before the sun rises.
And when they do, there won’t be a corner of this city left untouched because no one is more loyal than that girl, and no one is more relentless in his pursuit of peace than Logan.
Because whoever took Lily didn’t just take a girl.
They woke a fucking dynasty.
Owen means it as a warning, but all I can think is,good. The more people who know, the more eyes searching, the better.
And if they learn she’s mine in the process?
Better still.
“Fine,” I spit out. “Call me the second you get anything.”
“You’ll be the first to know.”
