I clutched the counter as the nausea rolled through me, forcing myself to breathe.
I had no idea where she was. Even if I did leave, I wouldn’t know where to start searching for her.
My jaw locked so tight it hurt.
I shoved away from the counter and started to pace, my boots thudding heavily on the hardwood floor. I couldn’t sit. Sitting felt impossible. Every instinct in my body screamed at me to move, to dosomething, to fix this.
The kitchen table had been turned into a makeshift command center. Laptops were open and phones were scattered across the surface. Fox sat hunched over multiple screens while Graham leaned back in his chair with his arms crossed, brows narrowed in concentration.
Members of the security team sat around them, including Jude, the man who’d been in charge of Palmer.
I barely spared them a glance.Useless.
The word burned through my mind like acid. They were supposed to keep Palmer safe. That had been the entire damn point.
Yet somehow Amos Anderson had taken Palmer anyway.
I dragged a hand through my hair as I paced past the table, the fury boiling hotter.
This was my fault.
I should have never let this plan go forward. I shouldn’t have brought Palmer into it. I should have never let her anywhere near this mess.
Now she was out there somewhere with a serial killer.
And I had no idea how to get her back.
I kept pacing the kitchen, but the room had started to blur. Voices rose and fell around me as my brothers talked with the security team, their words overlapping in low, tense bursts of strategy and speculation.
I barely heard any of it.
All I could see was that photo of Palmer tied up, her wrists bound.
Every time I blinked, it was there. Mocking me. Destroying me.
It felt like I was drowning, like I’d slipped under the surface of something dark and heavy and couldn’t find my way back up.
“Roman.”
A hand closed around my arm and pulled me out of the kitchen, putting some distance between us and the others. When we were near the empty living room, August turned me to face him, still gripping my arm.
“Roman,” he said. “You need to focus.”
I let out a hollow laugh. “Focus?” I snapped. “This whole fucking plan has fallen apart.”
My chest felt tight. Too tight. I couldn’t breathe right.
“He took her, August,” I gritted out.
The words scraped through my raw throat.
August grabbed my shoulders and shook me hard enough to rattle my teeth. “I know how you’re feeling,” he said sharply. “But you need to snap out of it and help us get her back.”
“You don’t—”
“I do.” He cut in. His fingers dug into my shoulders. “I know exactly how you’re feeling.” His eyes flashed with a potent rage.
“When he took Emersyn,” August continued, quieter now, “it was like my entire world had been stolen from me.”
