Chace rubs his face, jaw tight. “We don’t know for sure. Blurry images, shit footage—been popping up everywhere. Could’vebeen following you. Trying to help. Doesn’t make sense for him to take her.”
I don’t believe a word of it.
My heartbeat roars in my ears.
“Do you believe he has her?”
He lets out a breath. Not quite a laugh.
“What am I, a magic eight ball?All signs point to yes.”
Confusion crashes into anger, into fear. My dad—the man who broke me over and over, who taught me pain before strength—might haveher. My wife. My world. My fucking everything.
If he’s got her…
Nausea twists my stomach, bile rising. “He can’t—he wouldn’t…” But I don’t believe myself. Every memory of him is cruelty incarnate. The thought of her in his hands shreds me.
Everything roars—guilt, fury, helplessness, despair. I failed her. I wasn’t her shield. I didn’t stop it. She’s out there, with him—the one man I swore would never touch my life—while I lie here, stitched together, useless.
Get. Up.
My body shakes, a storm of agony and guilt. Pain radiates through my ribs, side, chest, lungs, a constant, sharp ache that steals every breath. Ten days. Ten days not knowing what she’s enduring.
I close my eyes, pressing a trembling hand to my side, trying to anchor myself to something solid. “Chace,” I grunt.
I try to move. Just a little, enough to peek at the door, to stand, to find her.
Pain explodes, ribs scream, my chest seizes. Fresh blood leaks through the bandage, sticky and hot, soaking the sheets. Bile rises. Breath stolen.
“Fuck!” Chace drops to a knee. “Don’t move!”
I push anyway, shaking, gripping the sheets, world tilting. “I have to—she—”
“Your body’s wrecked!” Chace snaps. “You had a collapsed lung, internal bleeding, multiple contusions—if you move, you could tear everything open. They only just took your chest tube out. You need to heal. You hear me?”
I shake my head, desperation twisting me. “I can’t just wait! She could be—”
“You’re bleeding through your side, you moron!” Chace hits the call button. Nurses rush in seconds later, moving with precision while my chest convulses with grief and pain.
I focus on them, barely, as memory and present collide. Seraphina running, alone, terrified.
I didn’t protect her. I failed.
Tears come, unstoppable, streaking my face.
Chace speaks again, voice low. “Trey… you survive. That’s what you do now. Keep breathing. Stay alive. She needs you alive.”
I shake my head, clawing at sheets. “I… I failed her…”
“Grow the fuck up, man. You were chained down, getting the shit kicked out of you. Stabbed. Burned. You flatlined three, maybe four times on the way to the hospital. It was a shit situation, but knowing you, you made the most of it. You didn’t fail her, brother…you got sucker-punched by a fucking cult.”
I failed her, and now she’s gone.
“Trey.” Chace’s voice softens, just a fraction, but it still cuts through the haze. “I love you, man, but if I have to get Mac in here to verbally kick the shit out of you, I will.”
The fury doesn’t burn me down—it hardens. Every scream in my chest becomes a weapon, every throb of pain a reminder. I’m done being broken. “Stop being a fucking idiot and torturing yourself over what happened,” he snaps. “Focus on what happens next. You won’t get out of here if they haul you back into surgery. Focus. Damn it.”
He’s right.
