Soren’s growl comes through the speakers, deep, like a bull ready to charge. I can almost picture him on the other side, fists clenched, wanting to rip Finn apart with his bare hands.
My body is starting to wake up again, sluggish and reluctant. I manage to sit up a little straighter in the chair. The movement sends a wave of nausea rolling through me. I immediately reach for the bucket on the other side of the chair, barely getting it in front of me in time.
I gag violently, but there’s almost nothing left to throw up. Just bitter, burning bile that scorches my throat and leaves me gasping and shaking. My stomach clenches again and again, empty and painful. I feel like death.
Through the haze I hear Selina’s voice crackling over the feed, raw and furious. “I swear to God, Finn, you little fucker… I’m gonna personally chop your tiny dick off and feed it to you!”
Finn just laughs louder, clearly thrilled by the reaction, and reaches forward to shut the feed off. The screen goes black. The only sound left is my own heavy, ragged breathing and the wet drip of bile into the bucket. My eyes feel heavy again. I need real sleep, not this drugged, forced unconsciousness. I spit one last time intothe bucket, then set it down with trembling hands and wipe my mouth with the back of my forearm.
When I finally look up, Finn’s already grinning at me, wide and manic. We just stare at each other for a long, awful beat. I wonder what the hell this guy’s problem is. I’ve never heard of him before today. I have no idea how Soren knows him, but this man is completely insane… eyes too bright, smile too wide, like he’s enjoying every second of my fear. I frown when I notice movement that’s almost dizzying.
Finn stands up slowly and says, almost conversationally, “You knowwhythey’ll never find you?”
He walks over to the wall and pulls up one of the blinds. Behind it is a circular window, and outside… theocean, sparkling blue water stretching under the late afternoon sun. The boat rocks gently, the motion subtle but unmistakable.
Finn laughs, bright and triumphant, like he’s the smartest person alive. “We’re in the fucking ocean, baby!”
I close my eyes and inhale shakily, the salt air sharp in my nose.I’m really going to die out here with this freak.
Soren
The screen goes black. For a long, suffocating second, the entire room is silent. Half my team iscrammed in here… Ray, Armen, Selina, Sam, Luke, a few others… all of them frozen, staring at the dead feed like it might flicker back to life and give us Kit again. No one speaks; the only sound is the low hum of the monitors and the ragged scrape of my own breathing.
Twenty-four hours… it’s been twenty-four hours since Finn took him. All night since we figured out it was him.
I haven’t slept more than twenty minutes at a stretch. I’ve been living on black coffee and rage, pacing this room like a caged animal until my legs burned. At some point I must have passed out in this chair, because I remember jolting awake to the slam of my office door when Sam and Luke stormed in shouting that they had Finn on a video call. It didn’t take long for the rest of them to pile in, even Lorraine, who I would have preferred stayed far away from this. But she came anyway, eyes red-rimmed, refusing to be left out when it came to Kit.
And now this. Finn’s psychotic grin is still burned behind my eyelids. The way he leaned into the camera and promised to send Kit back in pieces. The way Kit looked… pale, drugged, andterrified, but still trying to mumble that he was okay.
My hands start to shake. The silence stretches another second. Then something inside me snaps. A low, guttural sound tears out of my throat, not quite a growl, not quite a roar, something worse. My fist slams down onthe desk once, twice, the wood splintering under the force.
“FINN!”
I grab the heavy leather chair beside me and hurl it across the room with every ounce of fury in my body. It slams into the wall so hard the wood splinters and the leather tears, leaving a jagged dent in the plaster. The crash is deafening. I’m breathing like a wounded animal, chest heaving, vision narrowing to a red tunnel. My hands are shaking with the need to destroy something.
“That psychotic little rat thinks he can take what’s mine?” My voice is raw, shaking with fury so deep it feels like it’s tearing me apart from the inside. “He thinks he can drugmyboy, put hisfilthyhands on him, and taunt me on a fucking screen?”
My hands are still shaking as I grab a heavy glass paperweight and throw it so hard it shatters against the far wall, shards raining down like confetti. “I willskinhimalive.”
The words come out quiet at first, almost whispered, then build into a snarl. “I will cut him open while he’s still breathing and pull his intestines out inch by inch. I will make him beg for death. I will sendeverylast piece of him back to his brothers in gift-wrapped boxes. I will burn theirentirebloodline to ash andpisson the fucking ruins.”
I’m pacing now, hands clenched so tight my nails cut into my palms. Blood trickles down my fingers but I don’t feel it. “Hetouchedhim. He touched what’smine.”
My voice cracks on the last word; raw and broken in a way I haven’t let myself sound in years.
I stop pacing, chest heaving, vision blurring at the edges. I look at the blank screen one last time, the screen that just showed me Kit’s terrified face, and the last thread of control snaps.
A roar rips out of me, loud and primal, echoing off the walls like thunder. “FIND HIM!”
The order explodes through the room.
“Every camera. Every contact. Every fucking rat in this city.Find.Him.”
I slam my fist into the nearest wall, cracking the plaster, and leave a smear of blood behind.
The room explodes into motion as everyone scrambles at once, voices overlap in urgent bursts. Sam’s already barking orders into his headset while grabbing his laptop. Luke lunges for a tablet and heads for the door. Armen is on his feet, phone pressed to his ear, snapping commands as he moves. Selina grabs her own device and hurries toward the exit, face pale but determined. Ray is the first one out, already coordinating the street teams on his phone. They pour out of my office in a chaotic rush, the door banging open and shut behind them.
No one hesitates, no one speaks to me directly, they know better. Because right now, I am rapidly running out of patience.
