“What?” Eli asks.
“Nothing,” I say, shaking it off. “Just thought I saw someone I knew.”
He looks anyway. Doesn’t see anything. We keep moving. The feeling lingers for half a step. Then fades. Because this is normal. Because I’m overthinking. Because I’ve been on edge for days and everything feels like it might mean something when it probably doesn’t.
We’re almost to the doors when it happens. No warning. No buildup. Just impact.
A hand clamps over my mouth so fast I don’t even get a breath in to scream. My body jerks, instinct firing, but another arm locks around my waist, pulling me back hard enough that my feet leave the ground for half a second. Cold metal presses against my throat. Knife. Sharp. Immediate.
“Don’t move,” a voice breathes against my ear.
My body stills. Not from fear. From understanding.
Eli shouts my name. The sound is cut short by the crack of something hitting him.
I twist as much as the grip allows. He’s already fighting. He swings, lands one hit, then another, but there are too many of them. Two, no, three men move in fast, controlled, overwhelming him before he can get his footing. This isn’t a sloppy grab. This is precise. Planned.
“Move,” another voice snaps.
The arm around me tightens. I’m dragged backward. Fast. No hesitation. No fumbling. They know exactly what they’re doing.
“Get him,” someone snaps.
That changes everything. They weren’t planning to leave him. Two of them move in at once, efficient, practiced. One drives a knee into Eli’s back, forcing him flat while the other yanks his arms behind him. Plastic tightens around his wrists in one brutal motion, the zip tie biting deep enough that he grunts through clenched teeth. He still fights. Even restrained, he twists, trying to throw one of them off, but it only earns him another hit, sharp, precise, meant to stun, not kill.
“Move,” the voice at my ear says again, colder now.
My grip tightens on nothing as I’m dragged backward, the knife still pressed to my throat, the pressure a constant reminder not to do anything stupid.
Eli’s hauled up next to me, barely on his feet, blood already starting to show at the edge of his mouth.His eyes find mine. Still aware. Still fighting. “Olivia—”
A hand shoves him forward, cutting him off.
The car door is already open.
We’re pushed in almost at the same time, bodies closing in around us before we can shift or brace. Eli hits the seat hard beside me, shoulder slamming into mine as someone climbs in after us.
The door slams. Another on the opposite side. Locks click. The engine revs.
And just like that…
we’re both gone.
I walk into the clubhouse expecting her to be there.
That’s the first mistake. Not because she should have been anywhere else. She shouldn’t have. She knows that now. Everyone knows that now. After the alley, after the knife, after the message, after every fucking warning written in blood and fear around her name, there is no version of this day where Olivia should be outside these walls without me.
So I expect her.
In the main room with the women. In the kitchen with coffee she probably won’t finish. Curled on the couch with Knox trying to climb into her lap like he’s decided she belongs to him too. Maybe in my room, wearing one of my shirts, pretending she isn’t tired because she hates being treated like she’s fragile.
I step inside with warehouse smoke still clinging to my cut and dried blood dark along my knuckles, and my eyes go straight to the couch.
Empty.
Kitchen.
No Olivia.
