Total pages in book: 62
Estimated words: 61723 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 309(@200wpm)___ 247(@250wpm)___ 206(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 61723 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 309(@200wpm)___ 247(@250wpm)___ 206(@300wpm)
But I can’t hear them. I can’t hear anything except the sound of my own heart shattering.
“She was here,” I whisper, my voice shaking. “She was here, she had Quinn—she was supposed to—”
My knees give out. The world tilts. And then Tucker is there. Catching me before I hit the floor.
“I’ve got you,” he says, his voice rough and furious and trying so hard to stay steady.
But I’m already breaking. “She’s gone,” I sob. “He took her—he took them—” “No.” I clutch at his shirt, shaking. “No, no, no—please—”
“Lucy, look at me.”
I can’t. I can’t see anything through the tears.
“Look at me.”
His hands come to my face, forcing me gently but firmly to focus. His eyes are dark. Burning. Terrifying. But not at me.
Never at me.
“They’re alive,” he states, every word a promise. “Do you hear me?”
I shake my head, choking on my own breath. “I can’t—”
“They’re alive,” he repeats. “And we’re going to find them.”
The certainty in his voice cuts through the panic just enough to reach me. Just enough to hold onto. “You don’t know that,” I whisper.
“I do.”
“How?”
“Because I’m not letting anything else be true.”
The words hit like steel. Unyielding. Absolute.
Behind him, I hear Chux giving orders. Riot on the phone.
Saged tearing through the house like a man on the edge of losing everything.
And Tucker—Tucker holds me together in the middle of it.
“I’ve got you,” he says again, pulling me against him as I fall apart.
And this time, even through the terror, through the grief, through the unbearable fear clawing its way up my throat—I believe him.
Because I have to.
NINETEEN
MELLOW
Everything in me goes cold. Not loud. Not chaotic. Cold. The kind that strips emotion down to one thing—purpose. Lucy is shaking in my arms, breaking apart in a way that hits something deep and violent in my chest, but I don’t let myself stay there. Not yet. She needs me steady. Needs me focused.
So I lock it down.
Chux’s voice cuts through the house. “Phones. Now.”
Riot’s already moving, pulling up contacts, barking into his phone. Sages is pacing like a caged animal, running his hands through his hair, eyes wild.
“That’s my sister,” he snaps. “That’s my sister in her own house, she’s supposed to be safe.”
“And we’re getting her back,” Chux states, sharp and final. “But you don’t get to lose your head while we do it.”
Saged goes still.
Barely.
I keep one arm around Lucy while I look at Chux.
“Clint. Clinton Christopher Coe, date of birth December 12, 1998”
The name is a blade in my mouth. Chux nods once.
“Start there.”
Lucy stiffens in my hold.
“I’m coming with y’all.”
“No.”
The word comes out harder than I intend. She jerks back, eyes flashing. “I’m not sitting here while my daughter—”
“You’re not coming to this part,” I interrupt, forcing my voice down. “You stay here. With people. Where it’s safe.”
“I’m not safe anywhere if Quinn,” I don’t let her finish the sentence.
I cup her face, forcing her to look at me. “She needs you alive. Steady. When we bring her back she needs you ready.”
Her breath shudders. “I can’t just sit here.”
“You can,” I say. “For her.”
That lands. It hurts her. I see it. But it lands. Her hands grip my shirt.
“You bring her back to me.”
I don’t hesitate. “I will.”
No room for doubt. No room for anything else. She nods once, barely holding it together. I press a quick kiss to her forehead—grounding, not soft—and then I step away.
Because if I stay one second longer, I won’t leave. And leaving is the only thing that gets her kid back.
We find Clint in under an hour. Men like him don’t hide well. They lurk. They hover. They circle the same places they always have because they think fear is enough to keep people from pushing back. They’ve never met us.
He’s in a shitty rental on the edge of the next county, beer in hand, TV on too loud, like nothing in the world is wrong. Like he didn’t just set something in motion that ripped a child out of her safe place.
I don’t knock. The door comes off the hinges.
He’s halfway to standing when I cross the room and slam him into the wall hard enough to crack the drywall.
“What did you do?” I ask.
He laughs. Actually laughs. Up close, he looks smaller than I expected. Not just physically.
Just less of a man all the way around.
“You Tucker?” he sneers. “The biker playing house?”
My fist tightens in his shirt. “Where are they?”
“Who?”
I hit the wall beside his head.
Not him. Yet. The impact shakes the frame.
“Quinn,” I state, voice low and deadly. “And Marlaina.”
His grin widens. Then— He laughs again. “I don’t have them.”
I go still. Not because I believe him. Because I’m measuring the lie.
“You think I’d waste my time?” he states. “Lucy ran. Good for her. I moved on.”
Rage spikes sharp and fast. “You’ve been calling her.”