Total pages in book: 108
Estimated words: 102754 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 514(@200wpm)___ 411(@250wpm)___ 343(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 102754 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 514(@200wpm)___ 411(@250wpm)___ 343(@300wpm)
Just as I rounded the final corner, two figures stepped into my path, blocking the way. Alex and Raul didn’t raise their hands or bark orders. They just stood there, grim, their faces pale and eyes heavy with the truth they didn’t want to speak.
Their expressions said it before their mouths could.
“They’re not there,” Alex explained quietly, his voice more apology than warning. He reached out, maybe to steady or stop me, but I brushed right past him, heart hammering like a war drum.
“No,” I said, barely above a whisper. “She would've taken them there.”
I reached the closet like a man sleepwalking, my hand moving to the edge of the frame before my brain could catch up. My fingers touched the plasterboard and froze.
It was already gone—ripped off and thrown aside like someone had found it in a rush, so the panel now lay at an awkward angle on the floor. I stepped forward, crouched, and looked into the space I had prayed they’d still be in.
The small crawlspace behind the closet was completely empty.
But what stopped me cold—what hollowed me out—was the blood. Not just a drop or a scrape—there were streaks on the wall and floor, across the edge of the opening where it looked like someone had been dragged or had fought to stay.
My eyes swept across the mess, cataloging the chaos with brutal clarity. My skillet was just outside the space, dented and coated with blood. The knife Sayla must have grabbed from the kitchen lay beside it, the blade still slick and dark. The rolling pin wasn’t far, resting where it had fallen, fingerprints smudged through more blood.
There had been a helluva fight.
And everything inside me fractured at once.
For a moment, all I could feel was white noise—a deafening, static scream that drowned out the rest of the world. Like the blood in my veins had frozen and my bones had gone hollow. The air felt too thin, the light too bright, and everything in my chest collapsed inward.
But I couldn’t let it break me. Not now.
I forced breath back into my lungs, inhaling sharp and hard, shoving every ounce of panic and despair down deep where it couldn’t paralyze me. They weren’t here, but they weren’t dead either.
Sayla had fought. It was written in every inch of the room—the overturned furniture, the smeared handprints on the wall, the blood splattered across the floor. This wasn’t panic or surrender, it was resistance, pure and fierce. She hadn’t gone quietly. She’d bought time, done damage, and made them bleed. That blood on the knife, skillet, and floor meant something. It meant she’d landed hits, and someone didn’t walk away clean.
And maybe she’d managed to get the kids out. Maybe that chaos and violence was a distraction—a last stand to give Kairo and Kaida the chance to run and hide.
If there were even the slimmest possibility she’d pulled it off, I still had time. I still had a chance to catch up, cut them off, or do something. The not knowing gnawed at me, but it wasn’t going to stop me, it was going to fuel me.
Because if she was out there, and the kids were still breathing, then nothing else mattered. I was going to find them. I’d tear down every wall, every safe house, every rat hole these bastards thought they could hide in. I’d hunt them until there was nowhere left to run.
And if any of them had laid a hand on her or the kids, even a God wouldn’t be able to help them. I was coming with everything I had, everything I was, and I wasn’t going to be reasonable. I wasn’t going to play by the rules, I was going to be the nightmare they didn’t see coming until it was too damn late.
And this time, I wasn’t leaving a single one of them standing.
Chapter 25
Roque
The smell of burnt engine oil and crushed drywall still hung thick in the air, but I barely noticed. My ears were ringing with the pressure of everything that hadn’t been said yet—everything I feared was true. My thoughts were spinning in too many directions when Alex and DB approached me outside the house.
They looked grim but focused.
“The driver’s still alive,” Alex said grimly, voice low. “Barely.”
“Neck’s likely broken,” DB added. “Paramedics said they’re stabilizing him, but he’s got abdominal trauma too. Either way, there’s no way to question him yet.”
I nodded once, jaw tight. “Doesn’t matter for now, he was just the transport.”
They exchanged a look, and I knew what they were asking without them saying it.
I gave them the short version. “The guy we’re hunting is calling himself Titian. A top tier in a syndicate we’ve been tracking connected to drugs, property scams, and trafficking. We think he ordered the hit on Kaden Roper and is tied to Romeo Foster. He’s protected and smart and ghosted every database we’ve tried, and we’ve got reason to believe he’s got people on the inside.”