29. Kanyan
29
KANYAN
T he tension in the room snaps like a live wire the second my phone vibrates on the table. We’ve been going round in circles, dissecting every angle, every breadcrumb of intel about Allegra’s abduction, and getting nowhere. I swipe to answer without even looking at the name.
“What the fuck do you mean—she’s gone?!” The roar rips out of me before I can stop it, shaking the room.
Jacklyn’s voice is calm, almost maddeningly so, as she explains the situation. “Lula’s missing. She left the hospital on her own. Security footage shows her walking out. No one forced her, Kanyan.”
The world tilts for a second. I grip the edge of the table, trying to steady myself. “What do you mean, on her own?” My voice is low now, but deadly.
“She’s gone. Mia and I got there minutes after you left. By the time we checked the cameras, it was already too late. She’s not there, Kanyan. She just… walked out.”
I barely hear the rest. My heart is hammering in my chest, the edges of my vision blurring. She walked out. Willingly. Without protection. Without me.
“She faked being sick,” I snarl, piecing it together. “She faked it to get away from me. To meet him.”
Jacklyn hesitates, but her silence is confirmation enough.
I shove back from the table, the chair scraping loudly against the floor. Rage boils in my chest, hot and uncontrollable. My fist slams into the wall, the pain barely registering.
“She’s trying to make a deal with that bastard,” I growl, pacing the room like a caged animal. “She thought she could trade herself for Allegra. Fucking hell, what was she thinking?!”
“She’s trying to help,” Jacklyn says cautiously.
“Help?” I bark out a bitter laugh. “She’s not helping. She’s making this worse. Now Derin has two hostages instead of one, and who the hell knows what he’ll do to her?”
Scar’s eyes are on me, watching silently from the corner of the room, but I can’t even look at him. I’m too blinded by fury—at Lula, at Derin, at myself for letting this happen.
I roar, picking up my phone and hurling it across the room. It smashes into the wall, shattering into pieces, but the sound barely registers.
And then it hits me.
The tracker.
I storm across the room and grab what’s left of my phone, the realization slamming into me like a freight train. When I replaced Lula’s phone a few months back, I added a tracker. Just in case. She doesn’t know about it. She’d never approve, but right now, I don’t care.
I drop into a chair, my fingers flying over the cracked screen as I pull up the tracking app. My heart pounds as the screen loads, each second stretching into eternity.
Come on. Come on.
Finally, a pin drops on the map, and I exhale sharply. “Got you,” I mutter under my breath. I lift my head, my voice steadier now but no less urgent. “I know where they are.”
Every head in the room snaps toward me, a mix of shock and anticipation in their eyes.
“You sure?” Scar asks, his voice low and cautious.
I nod, my jaw tightening. “She’s not thinking straight, but I am. We have a location. Let’s go.”
Scar and the others start gearing up, their movements quick and efficient, but my mind is already racing ahead. The thought of Derin touching her—hurting her—makes my blood boil all over again.
When I get my hands on him, I’ll make him regret the day he came to my city. But first, I have to get Lula back. Safe. Alive. And then I’m going to wring her neck.
She’s going to answer for her actions. She’s going to understand exactly what it means to risk her life like this.
But right now, none of that matters.
Because until I have her in my arms, breathing and whole, I won’t stop. Nothing will stop me.
The engine growls beneath me, a low, steady hum that matches the fury simmering in my chest. Scar sits beside me in the passenger seat, quiet but tense, like he’s holding back the urge to punch something. The rest of the crew follows in more cars, headlights cutting through the darkness behind us.
The map on my dashboard casts an eerie glow in the dark car, the blinking dot marking Lula’s location like a pulse—alive, but fragile. She’s at a cemetery. The word alone makes my heart stutter, my grip tightening on the wheel until my knuckles ache.
A cemetery.
People only go there for one reason.
My chest tightens, my thoughts spiraling, but I can’t let them take shape. I can’t give a voice to the fear clawing at me, the sickening images flashing in my mind of what Derin might be planning.
The seconds crawl by, each one stretching into an eternity, every mile between us feeling like a knife twisting deeper into my gut. Until I see her, until I know she’s safe, it’s like I’m suffocating. And I know that Scar is feeling the same, maybe even worse, but he’s holding himself well considering his loss of control when he realized that Allegra was taken.
My grip tightens on the wheel until my knuckles turn white. I can still feel the burn of my anger from earlier, but it’s different now—more focused, sharper. It’s not just rage anymore. It’s fear.
Fear of what I’ll find when we get there. Fear of being too late.
But deeper than that, there’s something else clawing at me. Something I’ve been burying for a long time.
Lula.
The way she got under my skin, pushing past the walls I’ve spent years building. The way her smile—God, that damn smile—can light up a room, even when she’s being infuriating. Especially when she’s being infuriating.
I’ve told myself it doesn’t matter, that she doesn’t matter. I’ve told myself it’s better this way, that I can’t afford to care too much. Caring makes you vulnerable. Vulnerability gets you killed.
But then she walked out of that hospital, straight into danger, and all those lies I told myself crumbled like ash.
She’s reckless. Stubborn. Completely impossible.
And I’d tear the world apart for her.
I grind my teeth, forcing myself to focus on the road. There’s no point in thinking about this now. About how every time she walks into a room, I can’t help but notice her. About how I’ve had to bite my tongue more times than I can count to stop myself from saying something—anything—that would tell her exactly how I feel about her.
It’s not who I am. It’s not who I’ve ever been. I’m the enforcer. The one who does what needs to be done, no matter the cost. Emotions have no place in my world.
But Lula makes me question all of that.
“Hey,” Scar’s voice cuts through my thoughts, low and steady. “You good?”
I glance at him, my jaw tightening. “I’m fine.”
He doesn’t look convinced, but he doesn’t push. Scar knows me well enough to know when to back off.
The truth is, I’m not fine. I’m anything but fine. Every mile that passes, every moment that keeps me away from her, feels like a knife twisting in my gut.
I keep replaying the last conversation we had, the way she looked at me before I left her at the hospital. There was something in her eyes—something I didn’t catch at the time but can’t stop thinking about now.
Regret.
She knew what she was planning. She knew I wouldn’t approve. And she did it anyway.
I slam my palm against the steering wheel, the sudden burst of anger startling even me.
“Motherfucker,” I mutter under my breath.
“What?” Scar asks, raising an eyebrow.
“Nothing,” I snap, then force myself to take a deep breath.
It’s not nothing. Yet it’s everything.
Because no matter how much I want to be angry at her, no matter how much I want to throttle her for putting herself in this position, I can’t ignore the truth.
She did it for Allegra. For someone else.
That’s who she is. Putting others before herself, even when it’s reckless. Even when it’s dangerous.
Even when it could cost her everything.
The road stretches out in front of us, long and empty, the silence in the car thick with unspoken tension. The location is getting closer now, the distance between me and Lula shrinking with every passing second.
I grip the wheel tighter, my mind racing. I can’t lose her. I won’t.
When we get there, I’ll do whatever it takes to bring her back.
And maybe—just maybe—it’s time I stop lying to myself about how much she means to me.
The thought twists something deep in my chest, but I push it aside. There’ll be time to deal with that later. Right now, all that matters is getting her back.
And God help anyone who tries to stand in my way.