2. Kaden
2
KADEN
The bullet in my shoulder burns like hellfire as I force myself back to consciousness. Layla's scream as she was dragged away echoes in my mind; the last thing I heard and saw before everything went black. As I blink awake in what seems to be a basement, panic grips my soul.
Where the fuck is Layla?
I try to sit up, but a wave of dizziness slams me back down onto the couch. The room spins, and I clutch the torn upholstery, willing the nausea away. I need to move. I need to find her.
A figure stirs in the dim light. For a moment, hope surges— Layla?
But as my vision clears, I see it's Ethan, hunched over a neon-orange plastic desk and sitting in a tiny yellow chair, the glow of his laptop illuminating his haggard face.
“Ethan,” I say, my voice one notch above a rasp.
He jumps, nearly knocking over an energy drink can. “You're awake!”
He scrambles over, worry etched on his face. “How—how are you feeling?”
“Like shit.” I wince, fighting the endless agony as I push myself up. “What happened? Where's Layla?”
Ethan's expression falls, and my stomach drops.
“I don't know,” he admits. “When I got to Pulse, it was chaos. Alarms blaring, security everywhere. I found you unconscious in a service corridor near the server room. Layla was ... gone.”
The amount of air in the room suddenly shrinks.
I grunt, grimacing as I shift on the couch. “You patch me up?”
Ethan nods, pushing his glasses up. “Yeah. CIA recruitment wasn't all computers. Basic field med was part of the training. They don’t tell people that, though … I’m probably not supposed to tell you that.”
It’s too easy to forget that the kid's got some skills beyond hacking, and that a dumb college prank kicked him out of likely becoming a successful spook. The way his stolen records explained it, Ethan never made it to the recruitment phase. Yet my stitches say otherwise. He could be an asset going forward. But then reality crashes back.
“How long?” I demand.
“You've been out for almost seventy-two hours,” Ethan says, his voice barely above a whisper. “I brought you to my cousin's place.”
I blearily glance around the room with small rectangular windows near the ceiling. A basement, then. In one corner, a plastic play kitchen overflows with miniature pots, pans, and brightly colored fake foods. Nearby, a tower of wooden blocks teeters precariously. A worn, patterned carpet stretches across the floor, its once vibrant colors now muted by years of spilled juice and stomping feet. The walls are a warm, inviting shade of yellow, though the paint is chipped in places.
Ethan adds, “He and his family are out of town, and I knew we needed to lay low.”
I tear my gaze away from a child’s prized doodles adorning the walls.
Seventy-two hours. Seventy-two fucking hours of Layla missing. The thought makes me sick.
“We need to move,” I say, standing despite the room's sudden tilt. “Every second we waste?—”
“Is a second Layla could be in danger, I know.” Ethan surprises me with his boldness. “But you're no good to her if you tear those stitches and bleed out before we even start looking.”
I hate that he's right. I slump back onto the couch, letting him check the wound just above my armpit. Every second I lay here feels like a betrayal to Layla, but I force myself to breathe through the pain.
Ethan mumbles to himself as he peels back the bandage, his brow furrowed. “Okay, okay, it doesn't look too bad. I mean, it looks bad, but not, like, life-threateningly bad. I think.”
“You sure you know what you're doing?” I ask, my voice tight.
“It's not like we have a lot of options here. Just ... try not to move too much, okay?”
I bite back a retort, reminding myself that Ethan's out of his depth here. We both are.
“Just clean it and wrap it up,” I grunt.
I grit my teeth as he dabs at the wound with a damp cloth, the cold water sending spasms down my spine. Ethan works in silence, his face scrunched up in a mixture of concentration and mild nausea.
“Talk to me,” I demand, needing a distraction. “What do we know?”
Satisfied with his emergency triage for the moment, Ethan straightens and returns to his laptop. “Not much, unfortunately. I've been monitoring police scanners, traffic cams, anything I can access remotely. There's no sign of Layla anywhere. It's like she vanished into thin air.”
A cold dread settles in my gut. “And the woman? The one who shot me?”
Ethan hesitates, the confusion clear in his eyes. “I don't know anything about a woman. When I found you, there was no one else there. Mr. Black, what happened in that server room?”
I close my eyes, the memories flooding back. Cassie. My daughter. Alive. The baby girl I thought I'd lost, now a creature of Morelli's creation. But Frank Morelli’s dead, his life squeezed out by my hands. And Cassie has Layla.
But Ethan doesn't know any of this. How could he? I never told anyone about Cassie or my past. And now that past has come back to haunt me—to hurt Layla.
“It's complicated,” I mutter, not ready to delve into that particular hell. “Just keep looking.”
Ethan nods, though questions burn in his eyes. He turns back to his computer, and I force myself to stand again, gnashing my teeth against the streak of fire in my shoulder.
“What are you doing?” Ethan asks in alarm.
“Getting ready,” I growl, scanning the too-bright basement for my gear. “We can’t hide here forever.”
I spot my go-bag in the corner, relieved Ethan had the foresight to grab it. I rummage through it, taking stock. Extra mags, a burner phone, a wad of cash. It's not much, but it's a start.
“Kaden, uh, Mr. Black, wait,” Ethan says. “You can't just go charging out there. We need a plan.”
I round on him, my patience fraying. “I have a plan. Find Layla, and put a bullet in anyone who gets in my way.”
Ethan flinches but stands his ground. “And how exactly do you propose we do that? We have no leads and no idea where to even start looking. If we go in guns blazing, we could end up getting Layla killed.”
As much as I hate to admit it, he's right. Cassie's smart; she's calculating. She'll be expecting me to come after her.
She’s my daughter.
She shot her own father in cold blood.
I slump back on the couch. Each core memory is a jagged shard slicing into my heart.
I remember the day Cassie was born, how tiny and perfect she was in my arms. Her little hand gripping my finger with a strength that belied her size. I remember her first steps, her first words. The way her face would light up when I came home, her little legs running to meet me at the door.
But then the memories turn dark, twisted. The day I came home to find the house ransacked and blood on the floor. Cassie's room empty, her favorite stuffed rabbit abandoned on the bed. The frantic search, the police reports, the dead ends. The realization that my past sins had been visited upon my twelve-year-old daughter.
And what I turned myself into so I could find her.
It never occurred to me that Cassie would do something similar to survive. I can't reconcile the sweet, innocent girl I knew with the cold-eyed woman who put a bullet in my shoulder. What did Morelli do to her? What horrors did she endure to become this depraved reflection of herself?
The way Cassie smiled after she shot me, the pleasure she took in demanding Layla’s life in return for mine, emboldens the voice in my head: You failed her. You couldn’t protect her. And now look what she’s become.
Cassie’s bullet tore through my flesh like it meant nothing. But … she didn’t aim to kill.
“Mr. Black?”
Ethan’s voice pulls me back.
“What?” I snap, harsher than I intend.
He winces but presses on. “I think I may have found something.”
I'm on my feet, ignoring the stabbing pain in my right side, and walk over to Ethan’s makeshift workstation. “What is it?”
“I've been trying to trace the source of the outside surveillance footage from Pulse Dynamic’s building. Whoever hijacked the feed in the server room did a damn good job of covering their tracks.” Ethan furrows his brow and leans closer to the screen. “But every connection leaves a trace, no matter how faint.”
“Some kind of event was going on,” I say, fragments of images coming together in my head as I try to recall what led up to Layla and me being cornered in the server room. “Powerful people were there to conduct black market trades. Morelli was there, and his Mafia family always ensures their Ghost Leader doesn’t leave a trace when he’s present.”
“So it’s official. Morelli has her,” Ethan concludes in a soft voice.
“No.”
My denial draws his head up.
“Morelli’s dead. I killed him.”
Ethan’s eyes widen behind his glasses. “Holy shit. Then who has her?”
I resist the urge to bow my head and allow the sheer weight of my circumstances to physically overwhelm me. “His … successor.”
Ethan turns his laptop to face me. “I've been trying to trace the digital trail. It's not much, but there's a faint signal, a sort of electronic echo.”
I lean forward, ignoring the pull of my stitches.
“It's like a digital signature,” Ethan explains. “Unique to the device that captured the footage?—”
“I know what it is.”
“Right. Of course.” Ethan clears his throat. “A similar signature is bouncing off servers across the city. It’s heavily encrypted, but the pattern is the same.”
Hope, dangerous and fragile, blooms in my chest. “And?”
“I think I can trace it to a physical location. I’m running a decryption algorithm now.”
The minutes drag by as Ethan spins the laptop to face him again, his eyes locked on the screen as he types. I pace the small room, my mind competing with itself on what could be the worst possibility, each one more grim than the last. What if Cassie's already gone underground? What if she's killed Layla? What if?—
“Got it!” Ethan exclaims, his face awash in the blue glow of the screen. “The signal's coming from a place called the Siren's Call. It's a high-end nightclub downtown.”
I freeze, the name sending a chill down my spine. The Siren’s Call. I know it well. Most of Greycliff’s residents believe it to be the number one way to enjoy nightlife around here, if one has deep pockets. Otherwise, they choose the only other option, a cheap dive bar nearby. But the popular nightclub is just a glitzy facade for the dark deeds that happen behind its hidden doors.
I never thought I'd have to set foot in that place again.
“Are you sure?” I ask, my voice unintentionally rough.
Ethan eyes me, alerted by my tone, and licks his lips before responding. “The, uh, encryption on the signal matches the surveillance footage from Pulse Dynamics, so … yes?”
Unbidden, the most difficult memory of Layla surfaces. She’s splayed across her bed, naked, her knees falling to the side as she exposes herself to me. Her breath skims over my skin, a fleeting warmth that pulled me from the hollow where I usually reside. Layla’s golden blond hair, cascading over her shoulders, brushes against her nipples along with my fingers, and for a heartbeat, I’m anchored.
I tasted salt and skin, and it’s a brand I’ve now marked a hundred times in memory. She was pressed against her mattress, her pussy arching for me, and I lost myself in the scent of coconut, sea salt, and her, in a way that it now clings to me.
My hands roamed, mapping every inch of her soft, bare skin, every freckle and mole, claiming her with a fever I could barely temper in time. She’s everything—the reason I’m breathing, the only thing grounding me. When her lips parted, soft gasps escaping, it was like a fire licked through me.
Layla’s mine, yet I can’t touch her enough, hold her tightly enough, to make her stay.
Instead of fucking her that night, though I desperately wanted to, I pressed her against me, fingers trailing down her spine, holding her in a viselike grip that felt like it should be impossible to break. She wasn’t just with me at that moment. She imprinted on my soul, became an anchor pulling me from the brink after a decade of being lost at sea.
An anchor that broke its chain.
As Layla sinks into the opaque water of my nightmares, Cassie, barely five years old, takes her place in my head, her tiny hands clasped in mine as we walk along the misty Greycliff shoreline. It was a crisp autumn day, the kind where the air smells of burning leaves and cinnamon. Cassie danced ahead of me on the trail, her dark pigtails bouncing with each step. She wore a bright red coat, a spot of vivid color against the burnt tones of fall.
“Daddy, look!” she exclaims, pointing at a distant shape in the fog. “Is that a sea monster?”
I squint, making out the crumbling silhouette of the abandoned lighthouse on the peninsula. “No, Cassie-girl. That's just an old lighthouse.”
Her blue eyes, mirrors of my own, widen with curiosity. “What's a lighthouse?”
I crouch down to her level, pulling her close. “It's a special building with a big light on top. It helps guide ships safely to shore when it's dark or foggy. But that one doesn’t work anymore.”
Cassie considers this. “Do you think I could give it my night-light in my room? I don’t need it. I’m not scared of the dark anymore.”
A lump forms in my throat at the memory, at the innocence in her voice. “I'm sure the lighthouse would appreciate that, Cass. But it's a little too big for your night-light.”
She giggles, the sound pure and sweet. “Can we go see it up close sometime?”
I nod, tugging on one pigtail. “Sure thing, kiddo. We'll make an adventure out of it.”
But we never did. I never took her to the lighthouse, never showed her the winding staircase or the view from the top. And now, that little girl is gone, replaced by a stranger who wants to hurt the woman I...
I shake my head, forcing the remembrance back.
Ethan taps the desk, his eyes scanning the screen. “There's something else here. Blueprints of the Siren's Call. And they're extensive.”
I head over, leaning heavily on the desk. The blueprints show far more than the club's public areas. Subterranean levels snake beneath the building in a labyrinth of hidden rooms and passages.
“What the hell is all this?” Ethan mutters, zooming in.
I squint at the screen, the chill that had trickled down my spine reversing its course and spiraling back up. Ethan scrolls through the blueprints, each level revealing hidden interrogation rooms, soundproofed luxury chambers, rooms with no windows, rooms with nothing but mirrors, BDSM elements, a state-of-the-art surveillance hub… It's a fucking anthill of depravity.
Ethan’s face pales. “If Layla’s in there…”
He doesn't need to finish the thought. The dread settles in my gut like a lead weight. There are some things worse than death. But then something else catches my eye. A small notation in the corner of the blueprint, easily missed.
“What's that?” I ask, leaning closer.
Ethan follows my movement. “Looks like a server ID. Hold on.”
Suddenly, Ethan's laptop emits a high-pitched whine. The screen flickers, and a face fills the display.
My blood runs cold.
“Hello, Daddy,” Cassie purrs, her eyes— my eyes—gleaming with licentious joy. “Ready to play?”