Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Vander
She thinks she’s being clever.
I watch the camera feed on my phone as Maddie slides her window open, then tests the fire escape with one foot. She’s dressed in all black—leggings, hoodie, boots—with her camera bag slung across her body.
Rhodes leans over my shoulder to look at the screen. “Is she serious?”
“Yes,” I say, in one of my rare contributions to the conversation.
I learned a long time ago that silence can’t be intercepted, recorded, or used against the people I’m supposed to protect.
Words failed me when it mattered most. I spent three weeks in a cell where every word I spoke brought someone else pain.
Now I talk only when I’m certain the cost is one I am willing to pay.
“Gear up. Now,” Ace says as he moves toward his bedroom.
Rhodes grabs his jacket from the back of Ace’s couch where he’d left it earlier. I check my weapon, though I know I won’t need it, not for this.
Ace strides to the apartment door, now kitted out in his black cargo pants and a black hoodie.
“Masks?” Rhodes asks, holding up the bag we stashed in Ace’s closet after the park.
Ace nods sharply. “Bring them.”
We move through the hallway and down to the parking garage in under three minutes.
I slide into the back seat, pulling out my phone to track her location.
Rhodes takes shotgun, staring intently in the side mirror.
I realize he is watching the building entrance through the gaps in the structure that show the street.
“There,” he says, pointing.
Maddie emerges from the shadows beside the apartment, looking both ways before hurrying toward the curb. She stops at the road, grabs out her phone, and her thumbs move across the screen.
Ace pulls the car out of the space slowly, keeping our distance, and we idle at the exit of the parking garage, watching to see her next move.
Trying to escape is something she has done often.
We track her to see where she is headed, and if it’s Riley’s or the studio, we call ahead, knowing they will keep her safe.
It allows Maddie the illusion of freedom, though I normally follow and wait nearby in case she needs me.
“She’s calling a ride,” Rhodes says. “Uber or Lyft, probably.”
“Smart,” Ace mutters. “She knows we track her car.”
I almost smile. Smart, but she doesn’t know about the trackers in her camera bag or on her phone, both of which are standard protocol.
“How long?” Ace asks.
I check her rideshare activity on our monitoring app—another thing she doesn’t know about. “Three minutes. Black Honda Civic.”
We wait, and Ace’s fingers drum against the steering wheel, the only sign of his impatience. Rhodes is still, focused, already running scenarios in his head. I can see it in the way his eyes track the street, cataloging exit strategies and potential complications.
The Civic pulls up, Maddie slides into the back seat, and the car pulls away from the curb.
“Go,” I snap.
Ace flips on the headlights and eases into traffic, letting one car slip between us and the Civic. The tracker on my phone shows Maddie’s dot moving east.
“She’s heading toward the warehouse district,” Rhodes says, already having pulled up the map on his phone from her booking.
“Industrial area,” Ace confirms. “She’s probably found some abandoned building on Instagram.”
We follow them through three traffic lights. The Civic stays in the right lane, moving at exactly the speed limit. Professional driver. Good.
“Turning north on Morrison,” I report, watching the dot shift direction.
Rhodes zooms in on his map. “Shit. That’s all abandoned warehouses and factories. There are at least six buildings she could hit from her drop-off point.”
The traffic thins out the further east we go. Ace drops back, putting two more cars between us. We don’t need visual contact; the tracker makes this easy.
“They’re slowing down,” I say.
On my screen, Maddie’s dot crawls forward another hundred feet, then stops.
“Morrison and Sixth,” I report. “She’s stopped.” My jaw clenches as I watch her dot move from the road and then further inside the building. Yes, this is definitely her destination.
Rhodes is already pulling up Google’s street view of the location. “Old textile factory. Five stories, been abandoned for a decade. Probably rotted through in places.”
The building isn’t safe. We should shut this down right now. Go in without our masks and drag her ass home. But we won’t, both because she wants this, and because some fucked-up part of all of us wants it too.
“I’ll park down there,” Ace says. “We’ll go in on foot.”
He finds a spot behind a closed auto body shop, where the street is empty, lit only by a few streetlights. We sit for a moment, watching Maddie’s dot move on my screen. It’s shifting slower now that she’s inside the building.
“Give her a few minutes to set up,” Ace says. “Let her get comfortable.”
Rhodes reaches down to grab the bag at his feet with our masks. He pulls his out first, hands Ace his, and I take mine last.
“Ready?” Ace asks.
Rhodes grins. “Let’s go.”
We move through the darkness easily. The chain-link fence around the factory has a convenient gap where people have pushed through, and we slip inside with ease. We silently traverse the ground floor, following the sound of her footsteps.
At Ace’s signal, we pull on our masks, ready for the chase. I hate the thought of lying to her, but I know it’s the only way I can have her. My priority will always be to keep her safe, regardless of how she makes me feel.
Rhodes moves left, Ace right, and I take the stairs. We position ourselves on the fourth level, all looking down through a massive hole in the floor where the machinery used to be bolted down.
Below us, Maddie moves through the quiet space with her camera, completely focused on her shots.
She’s photographing the way moonlight comes through the broken windows, creating patterns on the graffitied walls.
There’s a rusted catwalk across one section, and she’s heading toward it despite the obvious danger.
The thing looks like it will crumble beneath a speck of dirt.
My hands clench. She’s going to get herself killed one of these days, and it’s going to be my fault for not keeping her safe.
Ace’s voice crackles in my earpiece. “Vander, south stairwell. Rhodes, block the north exit. I’ll take the main floor. On my signal.”
I move into position and wait. Below us, Maddie has climbed onto the catwalk, which sways slightly under her weight. I force myself not to move.
She stops in the middle, adjusting her camera settings. Then the shutter clicks rapidly as she captures the view.
That’s when Ace kills the one small light that is still working.
Maddie gasps at the sudden darkness and spins around, and I catch the moment she notices movement in the shadows.
“Who’s there?”
Ace steps forward and flicks on his mask.
Maddie stumbles backward, her camera banging against her ribs. “Fuck, you scared the life out of me. How the hell did you know I was here? Only Riley knew my plans—well, shit. I just answered my own question.”
“I would run if I were you,” Ace says.
She descends the catwalk and runs deeper into the building. It is exactly what we knew she’d do. Panic makes people stupid. It makes them choose the unfamiliar path over a known exit.
I drop through a gap in the floor, landing in a crouch and moving before she even realizes I’ve cut off her escape route. She rounds a corner and slams into my chest. The impact drives us both backward, and I reach out and grab her by the arms to steady her before letting her go.
“Gotcha,” I say.
Her eyes go wide. For a second, I think she might actually be scared. Then I see it—a spark of arousal.
She ducks under my arm, making it three steps before Rhodes jumps from a doorway. Maddie pivots again, but Ace is already there, boxing her in.
“Running just makes it better for us,” Rhodes says, and I can picture his stupid smirk beneath his mask.
Maddie takes a step back, hitting a wall covered in peeling paint. She darts a glance between the three of us, her mind working as she frantically tries to figure out her next move.
Her tongue darts out to wet her lips. “You caught me.”
“Did you think we wouldn’t?” Rhodes asks.
Suddenly, she breaks left, finding the gap we deliberately left for her.
The game continues through the building. She’s fast and clever, using debris and broken furniture to slow us down. It doesn’t, but we don’t let her know.
She races up to the fourth floor, bursting through a door and into a large room that used to be an office space. Desks are overturned, the filing cabinets rusted and empty. Moonlight streams through the floor-to-ceiling windows that line one side of the room, though half of them are shattered.
It’s a dead end, and she realizes the moment she enters.
She spins around, but we’re already there, our bodies filling the doorway. She backs up until she hits a desk, her hands bracing behind her.
“Looks like you’re trapped.” Ace states the obvious.
Her chest heaves with each breath, and I can see her pulse hammering in her throat. She’s not wearing her hoodie anymore; she must have tossed it during the chase. Now only a thin black tank top rides up slightly, showing a strip of pale skin.
“So I am.” Maddie crosses her arms. “Are you going to just stand there, or are you going to do something about it?”
Rhodes moves first, circling to her right. Ace goes left, while I stay in the doorway, blocking any attempt at escape.
“Oh, we’re going to do something about it,” Ace promises.
“Sounds like a threat,” she says with a smirk.
I move forward. “It’s a promise.”
Ace reaches her first, his hand catching her chin and tilting her face up. “Safe word?”
“Red,” she whispers.
“Good girl.” He releases her and steps back.