Chapter 28
Hades
My heart slammed against my ribs as dread knotted in my gut, cold and deep like a blade sliding between bones. The house echoed with every step I took—hollow, mocking. I tore through each room, calling her name like it might pull her back from wherever the fuck she was.
But the silence?
It just laughed at me.
She was gone.
Not missing. Taken.
I stormed into her room—the room that smelled like her. Vanilla and warmth and something sweeter than I’d ever deserved. I stopped cold. Her phone sat on the nightstand, glowing with soft light. Innocent. Harmless.
Wrong.
She never left her phone behind.
I snatched it up, swiping past the passcode I had watched her put into her phone thousands of times before she trusted me. Trusted me. That memory felt like a blade dragging across my throat now.
The messages lit up, and I scrolled with hands that shook with too much restraint. Too much fury. Until—
Callista.
Messages.
Come alone.
A detonation.
That’s what it felt like. A fucking bomb going off in my chest.
Red blurred the edges of my vision. My grip tightened around the phone, plastic groaning under the weight of my fury. I was going to kill her. Callista. Slowly. Painfully. She didn’t just cross a line—she set the line on fire and laughed.
I turned from the bed like it had betrayed me. My boots crushed glass from a frame I didn’t even remember knocking over. My pulse thundered in my ears. I could taste metal in my mouth from how hard I was grinding my fucking teeth.
She’d left.
Because of her.
Because someone poisoned her against me.
Someone thought they could take what was mine.
My lungs burned, my hands curled into fists.
She didn’t understand. She didn’t see it yet. What I’d done for her. What I’d destroyed to keep her safe.
But she would.
I stalked back toward the door, every step a vow. I was done asking.
Now?
Now I was taking her back.
And God help anyone in my way.
I dialed Callista’s number.
Once.
Twice.
Each time her voice—too calm, too cold—slid through the line like a knife to the gut. Voicemail. She didn’t even have the decency to hear me breathe before I ended her.
“Callista,” I growled into the silence, my voice low and seething, “you have one chance to give her back. One.”
I didn’t bother calling again.
The phone—her phone—was still in my hand.
I hurled it across the foyer.
It shattered against the wall in a burst of glass and sparks, pieces raining down like shrapnel. The echo of impact was a balm, but not enough. Not nearly enough.
Rage gripped me by the throat.
I turned on the nearest object—the vase she’d once said looked “nice” in the entryway. I grabbed it with both hands and slammed it to the ground. Ceramic exploded like bone under pressure, dried flowers scattering like ashes across marble.
I was breathing hard now—shoulders rising and falling, chest tight with something that felt too much like grief.
I wanted to burn the world down and start over.
The table next. A single sweep of my arm and it was stripped bare—books, bottles, framed photos, all crashing to the floor in a glorious, chaotic crescendo. Glass. Wood. Paper. Nothing was safe.
Then the mirror.
I saw my reflection for half a second—my wild eyes, blood already rising in my cheeks, chest heaving like I’d just walked off the ice after a fight.
She’s gone.
The thought snapped whatever was left of my restraint.
I drove my fist into the glass.
It cracked—deep and jagged down the center like a scar splitting a face. My knuckles split with it, pain shooting through my hand, but I welcomed it. I needed it. I punched again. And again.
Blood bloomed down my forearm, dripping into the glass, slicking the floor beneath me in red.
The foyer looked like a warzone now.
Good.
Let it reflect what I felt.
Every heartbeat without her was a scream beneath my ribs. Every breath she spent apart from me felt stolen, wrong—and I would make sure the people who took her felt that in their fucking bones.
I stepped back, glass crunching under my boots.
Callista had made her move.
Now it was my turn.
I punched in Gideon’s number with bloodied fingers, glass still embedded in my knuckles. I didn’t flinch. Didn’t care. The ringing felt like a countdown to something violent.
He picked up on the second ring.
“Bring the others. Now.”
A beat of silence. A shift in his breath. “What happened?”
“Just fucking move.” I ended the call before he could ask anything else. I wasn’t here to explain. Not to him. Not to anyone. My rage didn’t have room for questions—only answers. Only action.
Minutes passed like lifetimes.
I paced the wreckage of my foyer like a caged animal. Every shattered object underfoot was a reflection of the storm building in my chest. Blood trailed behind me, but I didn’t stop. Couldn’t stop.
She’s out there. Without me. Because of Callista.
The front door burst open.
Gideon walked in first—his trademark grin flickering and dying the second he saw the destruction. Behind him came Jafar, silent and assessing, and Scar, who paused like the breath had been punched out of him.
“What the hell—” Gideon began, his voice lower than usual.
“I told you to bring everyone,” I snapped, stepping forward, rage simmering just beneath my skin. “We don’t have time.”
“Clearly,” Jafar muttered, eyes scanning the broken glass, the blood, the devastation. “Looks like you lost a fight with the house.”
“I didn’t lose anything,” I snarled. “But I will end someone.”
Scar crouched beside a cracked photo frame, flicking a shard of glass aside. “You’re leaking all over the place, man. Might want to patch that up before you bleed out.”
“Tell that to Persephone,” I bit back. “She’s the one bleeding now.”
That shut him up.
Gang Lu entered next, calm and unreadable, but there was a sharp edge in the way his eyes landed on me. “What do you need?”
“Someone to track. Someone to burn.”
“Name,” Lu said.
“Callista Moore.”
Stillness.
Then Hook strolled in last, sleeves half-pulled up, skates slung over his shoulder. His smirk didn’t last a full second before his gaze dropped to my hand. The blood. The wreckage. My face.
“Fuck,” he muttered.
“Exactly,” I said. “Get ready. We don’t wait. We hunt.”
Their silence was my answer.
They weren’t teammates now.
They were soldiers.
And I was going to war for my queen.
“She’s gone.” The words ripped from my throat like a beast finally breaking its chains. “Taken.”
The room froze.
Jafar’s brow furrowed, his voice edged with doubt. “You sure she didn’t just… leave?”
That snapped something in me.
“She didn’t fucking leave.” My voice cracked like a whip, fists clenching at my sides so tight my knuckles went white through the blood and bruises. “Callista reached out. Lured her. I saw the goddamn message.”
Gideon swore under his breath, pacing like a caged animal. Scar punched the wall without hesitation—drywall cracked under the force of it, dust puffing into the air like smoke from a detonated bomb.
“Fuck!” he spat, shaking out his hand like he wanted something else to break.
But none of it mattered. Their anger didn’t touch mine. Not even close.
I was drowning in it.
I couldn’t stop replaying the last time I saw her—her head on my chest, her breath warm against my skin. The way she whispered my name like it meant safety.
And now she was gone.
Stolen from me.
“She’s mine.” The words came low, guttural—barely more than a growl. But they settled over the room like a curse. “And they took her.”
Everything went still.
Gideon’s expression shifted from disbelief to grim clarity. He stepped closer, nodding once. “What’s the plan?”
Plan?
There was no plan.
There was only blood and vengeance.
“I don’t give a shit about plans,” I snapped. “I want Callista dragging herself through glass by the time I’m finished.”
Scar leaned back against the wall he’d just wrecked, jaw tight. “We’ll get her back. But we need to be smart.”
“Smart?” I barked a hollow laugh, the sound strangled. “What’s smart about letting someone rip her out of my fucking life?”
Jafar stepped in then, all cold fire and focus. “We’re not letting that stand. But we need data. Movements. Money trails. Anything that ties Callista to a location.”
“Phones. Now,” I barked. “Get everything. Every number. Every contact. I want eyes on that bitch yesterday.”
They didn’t argue. My team—my brothers—moved like wolves unleashed.
I stood in the wreckage of what was supposed to be ours, burning alive in the fire of a promise.
She was mine.
And I would tear the world apart to get her back.
Lu stepped forward, his presence cutting through the room like a blade. He didn’t posture like the others. There was something in his stillness, the way his eyes locked onto mine without flinching, that told me he knew what this was.
“I know someone,” he said, voice flat but loaded with implication. “Ex-Sendai. Owes me a favor.”
I tilted my head, the edge of a smirk tugging at my mouth despite the rage boiling in my chest. “What can he do?”
Lu didn’t hesitate. “He can find anyone who’s not dead.”
A beat passed—quiet, heavy, final.
“Do it,” I said, the words leaving my mouth like a shot fired in a war that hadn’t started yet.
But it would.
He nodded and pulled out his phone, already dialing. His fingers moved fast—deliberate. Efficient. I watched him like a hawk, pacing the floor behind him as adrenaline pumped through me, fast and sharp.
Gideon leaned back against the nearest wall, arms crossed, eyes narrowed like he was trying to see straight through me. “We’re really doing this,” he said, low. “You think Callista’s the one who took her?”
My jaw tightened. The truth was written in the wreckage of my foyer. The shattered phone. The broken glass. The blood on my knuckles.
“I don’t care what Callista thinks,” I said, voice low, lethal. “She made her move. Now I make mine.”
Gideon shifted, like he wanted to say more, but Scar’s glare from across the room shut him up.
“Just don’t lose yourself in this,” he muttered anyway.
I turned on him, slow and deliberate. “I’m not losing anything,” I growled. “I’m taking back what’s mine.”
Lu spoke quietly into the phone, words in a dialect I didn’t understand—but I didn’t need to. I could feel it in the air, that something was happening. The hunt had begun.
And still, my mind was full of her.
I would not let that be taken from me.
The moment Lu hung up, I was on him. “Where?”
“He’s running the trace now,” Lu said. “Give it ten.”
“Ten minutes is five too many.”
Lu didn’t flinch. “We’ll get her back.”
I nodded once, barely containing the storm in my chest.
“We better,” I said, eyes burning. “Because if we don’t… I’ll burn the fucking world down.”
Fifteen minutes dragged by like molasses in hell.
Each second ticked loud in my skull, stretching and warping until I thought I might crack under the weight of it.
My men stayed quiet. Focused. But the tension in the air was suffocating—everyone waiting, watching, the storm circling just beneath the surface.
Then Lu’s phone buzzed.
The sound cut through the silence like a blade. He snatched it up, and the second his expression shifted, I was on him—leaning in, every muscle in my body pulled tight like a bowstring.
“Abandoned government facility,” he said, voice calm but coiled. “Outskirts of town. Used for trafficking a few years back. Shut down—supposedly.”
Something snapped inside me. My blood turned to ice, my vision tunneled. That was where she was?
A fucking graveyard?
Callista hadn’t just taken her. She’d buried her—hidden her away like some dirty secret.
“She picked that place on purpose,” I said, jaw clenched so hard I could taste copper. “Isolated. Forgotten. No cameras. No witnesses.”
Lu nodded, confirming what I already knew.
“She’s trying to disappear her,” I growled. “Erase her.”
Scar stood up sharply, cracking his knuckles like he was ready to take down a wall. “Then let’s make sure she never gets the chance.”
I looked around at all of them—my team, my brothers. Their faces were set, cold and ready. Good. Because I wasn’t walking into this quiet. I wasn’t walking in like a man.
I was walking in like a god of fucking war.
“Gideon,” I said, voice razor sharp. “Call in the rest of the team. Lock down cells. We go dark.”
He nodded. “What’s the play?”
“We don’t wait. We don’t ask. We take her back.” I looked them each in the eye. “No one touches what’s mine.”
Lu stepped forward. “I’ll get us close without being seen.”
“Then move.”
The fury in me burned clean now—no chaos, no panic. Just a singular, violent promise.
I was coming.
And the world would burn before I left without her.