Chapter 2
Christmas Day. The word tasted like ash in my mouth.
Rosa had outdone herself. The dining table gleamed beneath the soft glow of the chandelier, adorned with a spread that would have impressed even the most critical of us.
A massive turkey sat in the centre, its golden-brown skin glistening with herbs and butter.
Surrounding it were dishes of every kind, fluffy mashed potatoes, rich gravy boats, roasted vegetables arranged in colourful patterns, and freshly baked rolls that still steamed slightly when broken open.
The Christmas tree in the corner of the room sparkled with red and gold ornaments, presents stacked beneath it that would likely remain untouched.
Someone, probably Harrison, had even hung mistletoe in the doorway, a cruel sight considering the circumstances.
Not that he would have even realised. We were all on autopilot these days.
Not just the Regents, but all the housemen too.
It was like the life of the house had been stolen from us along with Cade.
"Thank you, Rosa," I said, helping her arrange the last of the silverware.
My voice sounded hollow even to my own ears.
"It looks incredible." Rosa's weathered hands paused in their work.
She'd been with Covenant House longer than any of us, seen Regents come and go, watched the cycle of Consorts and power plays unfold year after year.
But I'd never seen her look as tired as she did now, the lines around her eyes deeper than I remembered.
"It's nothing, Mr Bowers," she said softly. "I just thought... well, I thought we could all use something normal today." Normal. The word hung between us, impossible and mocking.
"The boys will appreciate it," I lied, knowing full well that neither Logan nor Ryder would likely make an appearance. Rosa knew it too, but she nodded anyway, playing along with the fiction.
"I set a place for Miss Turner. It just felt wrong not to," Rosa added quietly, arranging a sprig of holly beside one of the place settings. The one that would remain empty.
Five weeks. It had been five fucking weeks since Cade disappeared.
Five weeks of searching, threatening, begging, of watching security footage until our eyes burned, of calling in every favour owed to us, of turning the city upside down looking for any trace of her.
Five weeks of nothing. It was getting harder and harder to be hopeful, harder to keep believing that we would see her again.
I glanced around the dining room, remembering last Christmas, when Melody was still the Consort, her bubbly laughter filling the room as she and Ryder competed to see who could build the most ridiculous structure out of bread rolls.
Logan had been relaxed, actually smiling as he poured wine for everyone, and I'd felt.
.. content. All before we became Regents, before she crashed into our lives.
Now the room felt cavernous, the empty chairs like accusations.
Most of the housemen had gathered in the adjacent sitting room, their voices a low murmur.
Not a single one had gone home for the holidays.
Their loyalty would have touched me if I hadn't been so numb.
"I'll go get the guys," I said to Rosa, though we both knew it was futile. She nodded, her eyes sad but determined.
"Dinner will be ready in twenty minutes, Mr Bowers." I left the warmth of the dining room and headed for the stairs, knowing it would make no difference. The top floor was quiet, but a faint blue glow spilled from beneath Ryder's door. I paused outside, preparing myself before knocking gently.
No answer.
I pushed the door open and stepped into what had once been a bedroom but now resembled a chaos of maps and papers.
The curtains were drawn tight, the only illumination coming from the bank of monitors that lined one wall.
The air was stale, a mixture of sweat, energy drinks, and desperation.
Ryder sat hunched before the screens, his hair greasy and unkempt, his shoulders curved forward as though bearing an invisible weight.
He didn't acknowledge my presence, his eyes fixed on the footage playing before him, the same security camera clip we'd all watched a hundred times.
Cade being dragged into a van, her body going limp after a blow to the head.
"Slow it down," he muttered to himself as his fingers flew over the keyboard. "Frame by frame, after the door opens. There's something... something we're missing." I moved closer, careful not to disturb the organised chaos of papers and empty cans surrounding him.
"Ryder," I said quietly. "Rosa's made Christmas dinner." He didn't look up, his eyes fixed to the screen as he zoomed in on a grainy section of footage.
"Not hungry."
"You need to eat something. You haven't left this room in three days."
"I said I'm not fucking hungry, Cole." His voice was raw, scraped thin by lack of sleep and too many shouted orders. "Go enjoy your turkey." I sighed, leaning against his desk.
"You're not going to find anything new in that footage. We've been over it a thousand times."
"Then I'll go over it a thousand and one.
" Finally, he looked up at me, his blue eyes feverish with exhaustion and something darker.
"Because she's out there somewhere, and we're sitting here with our thumbs up our asses while some sick fuck has her.
" I winced at the image his words conjured.
We'd all been having the same nightmares, Cade bound, bleeding, crying out for help that never came.
"Killingham's team is-"
"Fuck Killingham," Ryder spat, slamming his fist down on the desk so hard that an empty can toppled over.
"That smug bastard is probably the one who took her.
" The memory of that confrontation flashed through my mind, Ryder lunging across Killingham's polished desk, hands reaching for the older man's throat, screaming accusations while Logan and I struggled to hold him back.
Killingham's face had remained impassive, almost bored, as he watched Ryder's breakdown.
"We don't know that," I said, though the doubt had crept into all our minds over the past weeks.
When we'd finally been forced to admit we couldn't find Cade on our own, we'd gone to the Trivium.
Killingham had seemed genuinely furious at the news of her abduction, or at least, he'd put on a convincing show of it.
But then came his insistence that the Regents step back, that the Trivium would handle the search, that we were "too emotionally compromised" to be effective.
"He wanted her from the beginning," Ryder said, turning back to his screens.
"Did you forget how he kept pushing Julia Latters on us?
How he tried to convince us Cade wasn't suitable?
And now she's gone, and he's 'handling it.
'" The bitterness in his voice could have etched glass.
I didn't argue. The suspicion had taken root in all of us that Killingham, or someone else high in the Trivium, had orchestrated this whole thing.
But we had no proof, and without proof, we were powerless against men like James Killingham.
"Just... come down for dinner," I tried again. "One hour. You can shower, eat something that isn't from a fucking packet, and then get back to it." Ryder's shoulders slumped, but not in surrender. In dismissal.
"I can't, Cole. Every minute I waste is another minute she's..." He trailed off, unable to finish the thought. I knew then that there was no reaching him. Not today. Maybe not ever, if we didn't find Cade soon.
"I'll have Rosa bring something up," I said finally, pushing away from the desk.
I stopped in the doorway and looked back at him.
“Merry Christmas, brother,” I whispered.
Ryder didn't respond, already lost again in the flickering blue light of his monitors, rewinding the footage to the moment before Cade's world, and ours, shattered.
I closed the door quietly behind me, the weight in my chest growing heavier. One down. One to go.
The basement gym was exactly where I expected to find Logan, the rhythmic thud of fists against leather audible from the stairwell.
I paused at the doorway, taking in the scene before me.
Logan was shirtless, his body slick with sweat despite the chill of the basement.
He threw punch after punch at the heavy bag, each impact accompanied by a grunt of exertion or pain, I couldn't tell which anymore.
A half-empty bottle of whiskey sat on the bench beside a pile of discarded hand wraps, stained dark with what might have been blood.
"Your form's shit," I called out, stepping into the room. Logan didn't pause in his assault on the bag.
"Fuck off, Cole." I moved closer, noticing the fresh bruises on his knuckles, the way his chest heaved with each laboured breath. He'd lost weight, the muscles of his abdomen more defined now, but not in a healthy way. He looked... hollowed out.
"Rosa made dinner," I said, knowing it was pointless but trying, anyway. "Turkey, potatoes, all the fixings. The housemen are upstairs. It's Christmas, Logan." That got his attention. He stopped punching, turning to face me with a bitter laugh that held no humour.
"Christmas," he echoed, reaching for the whiskey bottle.
"Should we sing carols? Exchange presents?
Pretend that everything's fucking normal?
" He took a long swig, wincing as the alcohol hit his system.
"Because there's nothing to celebrate, Cole.
Not a goddamn thing." I watched him, this shell of my best friend.
The guilt had eaten away at him like acid, dissolving the confident, commanding Logan I'd known into this wreck of a man who sought oblivion in the bottom of a bottle and pain in his own flesh.