Chapter 2 #2
"This isn't helping Cade," I said quietly. Logan's eyes flashed with anger, then dulled again to that flat, dead look I'd come to hate.
“Nothing is helping Ca-” his voice stuttered, unable even to say her name. “Not your searching, not Ryder's obsession with those fucking screens, and certainly not my father's so-called resources.”
Nicholas Bale had been the biggest surprise in all of this.
After that first night, when we'd confronted him at the restaurant, he'd thrown the full weight of his criminal empire behind the search for Cade.
He'd personally led raids on The Palace and the Underground, dragging out Dominic Blake's underlings for questioning. Dominic Blake himself seemed to have disappeared, apparently on some business trip, and couldn’t be reached, not even by the other Trivium High Lords.
But Nic had put a price on information about Cade that had half the city's lowlifes scrambling to help.
And all for a girl he'd met exactly once.
I still didn't understand it. Neither did Logan. But we'd been desperate enough not to question the help, even if it came from a man we both hated.
"We found Damien because of those resources," I reminded him, though it had led nowhere. "Your father's men tracked him down." Logan snorted, taking another drink.
"Fat lot of good that did us. Little prick had an alibi. Not that I believe a fucking word of it."
Damien’s interrogation had been a bust. He had been found in a crappy bed-and-breakfast down by London.
Logan had been the one to throw him against a wall, demanding to know where Cade was, while I stood by and let it happen.
Damien's terrified face, his insistence that he had nothing to do with the abduction.
The bitter words he'd spat at us when we finally had to let him go:
"She was a good girl before you three got your claws in her. Whatever happened to her, you brought it on yourselves." He'd been right, of course. That was the worst part. That was the part that had hurt the worst, knowing that the very real possibility of Cade’s disappearance was because of us.
"Come upstairs," I said, trying one last time. "Just for a little while." Logan turned back to the punching bag, settling into his stance.
"I'm busy."
"Beating yourself up won't bring her back, Logan." His fist connected with the bag, hard enough that the chain holding it creaked in protest.
"Nothing will bring her back," he said, his voice so low I almost missed it.
"She's fucking gone, Cole. And it's my fault.
" I wanted to argue, to tell him we'd find her, that she was strong and would survive whatever was happening to her.
But the words stuck in my throat, held back by the same fear that kept me awake at night, staring at the ceiling and imagining the worst.
"We'll keep looking," was all I could manage. Logan didn't respond, just resumed his punishing rhythm against the bag. The conversation, such as it was, was over.
I left him there, climbing the stairs back to the main floor with heavy feet. Rosa looked up hopefully as I entered the dining room, then registered my expression and the continued absence of the other Regents.
"They're not coming, are they?" she asked softly. I shook my head, unable to summon the energy for more lies.
"Sorry, Rosa." She nodded, unsurprised but disappointed nonetheless.
"I'll set aside plates for them. For when they're ready."
The housemen filtered in, taking their seats around the table with subdued murmurs.
Harrison, Owen, Ryan, and the others, all young men who'd chosen to spend their Christmas here, in this house of grief, rather than with their families.
Their loyalty should have warmed me, but all I felt was the hollow ache of failure.
I took my seat at the head of the table, Logan and Ryder's empty chairs flanking me like ghosts. Rosa brought out the food, and the men served themselves, the clink of silverware against china the only sound in the room. I raised my glass, feeling the weight of their expectant gazes. A toast was a traditional part of Christmas at Covenant House. Usually, it would be Logan’s job to make it, something about brotherhood and loyalty, about the year's achievements and the promises of the one to come.
But Logan wasn't here. So it fell to me.
"To family," I said, my voice cracking slightly on the word. "Wherever they are."
The housemen echoed the toast, their voices a quiet chorus of shared pain.
As I took a sip of wine, a memory surfaced: Cade at this very table, laughing at something Ryder had said, her purple hair falling across her face.
The way she'd looked at each of us, her expression a complex mix of wariness and growing affection.
How her smile had lit up the room, making it feel, for the first time in years, like I actually belonged.
I set my glass down, staring at the empty chair where she should have been sitting.
The food on my plate might as well have been cardboard for all I could taste.
The housemen ate in silence, occasionally exchanging quiet words or passing dishes back and forth.
I pushed food around my plate, going through the motions for their sake.
When dinner finally ended, they dispersed, murmuring thanks to Rosa and nodding to me, before returning to their rooms or resuming the ongoing search efforts.
I remained at the table as Rosa cleared away the dishes, refusing her offers to bring me anything else.
The house settled into its now-familiar hush, not the peaceful quiet of contentment, but the heavy silence of absence.
In the stillness, I could almost hear the echo of Cade's voice, her laughter, her defiance.
The way she'd challenge us, stand up to us, even as we tried to break her.
How she'd somehow wormed her way into our hearts despite all our efforts to keep her at a distance.
It felt like everything I looked at was a reminder of her, and now it seemed like a faded reminder of how we had failed.
We were falling apart; that was one thing I was sure of.
The Regents, hell, even Covenant House. Without Cade, the cracks in our foundation had widened into chasms, and I didn't know if they could ever be repaired.
Logan drowned in guilt and whiskey, Ryder lost in his obsessive search, and me, trying desperately to hold the pieces together even as they crumbled in my hands.