Chapter Twenty-Eight
THE RIDE BACK didn’t feel as long this time, not because it wasn’t, but because there was nothing pulling at me from two directions anymore, no second-guessing, no loose ends to chase, just a straight line from what I knew to what needed to happen next, my head already there by the time I killed the engine and stepped inside, the only thing that mattered sitting heavy in my chest.
The noise from the main room rolled around me, voices, laughter, the usual, but none of it stuck, all of it sliding past like it didn’t belong to the same world anymore, because none of it had anything to do with her.
With where she was.
With what might already be happening.
The office door was shut when I got there, and I didn’t bother knocking, just pushed it open and stepped inside.
Devil looked up first, then Chain, then Mystic, whatever they’d been saying dying off the second they got a look at me, because I didn’t need to speak yet, my face handled that part.
I shut the door behind me, slower this time, letting it click into place.
“You find something?” Devil asked.
I didn’t answer right away, just reached into my pocket, pulled the note out, and dropped it on the table between us, letting it sit there a second before I said, “She left that.”
Devil grabbed it first, scanning it quick before slowing, his expression shifting as he read, something tightening in his jaw before he passed it to Chain.
Mystic didn’t move, just watched like he already knew whatever was in that note wasn’t going to sit right.
“What is it?” he asked, quieter now, but heavier for it.
“Nothing good,” I said, my gaze settling on him and holding there.
Chain finished reading and let out a low breath before handing it off, and that was when the room shifted.
Mystic took it, read it once, then again slower, and I watched it land, the moment he understood just how bad it was, the way everything in him went still around it.
“Drago,” he murmured. “Alive.”
Mystic’s jaw locked hard, his eyes dropping back to the page like he was checking it again, like it might say something different if he stared long enough, and then his fist slammed into Devil’s desk.
“How in the fuck is this possible? I watched him die under my hands.”
“I thought about that on the ride back,” I said. “The prospect who buried him—Jacob.”
“That fucking rat,” Devil growled. “He took him to Gabriel. That explains that hospital room setup at the mansion.”
“It tracks,” Chain muttered, dragging a hand through his hair. “After what Mystic did to him, there’s no way he walks away from that without someone keepin’ him alive.”
Mystic didn’t answer, didn’t even look up, but I could see it moving through him, fast and mean.
This was Zeynep.
The one thing in this world he wouldn’t survive losing.
“Where is he?” he asked finally, voice low and tight.
“That I don’t know,” I said. “You’re still the only lead we’ve got on where they’re hiding.”
Mystic looked up then, his eyes locking onto mine, and there was something different there now, colder, harder, the kind of look that meant whoever walked into that room wasn’t the same man standing there now.
“The note said he doesn’t know Zeynep’s alive,” he said. “But that changes if he’s got Evie.”
“Yeah,” I said, even though my gut twisted at the thought of what that meant for her.
“We find their hideout,” Devil said, already moving that direction. “If they’re grabbing women like that, they’re not laying low anymore.”
“They don’t need to,” I said, my jaw tightening. “Not if they think we don’t know about Drago. I’m pretty damn sure they don’t know Evie left this note.”
Chain swore under his breath. “How the hell did we miss this?”
“Ruby was his way in,” Mystic said, cutting through it, voice calm now, locked in. “Question is how long she’s been feedin’ him.”
That sat wrong, because I’d never once thought she was capable of that, and if anything happened to Evie or Zeynep because of it, Ruby would pay right along with Drago.
My gaze dropped to the note again.
“He wants revenge,” I said, quieter now. “But when he finds out Zeynep didn’t die in that fire…”
I didn’t finish it.
Mystic’s face turned lethal.
“We’ll keep her safe,” Chain said, looking at him with worry.
Mystic didn’t answer, his focus already ahead, working angles, outcomes, everything that came next.
“She doesn’t leave the clubhouse,” he said finally. “Not even a step outside.”
“We’ll lock it down,” Devil said.
“That’s not enough,” Mystic replied, his gaze flicking to me for a second. “Drago will burn us all down to get Zeynep. Nobody is safe.”
I leaned back, folding my arms, everything lining up whether I liked it or not, urgency settling in hard. “They took the wrong girl,” I said. “I’m getting Evie back no matter who I have to kill.”
Mystic’s eyes met mine again, and there wasn’t a damn thing uncertain in them.
“Oh, don’t fuckin’ worry,” he snarled. “This time I’ll drive a stake through Drago’s heart and cut his goddamned head off to make sure he’ll not be walkin’ this earth.”
Devil pushed to his feet. “Call everyone in. War room. Now.”
Chain was already pulling his phone out.
Mystic stayed where he was a second longer, the note still in his hand, his expression set in a way that left no room for anything but what came next.
War.
And even with everything sitting wrong between me and Evie, with everything she’d done and everything I didn’t understand yet, there wasn’t a chance in hell I was letting them touch her.