Chapter 24
Roque
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
One second, I was glancing down at my phone to check the security alerts coming through, and the next, I was staring at footage that made my blood run ice cold.
The camera on the side of the house caught it first. A dark, unmarked van came tearing into the frame, headlights off, engine growling. And then, without even hesitating, itslammedstraight into the side of the house.
Right through the damn wall.
The van hit so hard that its entire frame shook. Plaster dust blasted out from the impact as the wall broke into pieces, and the metal groaned as it came to a stop half in and half out of my home where Sayla and the kids were.
I barely had time to process the impact before five figures emerged—masked, fast, and armed—and disappeared through the gaping hole they’d just created.
“ Fuck— ” I hissed, switching to the internal feeds, fingers trembling as I tapped through the app.
There they were, five of them moving through the house like they’d done it a hundred times before in tight formation, each man clearing a room with precise, practiced movements. There was no panic, no hesitation. This wasn’t a smash-and-grab, it wasn’t some junkie looking for cash or pills. It was organized and targeted.
They weren’t there to steal a damn thing. They were hunting Sayla and the kids.
I grabbed my radio and phone simultaneously, the pressure of both in my hands grounding me for a split second as cold sweat slid down the back of my neck. My heart hammered so hard I could barely hear myself speak over the roar in my head.
“DB,” I clipped, my voice sharp, already running on adrenaline. “Emergency at my place. Five armed suspects just breached the house. They drove a van straight into the side wall. Sayla and the kids are inside.”
There was a heartbeat of silence, and then DB came back, calm but all business. “Copy that. I’m rolling. Units are on the way. ETA ten.”
I was already throwing the SUV into gear, gravel spitting out behind me as I peeled onto the road. “I’m twenty-eight out,” I said through gritted teeth. “But I’ll be faster.”
I killed the call and floored it, the engine screaming beneath me as I pushed the speedometer well past what was legal—hell, beyond what was smart—but I didn’t care.
All I could think about was the last message from Sayla. She’d tried to sound steady even though I knew her hands had to be shaking. She had no idea what had just happened or what was coming through that wall.
God, please let them be okay .
Please let her be smart enough to stay hidden, keep the kids quiet, and hold the line long enough. Because if anything happened to them—if I got there too late—there wouldn’t be a place on this earth those bastards could hide where I wouldn’t find them.
I’d been standing in Randolph Topper’s kitchen when the alerts started coming through. We were mid-search—me, Keir, Kapono, and Imogen—turning the place over while paramedics wheeled Topper out the front door, barely clinging to consciousness. He’d looked like death: pale, sweaty, and his breathing shallow. If someonehad poisoned him, it wouldn’t surprise me. He’d made enough enemies to fill a stadium.
Honestly, none of us cared much if he made it or not. What mattered was that the suspected poisoning gave us legal grounds to search his house. And Judd wasn’t wasting a second of it—he and Kai were already working through his home office and den while Imogen photographed everything.
We hadn’t found the smoking gun yet, but we were damn close.
Then my phone had buzzed. I’d pulled it out of my pocket, still half-focused on the cabinet I’d been searching in Topper’s kitchen. The moment I opened the message, the world disappeared from under me.
I didn’t say a word, I didn’t need to. The air shifted around me, electricity crackling as my brain went from detective to something more primal. I turned and walked straight out the front door.
Keir didn’t ask a single question, and neither did Kapono. They caught the look on my face—something between fury and fear—and immediately followed. Footsteps thundered behind me as we moved, three men with decades of training and a shared understanding thatwhatever it was, it was bad.
We peeled out of Topper’s driveway like the house was on fire, gravel spitting in every direction as our tires screeched across the ground. I didn’t even look back, I didn’t have to, Iknewthey were behind me. And thank God, because I wasn’t thinking straight.
My chest was tight as I opened the camera feed on my phone, fumbling to switch to the outside cameras as I took the first hard turn. What I saw made my stomach twist into knots.
A dark, unmarked van was half inside, metal groaning, wood splintered everywhere—a gaping wound in the structure where myfamilywas supposed to be safe.
I swallowed hard, trying to control my panic as my fingers flew over the screen, switching to the internal feeds. I watched as they entered room after room with chilling precision. They were clearing the house like professionals—tactical and methodical, too good to be amateurs and too prepared to improvise.
I reached across the seat for my Kevlar vest and yanked it over my head, the truck swaying hard as I adjusted it while still barreling down the road. My hands were slick with sweat, and my jaw was locked so tight that it felt like my molars would crack under the pressure.
“Easy,” I muttered, my voice low and ragged. “Stay alive, you’re no good to them dead.”
In the rearview mirror, I caught the familiar shape of Keir’s truck close behind. Kapono’s SUV was just a few car lengths back, with headlights off, but moving fast. Silent backup, riding the same current of fury and urgency that had taken hold of me. They didn’t ask for intel, they didn’t need a briefing, theyjust knew.
And they were coming with me into hell without hesitation.
They wouldn't let me face whatever was waiting for us at that house alone.
And the second I got through that door—ifthey’d harmed even a hair on the heads of the people I loved—there wouldn’t be a place left for those bastards to hide. No corner of the earth dark enough, far enough, or protected enough.
Because I was going to burn every last one of them to the fucking ground.
I came in hot, tires shrieking against the asphalt as I slammed the SUV to a stop in front of the house. The world was chaos—flashing lights, shouting, sirens echoing off the nearby houses—and the front lawn looked like a full-blown crime scene. Members of Piersville PD were already swarming the property, weapons lowered but eyes sharp, trying to piece together what had just happened.
Then paramedics pulled up, lights strobing red and white, and my heart nearly stopped.
No, no, no .
I jumped out of the vehicle before it had fully settled, my boots hitting the pavement hard, and I was halfway to the porch when DB came running toward me, hand raised.
“It’s not for Sayla or the kids,” he said quickly, reading the look on my face. “It’s for the driver of the van. His neck’s likely broken from the impact. He’s still pinned in there, so the fire department’s on the way to cut him out.”
I barely nodded. I didn’t care about the driver, he wasn’t my concern.
I pushed past the chaos, past the uniforms shouting over radios and EMTs unloading stretchers, and straight through the broken front door. What used to be my living room was now a wreck of drywall, insulation, and shattered furniture. The side of the house gaped open like a wound, and the front of the van still sat wedged halfway into the wall, smoke curling from the engine.
But I didn’t stop. I didn’t look. I didn’t need to.
I knew precisely where Sayla had taken the kids. We’d talked about it more than once, in the quiet hours between midnight and dawn, both of us hoping it was a plan we’d never have to use.
Kaida’s room.
The hallway stretched in front of me like a tunnel, too long and too narrow, and I took it two steps at a time, boots pounding the floor. Adrenaline spiked hard through my veins, every nerve drawn tight like a tripwire ready to snap. The noise of the house—the shouting, the crackle of radios, the distant roar of the engine still smoking in the wall—faded to nothing. All I could hear was the pounding in my chest.
Just as I rounded the final corner, two figures stepped into my path, blocking the way. Alex and Raul didn’t raise their hands or bark orders. They just stood there, grim, their faces pale and eyes heavy with the truth they didn’t want to speak.
Their expressions said it before their mouths could.
“They’re not there,” Alex explained quietly, his voice more apology than warning. He reached out, maybe to steady or stop me, but I brushed right past him, heart hammering like a war drum.
“No,” I said, barely above a whisper. “She would've taken them there.”
I reached the closet like a man sleepwalking, my hand moving to the edge of the frame before my brain could catch up. My fingers touched the plasterboard and froze.
It was already gone—ripped off and thrown aside like someone had found it in a rush, so the panel now lay at an awkward angle on the floor. I stepped forward, crouched, and looked into the space I had prayed they’d still be in.
The small crawlspace behind the closet was completely empty.
But what stopped me cold—what hollowed me out—was the blood. Not just a drop or a scrape—there were streaks on the wall and floor, across the edge of the opening where it looked like someone had been dragged or had fought to stay.
My eyes swept across the mess, cataloging the chaos with brutal clarity. My skillet was just outside the space, dented and coated with blood. The knife Sayla must have grabbed from the kitchen lay beside it, the blade still slick and dark. The rolling pin wasn’t far, resting where it had fallen, fingerprints smudged through more blood.
There had been a helluva fight.
And everything inside me fractured at once.
For a moment, all I could feel waswhite noise—a deafening, static scream that drowned out the rest of the world. Like the blood in my veins had frozen and my bones had gone hollow. The air felt too thin, the light too bright, and everything in my chest collapsed inward.
But I couldn’t let it break me. Not now.
I forced breath back into my lungs, inhaling sharp and hard, shoving every ounce of panic and despair down deep where it couldn’t paralyze me. They weren’t here, but they weren’t dead either.
Sayla had fought. It was written in every inch of the room—the overturned furniture, the smeared handprints on the wall, the blood splattered across the floor. This wasn’t panic or surrender, it was resistance, pure and fierce. She hadn’t gone quietly. She’d bought time, done damage, and made them bleed. That blood on the knife, skillet, and floor meant something. It meant she’d landed hits, and someone didn’t walk away clean.
And maybe she’d managed to get the kids out. Maybe that chaos and violence was a distraction—a last stand to give Kairo and Kaida the chance to run and hide.
If there were even the slimmest possibility she’d pulled it off, I still had time. I still had a chance to catch up, cut them off, ordo something. The not knowing gnawed at me, but it wasn’t going to stop me, it was going to fuel me.
Because if she was out there, and the kids were still breathing, then nothing else mattered. I was going to find them. I’d tear down every wall, every safe house, every rat hole these bastards thought they could hide in. I’d hunt them until there was nowhere left to run.
And if any of them had laid a hand on her or the kids, even a God wouldn’t be able to help them. I was coming with everything I had, everything Iwas, and I wasn’t going to be reasonable. I wasn’t going to play by the rules, I was going to be the nightmare they didn’t see coming until it was too damn late.
And this time, I wasn’t leaving a single one of them standing.