Chapter Thirty-Three – Unleashed
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Unleashed
J o rushes forward the moment the judge exits, and the four of us crash together in a wordless, tangled hug.
We are all shaking. Relief and exhaustion are fighting for space in my chest, but it’s over. It’s finally all over now.
Behind us, I catch a glimpse of Jayme and Renner.
Jayme’s talking to one of the clerks, probably handling post-verdict procedures.
Renner steps aside to shake the foreperson’s hand.
The gallery is starting to empty, but no one rushes us.
Jo’s uncles linger near the edge of the aisle, faint smiles on their faces.
We finally pull apart enough to breathe. Jo wipes her eyes and gives us a half-laugh, still choked up.
“I just need a second,” she says. “Bathroom. I’ll meet you out front.”
Jay nods. “You good?”
She chuckles. “Good doesn’t even cover it.”
A court officer points her toward the hallway restroom.
We head toward the front steps. Outside, the sun is setting and the crowd is waiting for us.
S?nia and Fontes are right by the entrance, S?nia waving both arms the second she spots us.
Alice is beside her, beaming. Behind them, the packs from the garrison stand in a loose semicircle. They nod and smile at us.
The press is clustered near the barriers, cameras raised, mics out, eyes like sharks. They shout questions the second they see us.
Renner steps forward fast, his voice clipped and sharp. “No comment.”
Jayme’s right beside him, blocking the path with a casual, practiced ease. “Move aside. They’re not giving statements.”
Our eyes scan for Jo. I check the sidewalk, the crowd, the steps, expecting her to be threading her way through, maybe lost behind someone taller. But she’s not there.
It’s uncomfortable being away from her right now, even for a few minutes. We wait in silence, my anxiety growing by the second, my brothers’ faces mirroring the unhinged feeling twisting in my chest.
“I’ll go check,” Jay says after a while, turning back toward the doors.
Shane and I follow him back through security, and into the corridor that leads to the restrooms. A couple of staff glance up, startled, but don’t stop us.
The hallway is quiet now, drained of urgency, like the trial had been a storm that’s already passed.
Jay knocks lightly on the bathroom door. Then harder .
We all freeze, tuning in. Listening. Sniffing. No footsteps. No water. There was not a single sound from inside. Her scent lingers faintly in the hallway, a fading thread. She was here, but she’s not anymore.
Shane pushes the door open. It’s empty, and her scent’s gone. Not faint, gone.
“She never made it in,” he says.
Jay’s already scanning the corridor. “Maybe there’s another bathroom,” he mutters.
We move. Jay heads toward the elevators to sweep the upper floors and staff-only access. Shane doubles back to the main hall, checking each open office and conference space. I head toward the restricted witness corridor, checking the path, doorways, even the small jury deliberation area.
I pass a cleaning cart. A bailiff chatting with another officer. And then, my heart skips a beat and a wave of relief washes over me as I catch her scent. It’s faint, but still easy to follow. I move faster, holding onto that thread.
The scent gets a little stronger, warm and familiar, and my chest loosens. She has to be right there. Just behind that corner.
I round the corner. And stop cold.
It’s not her.
The source of her scent is her purse, lying on the floor in the middle of the corridor.
I force myself to breathe as I kneel and run my thumb over the leather. Her scent clings to it, sharp and recent. I stand and push open every door in the corridor, one after the other. Each one empty, not even a hint of her scent.
I don’t let my mind form the thought that explains why her purse is here, but she’s not.
My hands start to shake. I grip the purse tighter, then turn and bolt back toward the bathrooms. Jay and Shane are already there, converging at the same moment I come around the corner.
They look at me immediately, and I know it’s because they’ve picked up her scent, but then they see I’m alone and their expressions crumble.
The second I reach them, Shane takes the purse from my hands and flips it open. It’s all there: her phone, her truck keys, her ID. Everything.
I can’t deny it anymore. The reality slams into me, and it doesn’t hit like a blow; it hits like a vacuum.
“She didn’t get turned around,” I say. “Someone took her.”
Inside a courthouse. A federal building full of security cameras and officers.
I grab my phone, tap into the garrison network, and send out a mass ping.
Our nyra is missing. Inside the courthouse.
Shane bolts for the doors and returns with Fontes, Renner, Jayme, Jo’s uncles, and all the garrison packs right behind him.
My voice comes out low and rough. “I want this building shut down. No one enters or exits. One team sweeps the perimeter. Another interviews every staff member in this courthouse. Now.”
Jayme and Renner exchange a confused look, still processing, but the aegis and Fontes are already moving.
I clock a court officer across the hallway and cross the distance fast. “Take us to the security control room.”
I don’t raise my voice, but he flinches like I did. Maybe it’s my tone, maybe it’s my face. I don’t care.
“Now,” I snap.
He jumps and starts trotting down the hall. My brothers and I follow on his heels.
We burst into the security room. A man at the monitors looks up, startled. He opens his mouth, but Shane’s already issuing clipped, precise instructions. The officer doesn’t argue, probably too afraid. He turns to the console and starts pulling footage immediately.
Jo isn’t anywhere on the live feed.
“Go back,” I say. “Courtroom 3B. She walked toward the restroom about ten minutes ago.”
The officer rewinds and finds her in seconds.
She exits the courtroom calmly, just ahead of us. She goes right, toward the end of the hallway. We go left, toward the main entrance.
How could we have been so stupid? We’ve been with her every second for the past two weeks, alert and ready. And today, we just let her go alone. We let her walk into this.
The image shows a woman approaching Jo in the middle of the hallway. She gestures toward something, pointing left. Jo nods and follows her down another corridor. Casual. Trusting.
The tech switches to another camera. Jo and the woman enter a side hallway, and I recognize it as the one where I found her purse. Up ahead, a man in a maintenance uniform stands near a door. He opens it and steps inside, leaving the door half-open.
As Jo reaches the door, he steps out casually. Then, quick and clean, he angles toward her and presses something to her side.
Jay leans in. “Pause. Zoom it.”
The image isn’t perfect, but it’s clear enough to make my heart start pounding in my throat: he’s pressing a gun against her ribs.
The tech resumes the video. Jo jolts and her purse slips off her shoulder, hitting the floor. The man leans in close, his mouth near her ear, probably a warning. Jo’s head dips and she goes still. She’s cooperating.
The man lowers the gun and tucks it out of sight. The woman presses herself on Jo’s other side, and the three of them walk forward, exiting the frame.
Another camera picks them up in the employee hallway. They reach a locked security door, and the man swipes a keycard. The door opens, and they just… leave.
I swallow back the bile burning my throat, my heart beating fast as the reality sinks in. This is not a nightmare. This is real. Jo’s gone.
I turn to the officer who brought us here. “I want every piece of data you have on these two. Now.”
On-screen, the feed switches to the exterior cameras. A gray sedan idles at the curb.
Shane leans forward. “That’s the car that was outside our house yesterday.”
We watch it pull away. It moves, turns down a side access road and disappears.
I can’t breathe; the ache in my chest is too much to bear. My lungs burn as I take a deep breath, forcing the air in.
Thirty minutes later, we have the full picture. The woman’s a nobody. She entered as a general observer and sat in the gallery throughout the trial. She presented an ID at the checkpoint, but it wasn’t scanned, just checked as protocol. No data recorded.
The man entered as a contractor. HVAC repair.
The courthouse had routine maintenance scheduled for next week, but yesterday someone called to “reschedule” it for today.
Nothing triggered suspicion. The uniform matched, and the ID looked real, but it was a setup.
Someone inside helped them. Had to. But digging out that accomplice and making them talk will take time we don’t have.
The Solomon pack flags Jo’s abduction to MAB, and Commander Eneas calls me directly.
“This was their contingency,” he says. “Whoever’s protecting that doctor expected that your conviction would’ve ended the investigation. Since that didn’t work, they took your nyra to freeze you and keep you quiet long enough for them to clean the house.”
He assures me his pack will do everything in their power to help us find her.
We stay in a conference room, waiting for the Zervas pack to return to the courthouse. They’d gone to the location where the car was last picked up on traffic cameras. The room is quiet now, the three of us, plus Jayme, Alice, and Sonia. Everyone else is scattered, pulled into motion.
Jo’s uncles are in one of the interview rooms with courthouse staff, questioning everyone who was in the building when she disappeared.
Fontes is with the local PD, pushing for full cooperation and street-level resources.
The garrison packs are already tracking leads, scanning DMV footage, cross-referencing maintenance firm records, trying to scrape together anything before the trail goes completely cold.
When the Zervas pack enters the room, I already know they have bad news.