Chapter 16 #3
He turned to me, eyes blazing with purpose. “It’s go time.”
The whole apartment erupted.
Doors burst open.
Heavy footsteps slammed against the floor.
People streamed out from hallways, side rooms, hidden nooks I didn’t even know existed.
Within seconds, the quiet, controlled calm I’d grown used to was replaced by a surge of raw, laser-focused urgency.
A messy, chaotic chorus of shouts overlapped around me.
Orders shouted.
Bags yanked from under tables.
Weapons checked with practiced movements.
There were more of them than I realized. Dozens—faces I’d only ever seen in passing, now lit with the same fierce set of grim determination.
For the first time, I finally saw what Lincoln had built here.
A network.
A force.
A family forged by necessity and loyalty and loss.
“Maybe you shouldn’t come.”
The voice—familiar, quiet, annoyingly steady—irritation spiked instantly through my system.
I turned and met Lincoln’s eyes head-on.
Steady.
Earnest.
Unmoving.
“Not a chance,” I said. The words came out harsher than I meant them to be, but I didn’t walk them back.
His jaw flexed. A tiny flicker of emotion crossed his face—worry, frustration, something else he’d never admit to.
“Horyi—” he began.
The nickname hit me like a blow.
Soft.
Old.
Too close.
Too much like who we used to be.
And for a suspended moment, I froze—not because of fear, but because a part of me still remembered exactly what it felt like to trust him.
“No.” I cut him off before he could soften, explain, or coax. “You told me to grow up. This is me—grown up.”
The words hung between us, sharp and trembling, and for one suspended heartbeat neither of us moved. The air tightened, thick with everything we didn’t have time to unpack—fear, history, anger, loyalty, something fragile simmering just right beneath the surface.
Then Dave barked an order from down the hall, and the moment shattered.
By the time we reached the underground car park, the engines were already rumbling. Headlights sliced through the darkness like impatient, restless eyes. The smell of exhaust and metal hit me hard.
I followed Dave without hesitation.
Of all of them, he was the one built for movement—no questions, no hesitation, no fear.
If something was going down, he was already halfway there.
And I wanted to be there, too. I needed to be there.
The thought of staying behind again—of being useless, powerless, absent—triggered an ugly, twisting rush inside my ribs.
The city streaked by in a dizzy blur of roaring traffic. Every sharp turn made my pulse hammer harder. Every second felt like we were running out of time.
The moment the car skidded to a stop outside Kai’s family home, I was already shoving the door wide. The air outside was biting, almost icy with the scent of rain that hadn’t fallen yet.
We stormed through the entrance.
No guards.
No resistance.
No alarms.
Nothing.
The silence pressed down on me like a weight. Too quiet. Too smooth. Off.
The elevator crept upward at a glacial pace, its numbers blinking mockingly slowly. Dave cursed and veered toward the stairwell. We followed, boots pounding, breaths jagged and uneven. Burning spread through my lungs, but adrenaline shoved the pain aside.
Something was wrong.
Deeply, dangerously off.
On the top floor, Dave booted the door open.
Chaos exploded outward.
Bodies scattered everywhere—Mrs. Li’s men, judging by their suits—strewn across the tiles, some groaning, some unconscious, some frighteningly still. Dark streaks of red stained the tiles. A haze of smoke clung to the air, leaving a bitter sting on my tongue.
Dave’s team snapped into action instantly—guns up, voices sharp.
“Clear!”
“Clear!”
“Move!”
Room after room.
Door after door.
All of them wrecked—splintered furniture, shattered glass glittering like ice underfoot, violent smears of struggle marking the walls.
Then we reached the last door.
Dave shoved it open, and the world tilted.
A padded room.
Foam-lined walls swallowed the sound. Straps dangled limply from the bed, buckles glinting under the flickering fluorescent light. The air was thick with disinfectant—cold, chemical, sanitized.
Wrong.
My stomach dropped. A chilling wave of nausea rolled through me. The room felt alive, like the walls remembered the screams, the fear, the madness that had seeped into them.
But the room was empty.
No Lucy.
No Mrs. Li.
No Kai.
A tight hitch clawed up my throat.
“Where is he?” I demanded, my voice cracking under the weight of terror I couldn’t hide. “Where is Kai?”
No one answered.
Everyone was moving, shouting, checking the injured, calling out commands—but all I could see were the empty spaces where he wasn’t.
Gone.
Dave finally turned toward me. His expression was a grim slash across his face.
“He’s not here,” he said quietly. “They moved him.”
“No.” My head shook—instinctively, violently. “No, that’s not possible. Lucy—she’s supposed to be on our side—she—”
But the words died halfway, freezing on my tongue.
Because even as I tried to defend her, dread curled, cold and sharp in my gut.