Chapter 32
32
MARCUS
I didn’t think. Didn’t breathe. Just moved.
The spa door slammed shut behind Claire’s muffled scream, and I was already on the second bastard—his gun skittering across the tile as my fist cracked his jaw. Blood sprayed, hot and wet, splattering my shirt, my face, but it wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough. The first guy groaned from the wrecked reception desk, clutching his gut where I’d slammed him, but I didn’t stop to finish him. They’d taken her. Taken her. My Claire.
I roared her name again, voice tearing out of me like shrapnel, and bolted for the back door they’d dragged her through. The blonde at the desk shrieked—useless, fake, probably in on it—but I didn’t give a shit. My boots pounded the polished floor, slipping in some asshole’s blood, and I caught the frame just as the service hallway loomed ahead. Dark. Narrow. A fucking trap, and I’d walked us right into it.
“Claire!”
No answer. Just the echo of my own rage bouncing off concrete. I drew my pistol, barrel steady despite the tremor in my hands, and charged in. Shadows moved—two of them, big, hauling something limp between them. Her. Hooded, slumped, but alive—I’d know her shape anywhere, even in the dark. My vision tunneled, red and black, and I fired. One dropped, a clean shot through the shoulder, his scream cut short as he hit the ground. The other spun, dragging her faster, disappearing around a corner.
I ran harder, lungs burning, every step a promise—I’d kill them. All of them. Rip their spines out and choke Hart with the pieces for daring to touch what was mine. The hallway split, and I caught a flash of movement—tires squealing outside, a door sliding shut. I burst through the service exit into humid air, gun raised, but they were gone. Van taillights flared red, then vanished down the access road.
Gone.
I stood there, chest heaving, the Bugatti waiting fifty yards away where I’d parked it. My fist slammed into the wall—concrete bit my knuckles, splitting skin, but I didn’t feel it. She was gone, and I’d let it happen. Right in front of me. My fault. My fucking fault.
I could still hear her—her sharp gasp, the scuffle of her feet as she fought, the way she’d twisted against them before they took her down. I’d been too slow. Too fucking slow. I’d seen the trap coming—felt it in my gut the second we stepped into that spa, the air too still, the blonde too calm—but I hadn’t moved fast enough. Hadn’t gotten her out.
I yanked my phone out, blood smearing the screen, and dialed Ryker. He picked up on the first ring.
“She’s gone,” I snarled, voice raw. “They took her. Daniel Island Club. Hart’s goons. I need everyone—now.”
A beat of silence, then his voice, cold and hard: “On it. Stay put.”
“Fuck that,” I snapped, already moving for the car. “I’m going after her.”
“Marcus—”
I hung up, slid into the driver’s seat, and gunned it. The engine roared, a beast waking up, and I tore out of the lot. They had a head start, but I’d find them. I’d tear Charleston apart street by street, burn every shadow until I had her back. And when I did? Hart and whoever she worked for—Department 77, God, the devil himself—would beg for a mercy I wouldn’t give.
The Bugatti ate the road, asphalt blurring beneath me as I pushed it past ninety, weaving through traffic. Horns blared, headlights flashed, but I didn’t care. My hands gripped the wheel, knuckles white, blood dripping onto the leather from where I’d split them open.
I couldn’t stop seeing her—gray eyes wide with that hunter’s glint, blonde hair spilling over her shoulders, the way she’d smirked at me in the ops room like she owned the damn world. She’d been mine to protect, mine to keep, and I’d failed her.
Jason hit me then, unbidden, a memory slicing through the haze. Iraq. Sand in my teeth, heat baking my skin, his laugh cutting through the tension as we rolled out on patrol.
“You’re too pretty to die, Dane,” he’d said, clapping my shoulder.
Two hours later, he was gone—IED, no warning, just a flash and a crater where my brother-in-arms used to be.
I’d felt it then, too—that cold grip on my spine, the instinct screaming something was wrong.
Too late.
Always too fucking late.
And Dad. His shadow loomed bigger, darker, a wound that never closed.
I’d been deployed when he went dark—too far away to stop it, too disconnected to understand the secrets he’d buried with him. Hart’s taunts about him had ripped that scab wide open, and now Claire was paying for it. My past, my failures, bleeding into her present.
I growled, low and guttural, slamming the heel of my hand against the wheel. Not this time. I wouldn’t lose her, too.
I hit the access road hard, tires screaming as I took the turn. The van couldn’t be far—two minutes, maybe three ahead. I scanned the dark, searching for those taillights, for any sign of her. The island’s quiet streets stretched out, lined with oaks and manicured lawns, a mockery of peace when my world was shredding apart. Then I saw it—a glint of metal in the distance, a black van swerving onto a side road toward the marsh.
I floored it, closing the gap, the speedometer ticking past a hundred. The road narrowed, pavement giving way to gravel, crunching under the tires as I gained on them.
My pulse thundered, a war drum in my chest. I could see her in there—hooded, drugged, but fighting. She’d fight. Claire didn’t break. She’d claw, kick, tear at them with everything she had. I had to believe that, because the alternative—her still, her gone—was a wound I couldn’t take.
The van veered again, cutting toward a dirt track that snaked into the reeds. I followed, the Bugatti fishtailing but holding, my hands steady on the wheel despite the chaos in my head.
I was close—fifty yards, then thirty. I could ram them, force them off, end this now. My finger hovered over the pistol on the seat beside me, ready to finish it the second I had a shot.
Then they pulled a move I didn’t see coming. The van’s back doors flew open, and a figure leaned out—big, masked, a rifle in his hands. Bullets sprayed, a staccato roar cutting through the air. I swerved, glass shattering as the driver’s side window blew out, shards slicing my cheek. The car spun, tires biting dirt, and I fought to keep it on the road, cursing as the van pulled ahead.
That’s when I realized my tires were shot. I tried straightening out, blood trickling warm down my face, and pushed harder on the gas.
Twenty yards.
I could still catch them.
I lost control as the Bugatti gave out to the flat tires and slippery road. I did a full 360 before she came to a stop.
I got out of the car thinking to run after the van. Then something glinted in the dark—a small, black shape that I’d seen tumble from the van’s open doors, hitting the ground and rolling into the grass. My gut twisted. I knew it before I saw it clearly—her recorder. The one she’d carried everywhere, clutched in her hand like a lifeline.
The van disappeared into the marsh, and I couldn’t chase it. My boots sunk into the soft earth as I ran to where it lay. My hands shook as I picked it up—scratched, dented, but hers. A sign. She was alive. She’d fought. Dropped it to mark her trail, to pull me to her.
I clutched it, my breath ragged, and straightened. The van was gone, lost in the maze of backroads and waterways, and I was standing there with nothing but a piece of her in my hands. Rage boiled up, hot and blinding, and I roared, the sound tearing out of me until my throat bled raw. They’d pay. Every last one of them.
My phone buzzed in my pocket, snapping me back. I yanked it out—Ryker.
“Where the fuck are you?” he barked, no preamble.
“Marsh road off Daniel Island,” I said, voice like gravel. “Lost them. They had a shooter. Took out my ride. She’s gone, Ryker.”
“Stay there,” he ordered. “We’re five out. Atlas is with me. He’s got drones in the air.”
I didn’t argue. Couldn’t. The fight had drained out of me, replaced by something colder, sharper. I slid the recorder into my pocket and leaned against the car, blood and glass crunching under my feet. Five minutes stretched like hours, the humidity pressing in. I replayed it all—her scream, the hood, the van—searching for what I’d missed, what I could’ve done.
Finally, Ryker’s truck rolled up, kicking gravel. He climbed out, all six-four of him radiating that quiet, lethal calm I’d seen in war zones. Atlas followed, his eyes already scanning the scene like a hawk. They didn’t say shit, just moved. Ryker clapped a hand on my shoulder, hard enough to ground me, while Atlas crouched by the tire marks, tracing the van’s path.
“She dropped this,” I said, holding up the recorder, my voice steady now, edged with ice. “She’s alive. Fighting.”
Ryker nodded, once, tight. “We’ll get her back.”
Atlas stood, brushing dirt off his hands. “Tracks head east—toward the docks, maybe. Drones are closing in. We’ll find them.”
I opened my mouth to respond, but something caught my eye—a glint in the grass, a few feet from where the recorder had landed. I stepped over, bending to pick it up. A burner phone, cheap and black, screen cracked but glowing. My stomach dropped as I thumbed it on—a single voice message waiting.
I hit play, and a voice slithered out, low and mocking. “Dane, you’re late again. Ask your father how this ends.”
The line went dead.
Ryker’s jaw tightened as he heard it, Atlas’s eyes narrowing to slits. Department 77. My father’s ghost loomed again, his secrets a noose tightening around us all.
I crushed the phone in my fist, plastic splintering, and turned to my brothers. “They want a war? They’ve got one.”
Ryker met my gaze, dark and unyielding. “Then let’s burn them down.”
The night swallowed us as we moved—Dominion rising, a fortress waking up. Claire was out there, and I’d find her. I’d bury anyone who stood in my way.