Chapter 14 #2
Bjorn puts a hand on my shoulder. "You are losing your sanity, brother." Calm. We need to maintain our composure to manage this situation.
“I’m losing her,” I whisper-growl. “Every fucking second she’s away from me."
“No,” he says firmly. “Not yet. Nothing is over until we get her home."
But I can feel time slipping, like sand through a clenched fist.
By the time we get close to the last week of month two, I’m barely human.
Grace avoids looking at me when she comes out of her room, rounder now since she’s in her third trimester and more exhausted; of course, the midwife is on call per Bjorn’s orders.
“You need sleep,” she says softly. I don’t respond.
“You need to take care of your body so you can rescue her.” I still don’t respond.
“You need…”
“Don’t,” I rasp. “Don’t tell me what I need. I need Claire.”
Grace’s eyes fill with tears, and she rushes back down the hallway as Bjorn shoots me a look that is a warning and disappointment.
But I don’t apologize. I don’t have the capacity for guilt. Just grief and fury. And I feel a growing conviction that Claire might be breaking in ways I can’t imagine, and it’s killing me that I can’t reach her.
And that thought…that thought hollows out something inside me.
On a Sunday night, Axel stands abruptly from his laptop.
“Got something.”
My heart slams into my ribs.
“A shipment manifest,” he says. “A private lab purchased large quantities of… lactation-induction pharmaceuticals.”
My stomach flips. “Where?” I breathe.
He zooms in. An unmarked biomedical facility. In a restricted area. The facility is under the ownership of a subsidiary of SableCorp.
Everything inside me stills. Then I smile. A slow, cold, deadly smile.
Because whoever took Claire? They just breathed their last breaths.
They left a trail, and I will follow it into hell.
It’s Monday, the beginning of the third month, and I’ve stopped pretending there is a point where grief stops being grief and becomes something that feels less like heartbreak and more like starvation. That’s where I live now. I now reside in the void between anger and hopelessness.
I don’t remember the last time I slept through the night. I don’t remember the last time I showered long enough to feel human. I don’t remember the last time I didn’t feel her absence like a wound in my body.
People talk. People whisper. People try to comfort me. I don’t want comfort. I want her. And every day without her makes me more dangerous.
The lawsuit against Dr. Madsen’s clinic grows teeth by Wednesday. Bjorn handles the filings, his jaw clenched so tight I can hear the grind of it when he’s furious.
Grace watches from the doorway, arms draped protectively around her belly. Now that she’s closer to her due date, the midwife and doula are making weekly visits to ensure her stress is stabilized as well as manage her Braxton Hicks contractions.
“What if Dr. Rhys left something in my file?” she asks one morning, her voice trembling. She’s trying to stay calm, but her eyes keep flicking toward me like she’s afraid I’m going to snap.
I am. But not at her. “You’re safe,” I say, my voice flat. “He never touched your prenatal care. Bjorn checked everything twice.”
She exhales shakily. “And Claire?” My throat closes.
“Don’t,” I whisper. “Please, don’t ask me that.” Her eyes soften with heartbreak. She steps closer, laying her hand briefly on my arm.
“She has to be okay. You’ll find her.” I want to believe her. God, I want to. However, each hour she remains missing feels like a repeat of her loss.
Thursday dissolves into chaos. A tip comes in, anonymous and frantic, promising a location. We mobilize immediately. Weapons. Gear. Surveillance trucks. And when we get there?
It’s an empty shipping yard. Nothing. Not a scrap. Not even a boot print. A trap meant to waste our time. I throw a metal crate so hard it dents the side of the building. Bjorn has to physically pull me back, his arms braced around my chest as I fight him.
“They’re playing with us! ” I shout, voice cracked open. “They know we’re getting close!”
“Exactly!” he growls back. “Which means losing control now helps them, not you!”
My breathing is harsh and uneven. My vision tunnels. My hands shake. Leander watches, stunned, the same quiet, gentle man Claire trusted instantly now looking at me as if unsure whether I’ll shatter or explode.
Leif murmurs, “Erik… brother… you’re scaring us.” Good. Let them be scared. Let the world be scared. The longer Claire is gone, the darker I become.
That night, Axel finds something new, something that doesn’t disappear under scrutiny. “I found a procurement form,” he says quietly.
We gather around him. “It’s from a biomedical facility outside Houston. They purchased equipment used for…”
He hesitates. “...for long-term maternal extraction.”
A silence so heavy it bruises the air that fills the room. I swallow, the taste metallic. “Date?”
“Two days after Claire went missing.” My pulse stops and starts again in a violent jolt.
This is it! A place. A confirmed purchase. A timeline that matches exactly. I grip the table until the wood groans.
“Show me,” I say. Axel zooms in on the facility. The grounds are massive. Fenced. Guarded. Privately owned. Built to hide things.
“Why haven’t we hit this place already?” I rasp.
“Because,” Bjorn answers, “they’re legitimate on paper. We need proof before we raid.”
“Claire is the proof!” I bellow out.
His expression twists with grief. “I know. But if we go in without legal authorization and she’s moved before we find her…”
“I don’t care,” I spit. “I will tear that place apart!!”
“And if she’s not inside?” he counters gently. “What if she’s moved tomorrow? Or next week? We only have one opportunity to do this. One.”
I hate him for making sense. I hate myself more for listening; I just want to kill them all.
By Friday, Grace’s pregnancy symptoms spike. She’s safe and medically stable, but stressed. Overwhelmed. And she feels guilty for surviving something she’s afraid Claire has not.
She cries when she thinks we can’t hear her. Bjorn is constantly at her side, pacing, checking her vitals, checking locks, and checking windows. The midwife tries to reassure him, but he is unraveling in his own way.
The house feels full of ghosts. Claire’s laughter in the kitchen. Grace’s voice is mixing with hers. The brothers teasing them both. Now it’s just fear, tension, and the sound of my heart breaking over and over again.
Sunday, I stand in our walk-in closet. Her clothes. Her shoes. Her tops are hanging off the edge where she left them last.
The scent of her is faint on the collar. My knees hit the floor before I realize I’ve fallen. I hold one of her shirts to my face and breathe it in like oxygen.
It hurts. God, it hurts. “I’m coming for you,” I whisper. “I swear to you, Claire. I’m coming.” But part of me fears I’m too late. Part of me feels her slipping further into the dark each day.
Part of me is terrified she’s losing hope in me. And that thought cracks something inside me so loudly it feels like a physical break. I bury my face in her shirt and allow the grief to consume me in a way I’ve never permitted myself to experience, not even during the war.
Because my love for Claire has revealed to me the one truth that terrifies me more than death: I cannot survive a world she isn’t in.