Chapter 32 Devon
DEVON
I tucked the car against the curb in the shadow of an old storage container.
Just around the bend, maybe a hundred yards out, the Chatsworth warehouse sat low and dark against the dusk folding in around it.
Chain link perimeter. A single overhead light flickered above the truck bay like it was deciding whether to die or not.
Jason was just out of view. Until I was ready to approach, I didn’t want him to know we were there.
Apollo’s voice came through the speakers. “Okay, I’ve got a visual from the traffic cam. Pushing it to Leo’s phone now.”
Leo’s screen lit up. Grainy. Timestamped. But clear enough.
Jason.
He paced tight loops. Arms flailing. Mouth moving like he was arguing with himself.
My jaw locked so hard it hurt.
Oh, yeah. He was on something. And if he’d been hooked on coke before, he’d graduated. Hard.
His head snapped toward the road every few seconds, twitchy, paranoid, then right back to pacing.
I leaned forward, forearms braced on the steering wheel like I could physically force the scene to give me more.
“Where is she?” I asked Apollo.
“I haven’t seen her since he got there.”
“He arrive in the sedan?”
“On foot.”
My teeth ground together.
I could still hear her screaming.
Still see her being dragged away.
Still feel Lofton fighting me like I was the enemy.
I swallowed it down.
“You scan the area for—”
“I’m not working with much here,” Apollo cut in. “But I did what I could. No sign of the car.”
“This motherfucker,” I rumbled, turning to Leo, my pulse pounding so hard it felt like it was shaking my vision. “I’m not here for a meet and greet. I told him he gets nothing without her. And he didn’t even bring her? You think it’s a setup?”
Leo studied the screen. “He’s a junkie with five million dollars on the line. He’s not going to risk that.”
“Then where is she?”
“I don’t know yet.” He set the phone on the dash. “Apollo, keep looking. I want eyes on him every second.”
“Copy,” Apollo said. “Yo, Devon. Lofton sent the wire info. Read the account numbers out loud when he gives them to you. I’ll push the transfer so you don’t have the distraction of your phone. Five million never moved so fast.”
Five million.
Fucking hell.
My hand curled into a fist in my lap, nails biting into my palm hard enough to ground me.
I shook my head. The idea of paying him a single cent instead of putting him in the ground burned as if I’d been doused by acid.
But Zoey’s life wasn’t something I could risk with a fake transfer or diversion.
Not after that parking lot.
Not after hearing her scream my name while I sat there and did nothing.
I dragged in a breath that did nothing to cool the heat climbing up my spine.
First things first. I had to find her before money came into play. I looked back at the screen.
Jason was still pacing.
No car.
No Zoey.
Nothing.
“I’m gonna kill him. I’m going to fucking rip the spine from his back, fashion it into a noose, and hang him with it.”
My hands flexed on my thighs like they were already trying to close around his throat.
Leo huffed a breath. “As much as I’d like to see that, I need you walking in there with your head instead of your fists.”
“That’s not possible.”
“Devon.”
I gave him my blank attention.
“You did the right thing today. In that parking lot. You protected your principal under impossible conditions. She’s alive because of it.”
Something in my chest twisted hard enough to make me sick.
“I fucking knew you were going to say that.”
“Good. Then you also know I’m right.” He held my gaze. “It’s going to stick with you. A thing like that doesn’t wash off. But it wasn’t a failure.”
“It is,” I said, my voice dropping into something rough and dangerous, “if we don’t get her back.”
Leo didn’t flinch. “Don’t borrow tragedies that haven’t happened yet. You’re the most competent man I know. I wouldn’t be sitting in this car beside anyone else. Give Apollo a minute. He wants money. He’s not getting rid of his only leverage. She’s somewhere.”
He meant it to steady me.
But all it did was pour gasoline on the fire already roaring through me.
What if we were wrong about this too and she wasn’t leverage?
What if she was already gone?
The image hit like a freight train, stealing my breath.
What if I was too late?
“Where the fuck is she!” I roared, slamming my fist into the steering wheel.
Lofton
The cops had swarmed back in the moment Devon’s fifteen-minute head start ran out and Brooke told them about the call.
She’d done exactly what Devon had instructed.
She gave them all the details on the call and Jason’s demands, but nothing about where he wanted to meet.
Chaos exploded through the room, and suddenly we weren’t waiting any more.
As if a child getting kidnapped hadn’t been enough for them to realize the urgency of the situation, a ransom call finally had been.
Nobody mentioned that Devon and Leo had left.
We intended to keep it that way.
The detectives had set up just outside, visible through the glass, coordinating with units already in the field. Close enough to be useful. Far enough that they weren’t hovering.
Brooke was sitting at the table with both hands pressed flat against the wood, watching the officers work around her with the hollow, glassy expression of someone whose body had finally caught up with everything her mind had been processing for the last hour.
“Hey.” I slid into the chair beside her and covered both her hands with mine. “Look at me.”
Her gaze traveled, but there was nothing but devastation behind her eyes.
“He’s going to get her,” I said. “Devon is going to get her back.”
Her voice barely existed. “What if he doesn’t.”
“Stop.” I moved closer. “I’ve trusted him with my life for months. He can handle this. And even if you don’t trust him…” I cupped her face, forcing her to look at me. “You trust me.”
“I’m trying,” she whispered. “I’m really trying.”
“I know.” I wrapped an arm around her. “Me too.”
She folded into me, and I held on like if I loosened my grip for even a second, she’d shatter in my hands.
We didn’t speak.
We just endured it.
Breathing.
Waiting.
Drowning.
Then both of our phones lit up at the exact same time.
We both swiped them off the table immediately. Hoping and praying for a message from Devon or Leo saying they’d found her. That they’d gotten her back, safe and sound.
The message on the screen was either the cruelest joke imaginable, or a miracle we hadn’t known to even hope for.
EMERGENCY GPS ALERT: Marty Sowers activated the following tracker. Zoey Callahan is currently located at: 34.0055° N, 118.5050° W
My heart stopped, and my lungs seized.
There was no way.
It was impossible. Marty was gone.
My brain tried to reject it outright—glitching, scrambling for logic that didn’t exist.
But her name was there. Zoey’s name and I didn’t care if the message had been sent by a literal ghost, seeing a coordinate linked to her location was enough to send my hopes soaring sky high.
“What is this?” Brooke gasped, eyes locked on the screen.
“I don’t know.” I replied, reading the words over and over. The words never changed.
Not Marty’s name.
Not Zoey’s name.
Not the coordinates of where she was located.
“Is this Jason? Is this some kind of sick joke?” Brooke snapped.
“I don’t know,” I repeated.
But I knew one thing.
Marty had loved me. He loved Zoey. He loved Brooke.
He was our family.
If he’d left something behind—
If he’d planned something—
It wasn’t a mistake.
Hope surged so fast it felt like it might split me in half.
Wild, desperate, dangerous hope.
“Jude!” I shouted.
He was there in three strides. Lark right behind him. Every cop in the room surged toward us.
Both of them took one look at our screens—
And everything in their faces changed.
“Is this real?” Brooke demanded, her voice breaking apart.
Jude already had his phone out. “Apollo.”
He answered on the second ring. “Can’t talk. I’m trying to find the kid. That bastard didn’t show up with her and Devon and Leo are—”
“I think I know where she is,” Jude cut in. “I’m forwarding you a message now.”
Devon
My phone lit up on the dash with an incoming message just seconds before Apollo’s voice cut through the speakers.
“Okay. Both of you listen to me right now.”
Leo leaned forward. “Whatcha got?”
“Lofton and Brooke both just got a text claiming to be from an emergency GPS tracking app offering the coordinates of where Zoey is.”
“That’s gotta be from Jason,” I rushed out. “He’s got us here and distracted, but he’s still trying to lure them out.”
“Hold on. You haven’t heard the best part,” Apollo laughed as if he’d struck gold.
“Spit it out, ‘Lo,” Leo demanded.
“The text said Marty Sowers activated the tracker. Which we all know is total bullshit, obviously. But, then I went back to look at Marty’s financials.
And three days before he took that money out for Jason.
He made a hefty purchase from the same app.
I looked it up. One tracker with lifetime monitoring comes out to the same total. ”
Something shifted in the car.
Not hope.
Not yet.
But something close enough to hurt.
“It’s small,” Apollo continued. “Designed to disappear. Sewn into linings, seams—anywhere you don’t want it to be found.”
Leo looked at me.
I was already there.
“The backpack,” I whispered.
My pulse kicked hard.
“Apollo, how does it trigger?”
“Preset click pattern. Has to be intentional. Not motion. Not automatic. Which means if it was Jason, he’d not only have to know that the device was there. But also how to trigger it.”
A wave of adrenaline crashed through my veins. Every muscle I possessed roared to life.
“It’s Zoey,” I breathed.
“It has to be,” Apollo confirmed. “She’s two blocks from you. I already sent you the coordinates.”
I had the car in drive before he finished.
“Let me out,” Leo demanded, flinging open the door.
I slammed on the brakes. “What the fuck are you doing?”