Chapter 18
Brody
My fist connected with the punching bag so hard the chain rattled, sending vibrations up my arm and into my shoulder. Sweat stung my eyes, the salty taste of it catching on my lips as I drove another combination into the leather. The familiar rhythm of impact should have been calming—left jab, right cross, left hook, pivot—but nothing could settle the storm raging inside me.
Three days.
The timer on my watch seemed to mock me with each passing second. Seventy-two hours until whoever had Jenny did God knows what. My knuckles split on the next impact, a bright flash of pain that barely registered against the dull ache in my chest.
Drake leaned against the doorframe of our home gym, his presence a quiet gravity I couldn’t ignore. The tablet in his hands cast a bluish glow across his face, deepening the shadows beneath his eyes. Neither of us had slept much since the ultimatum had come through.
“You’re bleeding,” he said softly, his voice cutting through the heavy silence between us.
I glanced down at my knuckles, watching crimson bloom against the white of my hand wraps. “Doesn’t matter.” The words came out rougher than intended, scraping against my throat.
Drake crossed to me, setting the tablet on a weight bench before taking my hand in his. His fingers were cool against my heated skin as he carefully unwrapped the bloody bandages. “Scarlett will have my head if you mess up your hands before the fight.”
The mention of the fight—my shot at the championship—felt like a cruel joke. How could I think about glory in the ring when Jenny was out there somewhere, scared and alone?
“The fight doesn’t matter.” I flexed my hand, feeling the sting as air hit the raw skin. “Nothing matters except finding her.”
Drake’s eyes met mine, steady and serious. “The fight matters because it’s our cover for the public eye. For having the security teams that protect Scarlett. For moving around without raising suspicion.” He guided me to the bench, his look understanding but firm. “We find Jenny by playing our parts. You know that.”
I sank onto the bench, suddenly exhausted. The weight of the past few weeks—Jenny’s kidnapping, Scarlett’s memories returning, the constant vigilance—pressed down on me like a physical thing. The vinyl bench creaked beneath me, the sound unnaturally loud in the quiet room. The familiar scents of sweat and leather and metal surrounded me, usually comforting but now just another reminder of how little control I had.
“I got a hit on that last photo they sent,” Drake said, reaching for his tablet. “The one where she has the bruise.”
My head snapped up, a surge of rage so intense it tasted metallic flooding my mouth. “They hurt her?” The Beast inside me—the one I kept carefully controlled except in the ring—roared to life, demanding blood.
Drake’s expression darkened. “Looks that way. But she’s alive, Brody. Focus on that.” His fingers danced across the screen, bringing up an enhanced version of the photo we’d received yesterday. Jenny’s small face filled the display, her eyes wide with fear but also something else—determination, maybe. The purple smudge across her cheekbone made my stomach clench.
“I’m going to kill them,” I said quietly, the words a promise, not a threat. “Every last one of them.”
“Get in line.” Drake’s voice carried an edge I rarely heard from him. “But first, we need to find her.” He zoomed in on a portion of the image. “There’s a reflection here in the window behind her. I’ve been running it through some enhancement algorithms.”
I leaned closer, squinting at the blurred shape. “What am I looking at?”
“Warehouse district, most likely. These support beams are distinctive—cast iron from the early 1900s. There are only a few buildings in the city that still have this particular structure.” He swiped to another image. “I’ve narrowed it down to three possible locations.”
Hope flared in my chest, bright and painful. “Have you told Reeves?”
Something flickered across Drake’s face—doubt or suspicion, I couldn’t tell which. “Not yet.” He set the tablet aside. “I wanted to discuss it with you Graham and Scarlett first.”
The unspoken concern hung between us. Someone close to us was feeding information to the kidnappers—we’d established that much. But who? The circle of trust had grown painfully small.
“Good call,” I said, standing to pace the room. My muscles burned pleasantly from the workout, the physical discomfort a welcome distraction from my thoughts. “We need to—”
The door opened, and Scarlett appeared in the doorway. The sight of her hit me like a physical blow—not because anything was wrong, but because everything about her was so achingly right. Her hair was loose around her shoulders, still damp from the shower. She wore one of my old t-shirts, the fabric swimming on her small frame, the neckline slipping to reveal the curve of her collarbone. The scent of her shampoo—something floral and clean—drifted across the room.
“There you are.” Her voice was soft, but I caught the thread of tension running through it. “I was worried when you weren’t in bed.”
I crossed to her in three long strides, pulling her against me before I even made the conscious decision to move. Her body was warm and solid against mine, anchoring me when everything else felt like shifting sand. I buried my face in her hair, breathing her in.
“Couldn’t sleep,” I murmured against her skin. “Thought I’d work off some energy.”
Her hands slid up my back, fingers tracing the muscles there with familiar intimacy. “Any luck?” she asked, but the question wasn’t directed at me.
Drake shook his head, the movement catching in my peripheral vision. “Not yet. But we have some leads.”
Scarlett pulled back just enough to look up at me, her eyes searching my face. What she found there made her expression soften with concern. “You’re pushing yourself too hard.”
A laugh escaped me, harsh and without humor. “Not hard enough.” I gestured to Drake’s tablet. “We’ve got maybe seventy-two hours before they—”
I couldn’t finish the sentence, the possibilities too horrific to voice. Scarlett seemed to understand, her hand coming up to cup my cheek. The gesture was so tender it made my chest ache.
“Come upstairs,” she said, her thumb brushing across my stubbled jaw. “You need rest. Both of you do.”
Part of me wanted to protest, to insist that rest was a luxury we couldn’t afford. But the exhaustion pulling at my limbs was becoming harder to ignore, and the thought of lying beside Scarlett, even for a few hours, was too tempting to resist.
Drake gathered his tablet, his movements slow with fatigue. “A few hours of sleep might help us think more clearly,” he conceded.
The bedroom was dimly lit when we entered, the soft glow of a single lamp casting warm shadows across the rumpled sheets. Graham was already there, his large frame taking up one side of the bed, hair loose around his shoulders. He stirred as we entered, one arm reaching automatically for the empty space beside him.
“Everything alright?” he asked, voice rough with sleep.
“Just convincing the guard dogs to rest occasionally,” Scarlett replied, her tone light despite the circumstances.
I shed my sweat-soaked shirt, letting it fall to the floor before collapsing onto the bed. The mattress dipped as Drake and Scarlett joined us, the four of us shifting automatically to accommodate each other. It should have been strange, how easily we’d adapted to this arrangement, but instead it felt like the most natural thing in the world.
Scarlett settled against my chest, while Graham’s arm draped across her waist, his fingers brushing my hip. Drake took up position on my other side, close enough that I could feel the warmth of him without actually touching. The familiar weight of them around me eased something tight in my chest.
For a few minutes, there was only the sound of our breathing gradually synchronizing in the darkness. The scent of Scarlett’s shampoo mingled with Graham’s cologne and the clean sweat of Drake’s skin, creating a sensory cocoon that was uniquely ours.
“I remembered something else today,” Scarlett said suddenly, her voice quiet in the darkness. “About A-List.”
The statement hung in the air like smoke. Since her memories had started returning, each new revelation had been another piece in the puzzle connecting her attack, Maddy’s death, and now Jenny’s kidnapping.
“What?” Graham asked, suddenly fully alert.
Scarlett shifted slightly, her body tensing against mine. “The story Felicia stole from me when she tried to submit my story as hers. It was having an effect on my memories. Even then without knowing it I’d recalled some things about campaign fraud and who was behind it.”
Ice slid down my spine at her words. The Beast inside me growled, protective instincts flaring.
“Matthews,” Drake said, the name cold with certainty.
“Him and others,” Scarlett confirmed. “The CEO was just one player in a larger network. That’s why they’re so desperate to keep me quiet.”
Graham’s arm tightened around her waist. “The files Walter found completed this and now they’re using Jenny as leverage. They know Scarlett remembered something. Felicia told them. I’m sure of it now.”
“But leverage for what?” I asked, frustration edging my voice. “What exactly do they want from us?”
Scarlett was quiet for a long moment, her breathing shallow against my chest. “Me,” she finally said. “They want me.”
The single word hit like a physical blow. My arms tightened around her automatically, as if I could somehow shield her from the threat with my body alone.
“No,” I growled, the sound rumbling up from deep in my chest.
Drake sat up abruptly, the mattress shifting beneath his weight. “That’s not happening.”
“It might be the only way to save Jenny,” Scarlett said, her voice stronger now. “Three days. That’s all we have. What if we can’t find her in time?”
“We will,” Graham said with a certainty I wished I felt.
“And if we don’t?” Scarlett pulled away from me, sitting up to face us all. In the dim light, her expression was a study in determination and fear. “I can’t let anything happen to her because of me.”
“This isn’t because of you,” I said fiercely, sitting up to face her. “None of this is your fault.”
“Isn’t it?” Her voice cracked slightly. “She dragged me into that gym that day. She befriended me, and now she’s paying the price for my mistakes.”
“Stop.” I took her face in my hands, forcing her to look at me. Her skin was soft beneath my calloused palms, her eyes wide and bright with unshed tears. “Jenny is not your responsibility. You didn’t do this to her.”
“But I can save her.”
The quiet certainty in her voice terrified me more than any threat could have. I’d seen that look before—on fighters who stepped into the ring knowing they were outmatched but determined to go down swinging.
Drake moved closer, his voice steady. “Scarlett, you know they won’t let either of you go. This isn’t a trade; it’s a trap.”
“You don’t know that,” she argued, though I could see the doubt in her eyes.
“I do.” Graham’s voice cut through the tension, firm and absolute. “People who do this—who take children as leverage—they don’t honor deals. You’d both be gone.”
The Beast in me roared at the thought, clawing at my insides with sharp-edged panic. The idea of losing Scarlett, of losing Jenny—it was unbearable. My hands shook against her skin.
“I can’t lose you,” I said, the words raw with emotion I couldn’t contain. “I won’t.”
Something in my voice must have reached her because her expression softened, one hand coming up to cover mine. “Brody…”
“No.” I shook my head, struggling to find words for the fear choking me. “You don’t—you don’t understand what you are to me. To us.” I gestured to include Drake and Graham, whose expressions mirrored my own desperation. “Before you, I was just… existing. Fighting. Surviving. You gave me something to live for.”
Tears spilled down her cheeks now, catching on my fingers. “I love you,” she whispered. “All of you. That’s why I can’t let someone else suffer because of me.”
“And we love you,” Graham said, moving to kneel beside us on the bed. “Which is why we’re going to find another way.”
Drake joined us, the four of us forming a circle on the rumpled sheets. “We have leads,” he reminded her. “Real leads. Give us the three days, Scarlett. Please.”
Her shoulders slumped slightly, not in defeat but in acquiescence. “Okay,” she agreed softly. “But if we don’t find her…”
“We will,” I promised, pulling her against me once more. Her body melted into mine, the tension slowly draining from her muscles as I stroked her back. “We will.”
The four of us settled back against the pillows, limbs entangled in a way that would have seemed strange once but now felt like home. Scarlett’s breathing gradually deepened, exhaustion finally claiming her. Graham followed soon after, his arm draped protectively across her waist.
Drake caught my eye over their sleeping forms, his expression grim in the dim light. “We need a backup plan,” he murmured, low enough not to disturb the others.
I nodded, my hand continuing its gentle rhythm against Scarlett’s back. “Tomorrow,” I promised. “First light.”
Drake settled back against the pillows, but I knew neither of us would sleep much. The clock was ticking, each moment bringing us closer to the deadline. Seventy-two hours. It wasn’t enough time.
It had to be enough time.
I must have dozed eventually because the sound of the television jerked me awake. Sunlight streamed through the gap in the curtains, painting a bright stripe across the bed. Scarlett and Graham were gone, but Drake sat at the foot of the bed, remote in hand as he stared at the screen.
“What is it?” I asked, voice rough with sleep.
Drake didn’t answer, just turned up the volume. A news anchor’s voice filled the room, professional and detached as they delivered what felt like a punch to the gut.
“…Felicia Reynolds, former executive at the prestigious PR firm, was released on bail this morning pending her trial for corporate espionage and fraud. Reynolds, who was arrested three months ago after she attacked a fellow employee and it was discovered she allegedly had been stealing sensitive company documents, has maintained her innocence throughout the investigation.”
The camera panned to show Felicia emerging from the courthouse, surrounded by lawyers and reporters. But it was the figure in the background that made my blood run cold—a familiar blonde in a nondescript pantsuit, watching the proceedings with a slight smile.
Aria.
Drake froze the image, zooming in on her face. “Looks like the gang’s all here,” he said grimly.
The Beast inside me stirred, sensing the approaching fight. Two days and some hours remained until the deadline. The clock was ticking, and now our enemies were moving openly.
The game had changed, and time was running out.