Chapter 45
SLOANE
The kitchen had gone quiet in a way that made the air feel heavier.
Ella’s hand tightened around the wine bottle. Holland watched me like she was watching a fracture spread. Cami kept looking at my phone, then away, like she didn’t want to be caught looking too hard.
I forced my shoulders down. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to kill the mood.”
“You didn’t,” Ella said. She set the bottle down and picked up her glass again like she could stitch normal back together with routine. “And you’re not alone in this.”
I nodded, because if I spoke again, I’d crack.
My phone buzzed in my hand with a notification from an unknown number.
My pulse jumped hard enough to make my fingers go numb.
I didn’t open it right away. I told myself not to.
That I didn’t need another thing to spiral over. It buzzed again, and I looked.
Unknown:
Nathaniel Ramsey. 8 p.m. If you want answers, come to the address.
Below it was a pin and a street address, then walking directions. My stomach dropped so fast it felt like free fall. I stared at the screen until the words stopped looking real.
Holland’s voice cut in, gentle but sharp. “Sloane? What is it?”
I looked up too slowly.
Ella’s gaze locked on me. She didn’t ask again. She already knew it was something that mattered.
“It’s … I’m not sure.” Was this real? Had Ryker learned something from Hamilton? He said he wanted to talk later. Was it about Nate? Hope strangled me, and I shook it off.
Cami’s brows pulled together. “That’s not a nothing face.”
I swallowed hard, my tongue suddenly thick. “I got a message. About Nate.”
No details. No names, but enough truth to justify my reaction to the girls.
Ella didn’t move. “From who?”
“I don’t know.” I shook my head in disbelief. “It’s an unknown number.”
Holland shifted closer, not crowding me, but closing the distance. “What did it say?”
I hesitated.
If I said the wrong thing, I would set off alarms I couldn’t manage. If I said too much, I’d drag them into something they didn’t agree to.
But if I said nothing, I would end up alone. And alone was exactly how people got taken. “It said his name,” I admitted. “And it gave me an address.”
Ella’s expression changed as if her brain had kicked into high gear.
Cami shook her head once. “That’s bait.”
“Or it’s the first real lead I’ve had in three years.” I wasn’t going to try to convince them that I had to risk it. It was a given and I had a feeling they understood.
Holland’s voice stayed calm. “Those two things can be true at the same time.”
I looked down at the message again. The pin. The time. Eight p.m. My heartbeat wasn’t a beat anymore. It was a fucking warning.
Ella set her glass down carefully. “Do you want to go?”
My mouth opened. No sound came out. Yes. No. God, yes.
“I don’t know,” I finally whispered.
Ella nodded like that was the only honest answer. “Okay. Then we’re going to make a decision that doesn’t get you killed.”
Cami let out a short breath. “We’re not sending you anywhere alone.”
“I didn’t ask you to—” I started.
“You didn’t have to,” Holland said, simple as that.
I blinked fast. “You don’t even know me.”
Cami’s smile was small. “I know what it looks like when a woman is about to talk herself into doing something dangerous because she loves someone.”
The words hit too close.
I glanced at Ella. She was already moving toward the counter where she’d left her keys.
“Show me the address.”
I handed her my phone.
She read the screen once and didn’t flinch. Then she looked at me, steady. “We can go, but we don’t go chasing shadows. We go together. We stay together.”
My pulse kicked again. “It could be nothing.”
Ella’s mouth curved, humorless. “It’s never nothing.”
Holland leaned forward. “Have you told Ryker?”
Anxiety tiptoed down my spine. Ryker had told me to stay here. To stay with them. To not leave if anything felt off. This felt fucking way off. “No.”
Cami’s gaze narrowed. “Why not?”
I didn’t want to be the girl who cried wolf. Because I didn’t want to sound desperate. If I told him, he’d come alone and that might get him killed.
“I don’t want to get my hopes up,” I said, and that was close enough to the truth.
Ella handed me my phone back. “Then we don’t. We treat it like a threat until it proves otherwise.”
Hope reared its ugly head. “What if it’s him?”
Holland’s shoulders squared. “Then we make sure you’re standing when you hear it.”
Ella grabbed her keys. “Coats. Shoes. Now.”
Cami’s eyes widened. “Where are we going?”
Ella didn’t hesitate. “To the address. We’ll sit back. We’ll watch. We’ll decide what’s real.”
“Ella, I can’t ask you to—”
“You’re not,” she cut in. “I’m choosing.”
Holland was already reaching for her coat. “Same.”
Cami stood and nodded. “Same.”
I stared at them, my vision blurring. The urge to argue rose out of habit. Out of years of being the only one responsible for Nate. Then I remembered what it felt like to have no one. “Okay.” My chin shook briefly before I got a hold of myself.
Ella’s gaze held mine. “Promise me something.”
“What?”
“If anything else feels wrong, you listen,” she said. “To us.”
I nodded. “Got it.”
“And you don’t run,” Holland added. “Walk and stay in control. If they’re watching us with guns, they’ll shoot.”
“I won’t.” My body was vibrating with enough tension and stress to crack me in two.
We filed out of the penthouse. Ella killed lights, checked the door, then came back with her phone in hand. She texted someone, thumb moving quick, and slipped it into her pocket.
None of us spoke while in the elevator. In the garage, my car waited in the guest space, and we all climbed in.
“Seatbelts,” I said.
Cami and Ella clicked theirs. Holland did the same. I forced my hands to cooperate and clicked mine.
My phone buzzed again.
Unknown:
Don’t bring anyone.
Cold slid through my veins. I held the screen out. Ella read it as Holland leaned in, and Cami’s mouth tightened. No one argued. No one pretended it wasn’t what it was.
Ella exhaled through her nose. “Okay.”
Cami blinked. “Okay?”
“We make it true,” Ella said. “At least from their angle.”
Holland tipped up her chin. “Drop point.”
My head spun. “You’re letting me go alone?”
Ella shook her head. “You’ll arrive alone. That’s not the same thing.”
I took the next turn onto a narrow side road and killed the headlights. The car rolled the last few yards into a gravel turnout tucked behind trees.
“Out,” Ella said quietly. “Now. Phones off, no talking, no light.”
The doors opened in near silence. Gravel crunched under careful steps.
Holland moved first, scanning the tree line like she’d done it before. Cami stayed close to her shoulder.
Ella lingered half a beat beside my door. “You drive to the pin, and you do exactly what they say. If they tell you to step out, you step out. If they tell you to walk, you walk. If they say go to the tree line, you do it slowly. Give me one clear look back.”
My breath stuttered. “And if they don’t?”
Ella winked at me. “Then we come to you.”
I nodded once. That was all I had.
Ella stepped back into the dark. Holland and Cami vanished between the trunks, not running, moving with purpose, spreading out instead of clustering. Gone fast enough to be invisible. Close enough to reach me.
I bit my lower lip hard, slid into the driver’s seat, and pulled back onto the road alone.
I kept my hands at ten and two and my breathing shallow. No music. No glow. No checking the mirror too often. Just me in the driver’s seat, exactly what they’d demanded.
The pin sat on my screen like a heartbeat. Eight o’clock closing in.
Somewhere behind me, three women were moving through the night along the same road in silence.
The GPS guided me onto a narrower road. The trees pressed tighter, the dark thickening beyond my headlights. This was it.
My mouth went dry. I slowed, scanning the shoulders for movement, for the wrong shape, for the flash of reflective tape. Nothing.
Then headlights appeared behind me, cresting a rise.
They were closing in fast, and I eased onto the shoulder, positioning the car so I could move if I needed to. The lights washed over me, bright and unforgiving before they stopped.
A door opened somewhere in the dark.
My pulse hammered once, hard.
A man stepped into the beam of the headlights and lifted one hand, not a wave. More of a signal.
“Engine off,” he called. “Lights out.”
I didn’t move.
The man’s voice stayed flat. “You want your brother alive? Do what I say.”
My heart skipped a beat. He said alive.
I killed the engine, and the headlights died. Darkness swallowed the road, leaving only the thin spill of moonlight and the faint glow of the dashboard.
The man walked closer, stopping well short of the car. Close enough to be heard. Far enough to stay safe.
“No phone,” he said. “No calls. No recording.”
I swallowed hard and slid my phone into the console without looking away from him. He’d forgotten to tell me to ditch my iWatch.
He pointed past me, toward the trees. “You’re exposed out here. If you’re still on the road when the next set of headlights comes through, it’s over.”
My voice was calmer than I felt. “Next set of headlights?”
He didn’t answer. His gaze stayed locked on me. “Tree line. Now. Fifty feet in. You’ll see a ribbon.”
I tried to steady my shaking hands and focus on his instructions.
“And keep your hands where I can see them while you walk,” he added. “Palms out. No sudden moves.”
I nodded and stepped away from the car.
Gravel crunched under my shoes. The air smelled like wet earth and pine. I walked slow, deliberate, hands lifted at chest height, palms forward, giving him the compliance he wanted.
The trees swallowed the edges of the road.
Only when I was under the branches did I see it in the distance—a pale strip of fabric tied to a limb. It fluttered in the slight breeze.
“There,” I breathed.
“When you reach the ribbon, stop,” the man called. “Don’t go past it.”
Fortunately, he wouldn’t be able to see me or the girls once I reached the meeting place.
Before I continued, I needed to know one more detail. My lungs burned. “When will I get him back?”
Silence.
Then, quietly, “Wait.”
And that was the worst part. Not seeing the trap, but feeling it close.