Chapter 4
four
Elijah
The light is wrong when we land.
Not dark, not fully day, but that washed-out grey that settles over everything just before the sun properly rises, when the world feels like it hasn’t caught up to itself yet, like it’s still suspended between one state and another.
It doesn’t feel real.
The city moves past the window in silence, streets half-empty, buildings catching that dull early light that flattens everything, drains the color out of it, and the further we drive, the more it feels like I’m watching it from somewhere just outside of it, like there’s a layer between me and everything else that hasn’t lifted since the moment I heard she was gone.
Lucian is already working, speaking quietly to the driver, adjusting things without needing to explain them, while Christian sits beside him with his phone pressed to his ear, voice low and precise as he moves people into place.
Jackson leans forward, elbows braced on his knees, his focus locked ahead like he can force answers to appear if he stares hard enough, while Zach sits further back, too still, too quiet, like everything in him is being held in place by sheer control.
No one says it anymore.
Where is she?
Because the longer that question sits without an answer, the less it feels like something that can be spoken out loud.
I lean forward slightly, my forearms resting on my thighs, my hands hanging loose between them, still marked with blood that has dried into my skin, cracked along my knuckles, dark against everything else.
I haven’t cleaned it.
I don’t care to.
It doesn’t matter.
None of it matters.
Not compared to her.
Not compared to the fact that someone put their hands on her.
The image presses in again, trying to form, trying to settle into something I can hold onto, but I don’t let it, don’t give it space to anchor, because I don’t need it yet.
What I need is direction.
Who took her.
Where they took her.
How I get to them.
Everything else comes after.
The car turns into the drive.
The house comes into view through the trees, quiet under that dull morning light, untouched, unchanged, like nothing has happened here, like this is still a place where she should be safe.
This is where I left her.
The car barely stops before I’m out of it.
The air hits colder than it should, sharp against my skin, but it doesn’t reach anything underneath.
The door opens before we reach it. Killian steps out. And everything in me pulls tight.
It draws inward first, all of it compressing at once, the house behind him, the silence of the morning, the weight of what this place was supposed to be.
Safe.
He looks exactly the same.
Standing there like nothing has shifted. Like the world hasn’t just been torn open. Like he hasn’t already failed.
Something in my chest twists, then it snaps.
I close the distance in seconds, my hand fisting in his shirt and dragging him forward as my fist drives into his jaw, the impact cracking through my arm as his head snaps to the side.
“You were meant to keep her safe!”
The words tear out of me, rough, violent, dragged from somewhere deeper than control.
I don’t stop.
I hit him again, harder, driving him back into the frame of the door, the force of it jolting through both of us as my grip tightens.
“I trusted you.”
He stumbles, catches himself, but he doesn’t swing back. Doesn’t even lift his hands. And that makes it worse.
I shove him again, my forearm pressing into his chest, pinning him back, forcing him to take it.
“And you let someone walk in here and take her.”
Hands are on me.
Christian first. Then Lucian.
They grab my shoulders, my arms, trying to pull me back, but I don’t move with it at first, my grip still locked in Killian’s shirt, my body leaning forward like I can force the answer out of him if I push hard enough.
“You were here,” I snap, my voice dropping, sharper now. “You were supposed to be here.”
“Elijah—” Christian cuts in.
I wrench against his hold, my chest rising harder, the control I had in the car already gone.
“I left her with you.”
That lands heavier than anything else. For a second, Killian doesn’t move. Doesn’t defend himself. Doesn’t argue. He just looks at me, jaw tight, something dark sitting behind his eyes.
“I know.”
That’s it.
No excuse.
No justification.
Just... “I know.”
Something in me shifts again, more violent for it, because that isn’t enough, it’s nowhere near enough, and I step forward again, forcing against Christian’s grip just enough to close the space.
“That’s not an answer.”
My voice drops lower, tighter.
“That doesn’t fix anything.”
Behind him, Emma is already there, hands on him, her voice tight and breaking as she checks him, while Evelyn stands just behind her, pale, shaken, her eyes moving between all of us like she’s watching something she can’t stop.
Killian exhales slowly, dragging a hand across his mouth.
“I’m not your enemy here.”
The words land wrong. I move again before I can stop it.
“What if it was Emma?”
That hits. I see it. Not on the surface. Deeper.
“What if you came back and she was gone?” I push, my voice tightening. “What if it was her that was taken?”
He goes completely still. For a moment, everything holds. Then, quieter, he whispers “I’d tear everyone apart.”
The honesty in it lands clean.
“Exactly.”
The word cuts between us.
“That’s where I am.”
For a second, it feels like the whole space locks around that.
Then Christian steps in properly, his grip firm enough to force distance this time.
“We’re not tearing each other apart,” he says sharply. “That doesn’t get her back.”
Lucian settles beside him, calm, contained.
“Channel it,” he adds quietly. “Or you waste time.”
Time.
That’s what pulls it back. Not calm. Not control. Focus.
I drag a breath in, forcing something back into place.
Killian straightens slowly, Emma still at his side.
“I didn’t let this happen,” he says. “But I’m going to help you fix it.”
Not enough. But enough to move.
We go inside.
The house is too still.
Killian moves straight to the security system without speaking, pulling up the footage from the driveway monitor mounted near the kitchen.
He presses play and everything in me locks.
Lia steps into frame.
Alive.
Unaware.
Walking toward the driveway, toward the flowers like there’s nothing wrong, like the world is still exactly what it was before she opened that door.
Then he’s there.
Behind her.
Fast.
The cloth comes up over her mouth before she can react properly, her body jerking, fighting, her hands clawing at him for a second before it fades, before she goes limp.
Before he catches her.
Before he lifts her.
Before he takes her.
Something cold and violent settles in my chest as I watch it happen, as I watch someone put their hands on her and carry her away like she belongs to them.
Behind me, Jackson swears.
Low.
Vicious.
I glance once at Zach.
He looks like he’s going to be sick.
I drag my focus back to the screen as it cuts out.
“This is Vargas,” I say.
The certainty doesn’t waver.
Christian looks at me.
“What makes you say that?”
“He knew,” I reply. “On the ice. He said I looked like I’d lost something.”
The memory lands sharp.
“They’re behind this.”
Christian nods slightly.
“Then we find someone connected to them,” he says. “We make them talk.”
“I don’t care who,” I snap. “I want everyone.”
“You’ll get them,” he says. “My guys are already moving.”
Jackson steps forward.
“We should go back to Lia’s apartment.”
I turn to him.
“Why?”
“Because we need to check the footage there too,” he says. “We might have missed something.”
A pause.
“I’ve got number plates we can run.”
Something sharp cuts through me.
“What do you mean you have number plates?”
He holds my gaze.
“Before Lia let me move in… I was keeping an eye on her.”
The words settle.
“You were stalking my wife.”
He steps forward immediately this time.
“She’s not just your wife.”
The room tightens.
“She’s mine too.”
Something in me snaps again.
I close the distance and shove him hard, the force of it driving him back a step.
“You don’t get to say that.”
His hand comes up just as fast, gripping my shirt, shoving me right back.
“I absolutely fucking do.”
We collide again, chest to chest, neither of us backing off.
“You were watching her,” I snap, grabbing his shirt and dragging him forward. “Following her—”
“I was protecting her,” he fires back, shoving into me harder. “Because clearly that wasn’t happening here.”
That lands. Wrong. Violent.
I swing at him.
He catches it, but not clean, and it still clips him as he drives into me again, forcing me back a step this time.
“She’s mine too,” he says again, lower now, more dangerous.
“Not like that,” I growl, grabbing him again, pulling him in. “Not in a way that gives you any claim—”
“You don’t get to decide that,” he snaps.
Christian slams himself between us.
“Enough.”
His arm hits my chest, forcing me back, while Lucian steps in on Jackson’s side, not grabbing him, just there, enough to stop him stepping forward again.
“Stop,” Christian says sharply. “Both of you.”
I shove once against him, the urge to keep going still there, still pushing.
“She’s out there.”
The words come out rough. Lower.
And that’s what cuts through it.
Christian exhales once.
“Give me the plates.”
Jackson pulls out his phone, scrolling quickly before he hands it over.
Lucian steps forward smoothly.
“Then we go to her apartment,” he says. “We don’t waste time.”
No one argues.
We move.
Back out into the early morning light. Back into the car.
And this time, the thought doesn’t break.
When I find him, whoever put their hands on her, I’m not going to stop. I’m going to make him suffer for it.
And when I’m done, the Vargas family goes with him.