Chapter 46
Maps are spread across the dining table, men barking orders into phones, guns being checked and loaded.
It’s eerily reminiscent of when we all rallied to save Cora, and fuck, do I wish we weren’t so familiar with this, so practiced, with plans already in place.
It’s the smoothness that scares me. The speed and efficiency.
Like we’ve rehearsed this a hundred times because life keeps taking the women we can’t afford to lose.
And it’s also why, despite Lily having been gone for less than twenty-four hours, I know none of us will rest. Not until she’s back in my arms, where she belongs.
The clock isn’t just ticking, it’s bleeding.
Jonathan is snapping orders in rapid-fire French into one burner phone and Italian into another, pacing tight circles like a man trying to outrun his own fear.
Aidan’s at the far end of the table, shoulders rigid, jaw clenched, coordinating with the teams we have stationed near every major motorway.
Owen’s slamming magazines into rifles with mechanical precision, the floor around his boots littered with ammo boxes and crumpled notes.
Liam’s on the laptop, triangulating the last ping from Lily’s phone before it went dead.
And me?
I’m in the middle of it all, heart hammering, stomach knotting, barely holding myself together as adrenaline and dread wage war inside my chest. Every glance, every whispered order, every shift in the room reminds me exactly why Lily can’t wait another second.
We’ve put eyes on every airport, every road out of the city, every known safe house tied to Salvatore. And yet we’ve got nothing. Hours pass in a blur of motion, and the silence becomes its own form of torture—steady, gnawing, merciless.
I’m two seconds from tearing the room apart when the lift doors open.
A runner stumbles inside—barely more than a kid, breathless, cheeks raw and red from the cold. He nearly trips over the threshold, catching himself at the last second before bending over, hands braced on his knees as he fights for air.
“Boss—sir—Jonathan—I’ve got something.”
Jonathan is already moving, a sharp-edged shadow cutting through the room. “Which port?” he demands, the question honed to a blade.
The kid swallows hard. His eyes flick around the room—too many faces, too much weight—before locking back on Jonathan. “The docks, over on the north side.” He drags in another breath. “One of the watch boys flagged an unregistered shipment before dawn. No manifest, no logs.”
My stomach tightens.
“He mentioned seeing a girl too, but…” The kid hesitates, throat bobbing. “Didn’t think anything of it at the time. Not until the photo went out. Not until we were told to watch for Lily.”
The world lurches.
For half a second, it feels like the floor drops out from under me.
“He’s certain now,” the runner finishes quietly. “The girl he saw being moved—” He looks at me then, like he already knows what this is about to do. “It was her.”
Something roars in my ears. A deep, violent sound that blots out everything else. My vision narrows to a pinprick, the edges of the room dimming.
Dawn.
We were standing here at dawn—talking, arguing, circling the truth—while she was being moved right under our noses.
Jonathan’s hand clamps down on my shoulder, solid and grounding. “Matt. Look at me.”
I try to breathe. The air barely makes it past my ribs—shallow, jagged, useless.
“Where?” Da growls, stepping forward like he might rip the answer out of the boy if he hesitates. His face is carved from thunder, every line sharpened by fury and something far worse—realisation.
Seeing him finally understand how wrong he was about Lily—seeing the truth land, undeniable and sharp—should feel like vindication. It should feel like triumph. Like something earned after watching her carry blame that was never hers.
But standing here, with the clock ticking and Lily somewhere in the dark, it feels like nothing at all.
Vindication doesn’t mean a damn thing if she’s still missing.
“Warehouse Twelve-B,” the runner blurts. “Down by the cranes. Old Scots territory—before they pulled out.”
Aidan mutters a curse under his breath. Owen is already in motion—phone out, jacket half-on, barking clipped orders I can’t make out over the blood pounding in my skull.
Jonathan surveys the room and nods once. The look on his face is all cool control and resolve, the kind that only comes from a man who’s spent his life balancing blood against consequences, who knows exactly when mercy runs out, and war takes its place.
“Matt, Owen, Liam—you’re with me,” he says. “We’ll hit the warehouse. See what they left behind, what they were sloppy enough to miss.”
His gaze shifts, already thinking three steps ahead.
“Ciaran—take Declan and Aidan. Find the kid who flagged the shipment. I want every detail he remembers. Times, vehicles, faces, everything. If he blinked at the wrong moment, I want to know why.”
Da doesn’t argue. He jerks his chin at Declan and Aidan and heads for the lift without another word. He’s still furious with me—with everything that’s come out tonight—but for now he’s forcing it down, banking it for later.
It won’t stay contained for long.
And when it breaks, I can only hope Salvatore is close enough to feel the full weight of it.
Jonathan’s focus shifts to Seamus next, his tone turning colder, heavier, orders delivered like sentences that have Jack and Brennan snapping to attention in an instant.
“Lock the city down. Inner and outer perimeter. Get the women and children somewhere safe before this spills over. Anyone who can’t defend themselves is off the board.” His gaze pins them there, unyielding. “Then meet us at the docks.”
Seamus inclines his head once. Jack’s jaw tightens, a muscle ticking in his cheek. Brennan is already pulling his phone from his pocket as he strides for the lift, barking orders before the doors even close.
Jonathan turns back to me as the penthouse empties out around us, the room hollowing with every retreating footstep.
Cora lingers at the foot of the stairs as Owen presses a brief kiss to her forehead while Liam takes April from them, cooing something that makes her small fist curl into his shirt as he holds her on his hip.
The sight of it hits harder than almost anything else tonight—a sharp, brutal reminder of what I stand to lose if we’re too slow. Of everything Lily and I might never get if we don’t reach her in time.
Jonathan’s gaze follows mine for half a heartbeat before returning to my face, sharp and knowing.
“You ready?”
No.
I won’t be, not until she’s in my arms, not until I hear her voice instead of imagining her screams, not until I know she’s breathing. My chest feels too small to hold my heart. My pulse is a live wire. My hands won’t stop shaking.
But I nod anyway. The motion feels fractured, like something cracked just beneath the surface. “Let’s go.”
Hesitation isn’t an option. Because every breath feels like a countdown. Because she’s out there somewhere.
And if I don’t reach her now—
She could disappear.
And I won’t survive that.
The docks reek of rust, salt, and something rotten beneath it all. Fog rolls low across the ground, curling around our boots like it’s alive, swallowing the edges of the world until there’s nothing left but shadows and steel.
Warehouse Twelve-B rises out of it like a waiting beast. Corrugated metal walls groan in the wind, the windows are boarded up, and the padlock is thick enough to anchor a ship.
Jonathan lifts two fingers as we approach it.
Liam peels left, Owen takes the right, and I head straight for the door, every step a drumbeat in my chest. My pulse has gone feral—hammering, skipping, and threatening to tear straight through my ribs.
“Matt,” Jonathan grunts, low and pissed off, behind me. “Control yourself. We don’t know what’s inside.”
Control is a joke, a fantasy. Trying to hold it is like trying to cage a hurricane with my bare hands.
Liam gives the all-clear as Owen swings the bolt cutters. Metal snaps as the padlock clatters to the floor, hollow and sharp, like the warning bell of a disaster.
We slip inside as one unit.
Cold hits first—brutal and immediate, sinking past skin and muscle, straight into bone. The warehouse smells of iron and mildew, dust hanging thick in the torchlight like static. Crates loom in the shadows. Abandoned machinery squats like carcasses. Somewhere in the dark, water drips.
“Over here,” Liam calls softly from the back corner. “There’s something on the ground.”
My heart lodges in my throat as I make my way to him, my boots sounding too loud against the concrete. I stop dead when I see what he’s found.
Silver high heels that cost a small fortune.
The same heels I kissed that night in Lyon.
I lift them with trembling hands. My lungs seize, refusing air. My fingers burn from the tremor ripping through my body. She was here, that much is undeniable. And the thought of her in someone else’s hands—someone who would hurt her—makes the floor tilt, my stomach dropping straight through it.
“Matt,” Jonathan calls, cautious, like he’s bracing me against something I can’t see. “This is a clue. She was brought through here this morning.”
Too long.
“They don’t have a real head start,” he continues, firmer now, choosing his words carefully. “She hasn’t even been missing twenty-four hours going of what you told us.”
The words hit, but they don’t settle. Not at first.
“Hours are everything in a place like this,” I grind out, pulse roaring in my ears. “Every minute—”
“I know,” he cuts in quietly. Not sharp, but pointed. “Believe me, Matt. I know. That’s exactly why I know this is a good thing. The less time they’ve had with her, the fewer places she could be. Fewer transfers. Fewer hands. Fewer chances for them to disappear with her.”