11. Chapter 11 #2
I reach for my phone back from Rafe. I don’t want to see this. But I have to. Jude is crying now, his body slumping forward as much as the restraints allow, completely spent between shocks. But they’re not done.
“Again.”
Jude’s head lifts, barely enough to speak. “Please…” he whispers, his voice wrecked, unrecognizable. “I’ll do anything…please don’t—”
The next shock hits before he can finish. I flinch so hard my phone almost slips out of my hand again.
“Stop,” he chokes, the word breaking apart as his body convulses again. “Fuck—”
The video cuts, and silence slams into me. My reflection stares back at me in the dark screen.
My face.
The same one they used. The same one that made him scream. Made him hurt.
My hand flies to my sternum as something between a whimper and a gasp leave my lips. “Oh, my god…”
My vision blurs instantly. They turned me into the thing that broke him. I exit the video, my hands shaking. The screen flickers once before returning to the main interface, and that’s when I see the timer still counting down. My pulse roars in my ears as the realization truly settles in.
“Is that a timer?” Micah asks, his voice pitching higher.
I nod, tears slipping silently down my cheeks, my gaze locked on the numbers as they continue to fall. “It’s a c—countdown,” I whisper, my voice barely there. “He’s going to release something.”
“How long?” Nico asks sharply.
“Less than two hours now,” Rafe answers, his eyes scanning the screen.
I don’t respond. I can’t. Because beneath the timer…there’s a message. My stomach drops as I read it, my lips parting.
“Emma,” Rafe says, quieter now. “What does it say?”
I swallow hard, my voice trembling as I force the words out. “‘You want to see more?’”
The room goes still.
My chest tightens as my eyes flick over the rest of it. “‘Return him to me before the clock runs out…’” My voice cracks, but I keep going, because I have to. “‘…or you can watch the rest with everyone else.’”
Heather inhales sharply.
“Fucking motherfucker,” Micah swears, flipping a chair. Heather flinches when it crashes back to the ground.
Nico leans closer to the screen, his expression darkening. “He’s not bluffing.”
“No,” Rafe says quietly. “He’s escalating.”
I can’t stop staring at the timer. At the seconds bleeding out and the threat hanging over us. I’m not just afraid for Jude, I’m afraid of what the world is about to see. “What do we do? There has to be something,” I press, my voice tightening. “We can’t just sit here and let him—”
No one is answering me.
Rafe stands a few feet away, completely still, his gaze fixed on Adela’s screen. There’s something different about him now.
“Rafe.”
He exhales slowly, dragging a hand over his mouth before finally looking at me. “We don’t have anything,” he says. “We haven’t cracked anything yet. Not enough to use. Not enough to scare him.”
The room tilts.
“He knows that,” he adds quietly. “Or at least…he suspects it. It seems that he’s calling our bluff.”
The words are a slap in the face.
Micah lets out a harsh breath, pacing once before dragging both hands through his hair.
“So what, we just sit here?” he snaps. “We just let him drop whatever the hell he’s about to drop and watch Jude get destroyed?
He's going to, you know that, right? He knows that if we don't have anything, then Jude is either as good as dead or in prison for fucking life.”
No one answers him either. Because no one has anything.
“Rafe,” I try again, softer now, desperate in a different way. “What do we do?”
His jaw tightens, his gaze flicking back to my phone in my hand.
“Right now?” he says after a beat. “There’s not much we can do. I’m sorry, Emma.”
The finality in his tone hits so hard I feel like I could pass out.
Micah huffs, the sound between a laugh and a curse, before his legs give out beneath him.
He drops onto the couch beside Adriana, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, his hands covering his face like he’s trying to hold himself together.
“This is fucked,” he mutters into his palms. “This is so fucked.”
Adriana is unnaturally still beside him, her shoulders tense, her gaze distant, as if she already knows exactly what Alexei is capable of putting into the world. The only sound left in the room is the quiet, relentless ticking of the clock on the screen.
Counting down.
And we’re just…waiting for it to happen.
I try not to look at it, but my eyes keep drifting back anyway. One hour, forty-eight minutes. Then forty-seven. Then forty-six. I press my lips together and force myself to turn away, but even then I can still feel it ticking in the back of my mind.
I can’t think properly. I'm sure everyone is in some level of shock because no one is saying anything.
I’m supposed to be able to think. To have something useful to say that makes this feel less like we’re all standing on the edge of a cliff, waiting to get kicked the fuck off of it. But all I can see is that video.
Jude’s body jerking against restraints, his face changing when they forced him to look at me, and the sound he made afterward, like his soul was being ripped out of his body. My stomach turns hard enough that I have to steady myself with a slow breath.
No.
I force my eyes shut for a moment, but it doesn’t help. “Adela,” I say, and my voice comes out tight. “How long?”
She doesn’t look up from the screen. Her fingers keep moving, while Nico leans in beside her, murmuring under his breath in a language of codes and warnings I can’t follow.
“I don’t know,” she says finally, not unkindly, just exhausted. “Every time I break one layer, it triggers another. It’s not a system, it’s a trap. A very patient one.”
“We don’t need everything,” Micah says from the couch, his voice rougher now. “Just give us something we can use. Something we can hit back with.”
“That’s the problem,” Nico mutters without looking away from the screen. “If we pull the wrong thread, we either trigger our location…or a full fucking release. Nolan’s whole system is fucking annoying.”
“So is Alexei’s,” Adela responds swiftly.
“Aren’t you guys supposed to be the best?” Micah asks over his shoulder.
My eyes dart to Adela, but she’s ignoring him, speaking quietly to Nico. But Rafe walks over to stand in front of Micah, suddenly making his shoulders tense. Rafe is intimidating to begin with, but the way he’s glaring down at Micah has goosebumps breaking out over my arms.
“My wife is the best,” he says flatly. “In the States. But there are others who are just as good in other parts of the world.”
Micah sighs. “I’m sorry—”
“Don’t be,” Rafe cuts him off. “Just don’t ever insult my wife again. We’re doing what we can to help you. We’re being nice. We could have never stepped in when Rook contacted Nico. I hope you know that.”
Micah nods.
I wrap my arms around myself, feeling my heart pounding out of control.
“I hate this,” Micah mutter. He drags his hands down his face, staring at the floor. “I hate just sitting here.”
I understand that more than I want to.