Chapter 28 Emma
EMMA
I don’t know why he’s telling me all this now, after weeks of silence, after pushing me away, after leaving me to untangle the mess on my own.
Why now, when my world is falling apart, and the people I love most are somewhere out there, terrified and alone?
The thought makes my stomach twist violently.
Makes my lungs seize.
A sob tears out of me before I can stop it.
My legs give out, and I sink to my knees in front of the couch, folding forward, pressing my hands together, bowing my head.
I pray.
God, I haven’t done this in years, but I pray.
For Laddie.
For Talia.
For them to be safe.
For them to come home alive.
Suddenly, Liam is beside me on his knees.
His arm slips around my shoulders, pulling me close. He holds me tight, grounding me with the steady warmth of his embrace.
“We’ll get them back,” he murmurs into my hair.
He presses a kiss to the top of my head, then holds my face with both hands. I look up at him.
And I see so many emotions in his eyes, on his face.
Determination. Fear. Worry. Anxiety. And love.
“I never stopped loving you, Emma,” he says, rough and honest. “I want to be there for you. I don’t know if I’ll ever be enough, but I want to give it a try. I want you both. Always.”
I nod, unable to force a single word past the knot in my throat. I feel too sick, too anxious, too terrified, and lost.
But I believe him. And I feel the same.
So I burrow into him, letting him pull me back into his arms.
Somehow, we end up on the couch. I lie with my back pressed to his front, his arms wrapped tight around me.
It feels familiar and new at the same time.
But mostly, it feels like exactly what I need.
Liam’s steady presence, the slow rise and fall of his chest against my spine, is the only thing keeping me tethered to sanity right now.
When a phone rings, I jolt awake.
For a second, I don’t even know where I am—just that my heart is pounding and guilt hits me like a punch.
I fell asleep.
My son is missing. My sister is missing. And I slept.
I bolt upright, breath sharp, anger rising at myself.
Liam’s already answering the call, voice raspy from sleep. “Hello.”
He listens for a moment, then says quietly, “You sure? Yeah… yeah, I know where that is. Okay. Thanks.”
He hangs up and turns to me.
“They think they found a location.”
I’m instantly grabbing a hoodie to pull over my scrubs. “Let’s go, then.”
“Emma,” he says, warning in his tone. “It’s not safe. Let me go. I’ll get the updates, I’ll go to the location, and I’ll call you the second I know anything.”
My stomach drops. “You want me to stay here?”
“I need you to stay here,” he says, stepping closer, palms open like he’s trying to calm a wild animal. “You’ve already been through hell. I don’t want you anywhere near that place. Let me handle it.”
“No.”
The word shreds out of me before I even think. “Liam, absolutely not. That’s my—” my voice breaks, “that’s our son. And Talia. I am not staying behind while you disappear into whatever nightmare they’ve been dragged into.”
His jaw clenches hard, muscle ticking. He looks torn apart by the choice, torn between his protective instinct and the reality of who I am.
“Emma,” he tries again, gentler this time, “if something happens—”
“Something already happened,” I snap, my breath shaking. “And you are not walking out that door without me.”
I can see him considering as he weighs the risk. After a tense moment, he presses a button on his phone and makes another call.
“Nik,” he says when the call connects. “We’re coming.”
There’s a pause, long enough that I can practically feel the disapproval radiating through the phone, and Liam drags a hand through his hair with a frustrated sigh.
“I’ll keep her safe. Scout’s honor.”
Another beat, then:
“I understand. See you there.”
He hangs up, jaw tight, and we gather our things. He takes my hand as we walk the two blocks to his car. His grip is warm and steady, but I can feel the tension running through him like a live wire.
He hesitates before unlocking the door, giving me that crooked, apologetic grin he always uses when he’s bracing for judgment.
“I’m sorry I have such a shitty car,” he mutters.
For some ridiculous reason, I laugh, and it startles both of us.
“That is the absolute last thing on my mind,” I say as I slide into the ancient Honda.
It’s clean, it’s tidy… but when the engine coughs to life like it just woke from a coma, I choke on another laugh.
“Okay,” I admit, “it’s not… great.”
Liam chuckles and shifts into drive, easing us out of the lot.
And as I look over at him, I see the strong line of his jaw, the focused way he watches the road, and the way his hand rests steady on the wheel. A memory hits me hard and fast.
Suddenly, I’m seventeen again.
He’d shown up in his neighbor’s black Challenger to take me to prom.
He’d stolen cash from one of his mom’s drunken boyfriends just to rent a tux.
And even after he’d slipped the money back, the guy found out anyway and beat the hell out of him for it.
But that night, none of that mattered. We were dressed up for the first time in our lives, pretending we were adults. I’d sat beside him in that borrowed Challenger, studying him as he drove.
Just like I’m doing now.
It feels wrong to slip back into that memory.
Wrong to laugh with him about this beat-up car when everything is falling apart.
Wrong to feel comforted by his presence when my sister and my son were taken because of my connection to him.
I don’t think I’ve even begun to process that.
But it also feels… good. Steady. Familiar in a way that terrifies me. Being here with him, knowing he loves me, knowing he never stopped, makes me feel so much less alone.
“That wasn’t how I wanted you to find out,” I hear myself say. “About Laddie. I wanted to tell you. To explain. And I wanted you to meet him.”
My throat tightens on the last part. I look out the window before the tears can spill, blinking hard as the streetlights smear across the glass.
Liam’s big hand finds mine. He gives it a steady squeeze. I look over at him, and for a second our eyes meet—just long enough to make my chest tighten—before he turns back to the road.
“We’ll get them,” he says.
All I can do is nod, sharp and determined, as I pull my hand from his.
I wrap my arms around myself, hunching as I stare out at the passing night. Liam doesn’t push. He doesn’t pry. He just drives.
We end up on the South Side of Chicago, in a neighborhood of large homes and multi-unit apartment buildings.
The houses are all brick and stone, probably once stately, now in various stages of disrepair.
Many look abandoned. A few seem recently renovated.
Warm lights glow in the apartment windows across the street, and a few people linger outside, talking beside their cars, oblivious to the storm gathering in front of them.
A couple of kids pedal down the sidewalk, weaving around the cracks in the pavement like it’s any other night.
I feel instantly tense as Liam slows the car. He leans toward his open window, scanning the block, then pulls into a space along the curb.
He nods toward a house across the road, dark except for a black light glowing in an upstairs window and the faint pulsing of a TV on the main floor, barely visible through closed blinds.
His phone buzzes, and he looks down, then hands it to me.
Nik: Team is in action. Stay out.
We go still.
And then—like shadows splitting from shadows—several massive men in black tactical gear slide into position around the house. They move with impossible precision, stealthily enough that if I weren’t staring right at them, I’d swear no one was there at all.
Two take place at the front door, one on each side, swallowed by darkness.
Then nothing.
No movement.
No signal. Just stillness stretching long enough that my pulse starts hammering in my ears.
“It’s taking too long,” I whisper. “What if this is the wrong place?”
Liam doesn’t answer. He just keeps watching, his jaw locked tight.
I look back toward the two men by the door. One of them lifts a hand to his ear.
“Does he have an earpiece?” I whisper.
“Most likely,” Liam murmurs, barely moving his lips.
The man makes a quick hand signal.
A second later, Liam’s phone buzzes in my hand.
I blink down at it, realizing only now that I still have it.
Nik: Boy and woman inside. Extraction imminent.
The message barely registers before the two men at the door kick it in and sweep inside with brutal, practiced speed. Then Screaming.
Yelling.
The sharp, unmistakable pop of gunfire.
My whole body vibrates with the urge to run straight into the chaos, to tear through that house and grab my son.
I shove the car door open and step out.
Liam’s voice shouts after me, telling me to get back, to stay inside, that it’s not safe, but it feels miles away, muffled under the rush in my ears.
“Emma—stop!” he yells, and the fear in his voice is sharp enough to cut through the chaos. He’s already out of the car, sprinting after me, his footsteps pounding behind mine. Not to hold me back.
To shield me.
I feel him close, his body angled protectively toward mine, ready to take whatever danger is ahead, trying to slide in front of me even as I push forward.
Around us, the neighborhood stirs awake—doors opening, voices rising, people shouting, calling the police.
There are a dozen sounds, a dozen frantic noises.
But only one cuts through everything.
A terrified voice.
A little boy, screaming, “Mommy!”