Chapter Nineteen
Rage crashes over me in violent waves, hot and suffocating.
How the fuck did I let this happen? The whole reason we were here was to keep her safe.
And for one stupid, selfish moment, I let myself pretend the world wasn't watching. That we could have something normal. We know someone’s keeping tabs on us.
I can’t scream. I can’t tear the house apart.
I can’t react the way every instinct is screaming at me to react.
So I shut it down, turning off every emotion except the monster I trained myself to become.
Everything goes quiet inside me. The noise collapses inward until nothing remains but purpose.
Cam and Lila move to the front of my mind.
Everything else is shoved into the dark.
A presence settles at my black—warm, steady, undeniable.
Sterling. “You’re not going through this alone.
” I turn and meet his stare. He sees it—the cold.
The part of me that’s already stepping away from softness.
The monster I keep locked behind my ribs. “This isn’t your fault.”
“It is,” I say flatly. “If I hadn’t let my guard down, they wouldn’t be gone.
” I straighten my shoulders, locking every fragile feeling into its cage.
“So now I do the only thing left.” His gaze searches mine, hunting for the crack, the moment I break.
I don’t. I hate that I let my walls down just to drag them back up again, but Cam and Lila don’t need softness right now.
They need results. “I become what I trained myself to survive.”
He studies me for another long beat, searching. Then he nods. Just once. No argument. No reassurance. “Okay.” The weight of it presses down on both of us—thick, heavy, like the air before a storm. “So, what’s the plan?”
I lift a finger to my lips. “Not here. If they took them, they’re listening. Or watching.” Sterling doesn’t question it. He gestures toward the door. We move fast and quietly. Within minutes, we’re in his truck, the house shrinking in the rearview mirror like something already trying to forget us.
He drives until the neighborhood disappears behind us, until there’s nothing but open land and endless sky. Then he reaches for the dash, tapping in a sequence without looking. A low, steady hum fills the cab. “Jammer’s live,” he says. “We’re clear.”
I exhale slowly, letting any last traces of softness bleed out of me. “Good,” I reply, voice cold and certain. “Because now we hunt.”
The truck devours the road, tires humming against the asphalt like it’s trying to outrun the silence.
Open land stretches on either side of us, empty and indifferent under the sunlight.
Sterling keeps his eyes forward, hands steady on the wheel.
No wasted motion. No questions he doesn’t need answers to yet.
I stare out the window and let the calm settle in fully.
This is the part people misunderstand about real rage.
It doesn’t make you reckless. It sharpens you.
It strips everything unnecessary until all that’s left is cold, singular intent.
“They didn’t take them to disappear,” I say finally.
Sterling glances at me—quick and assessing, like he’s trying to find a crack I’m hiding. Good luck. Then his eyes return to the road. “No.”
“They want leverage,” I continue. “Which means Cam and Lila are still alive.” I pause, testing the truth of it in my chest. “For now.” Sterling nods, slowly. I turn toward him. “They wanted us to notice. They wanted me to notice.”
His jaw tightens. “You think this is about you.”
“I know it is,” I say, not softening a single syllable. “Wade was never the complete endgame. He was my personal endgame and noise. A way to see how far I’d push back without remembering why.” I pause, letting the words sink in. “There are bigger things at play than just him.”
Sterling exhales through his nose. “And now?”
“And now they escalated.” I fold my arms, grounding myself in the pressure. “Which means they’re impatient…or they’re afraid.”
That earns me a sharp look. “Afraid of what?”
I meet his gaze and hold it. “Of what happens if I remember everything…” Silence settles between us again, heavy but not uncomfortable.
The jammer hums quietly in the background, a low mechanical heartbeat.
I roll my shoulders, feeling the last traces of shock burn off, leaving something colder and sharper in its place. “We don’t respond yet,” I say.
Sterling arches a brow, his voice laced with edge. “They took two people we care about.”
“Exactly,” I reply, keeping my voice steady. “They’re waiting for panic. For mistakes. For me to react like a daughter or a friend instead of what I am.”
“And what’s that?” he asks, voice low and rough, like he already knows the answer but wants to hear me say it.
I look straight ahead, eyes narrowed on the road. “A fucking problem.”
He smiles—slow, sharp, and dangerous. The smile that makes my heart skip. “If that isn’t the fucking truth.”
I reach for my phone but don’t turn it on yet. “First move needs to be quiet. We let them think they rattled us.” I glance at him. “Can you make Wade sweat without tipping him off?”
Sterling doesn’t hesitate. “Already thinking about it.”
“Good,” I reply, voice flat and merciless. “Wade still believes he’s the center of this. Let him keep believing it…until we get the ones that matter back.”
“And Cam and Lila?” His voice is steady, but there’s a nervous edge beneath it now, a flicker of worry he can’t quite hide.
“We trust them.” I try to reassure him the only way I know how. “They’re not helpless. And whoever took them just made the mistake of underestimating them.”
Sterling’s grip tightens on the wheel; his knuckles whiten briefly. “That’s a mistake; people don’t survive twice.”
I nod. “We’ll start by laying breadcrumbs. Nothing that points to us. Nothing that looks intentional.” I finally turn my phone on, watching the screen light up. No new messages yet. “They’ll reach out again,” I say quietly. “People like this always do. They want to be seen.”
“And when they do?” Sterling asks.
A smile slowly creeps across my face, cold and completely humorless. “We listen,” I say. “We let them talk. They’ll tell us what they want…and hand us the rope to hang them with. Then we take what’s ours.”
The truck crests a hill, the horizon opening wide and exposed before us. Sterling eases off the gas, pulling onto the shoulder. He turns to face me fully now. “You’re sure about this path?” he asks. No doubt in his voice. Only confirmation.
I meet his eyes without flinching. “I’ve been walking toward it my whole life. I just didn’t know its name.”
He nods. “Then I’m with you.” Not I’ll protect you. Not I’ll handle it. Just…with you. He doesn't want to fight my battles. He wants to stand at my back while I burn the fucking battlefield down.
I unlock my phone and start typing. Not to the kidnappers.
Not to Wade. To a burner account I haven’t touched in years.
“Let’s remind them,” I murmur, “why they should have left us alone.” Sterling watches the screen glow between us, the long road stretching back the way we came.
And somewhere out there, someone who thought they were in control just felt the ground shift violently beneath their feet.
The message sends. No dramatic ping. No sense of relief.
Just gone—released into the dark where it belongs.
I lock the phone and slide it back into my pocket.
Sterling watches me like he’s trying to memorize the exact moment I crossed a line he can’t see.
Not wary. Not afraid. Just aware. “What did you just do?” he asks.
“Lit a wick,” I say. “Only the right kind of monster will recognize the spark.”
He hums low under his breath, “And how long before it burns down to something explosive?”
“That depends,” I reply, voice calm and measured. “On how badly they want to be clever.”
Sterling pulls back onto the road and turns us around. The open fields give way to trees again, the world slowly closing in like it always does when things get real. “You said breadcrumbs,” he says. “That wasn’t a breadcrumb. That was a signal flare.”
I smile faintly, cold and knowing. “Breadcrumbs are for prey. This is for hunters.”
His mouth curves—slow, sharp, and dangerously amused. “Good. I hate being underestimated.”
We drive in silence for a few miles, both of us thinking, calculating.
I can feel him running scenarios the same way I am–paths branching, outcomes narrowing.
Somewhere ahead, there’s a single moment where we either lose control or take it back entirely.
The phone vibrates again before I can power it down.
This time I don’t flinch. I unlock the screen and read.
Unknown number: You always did hate being underestimated, Kiera.
Sterling goes still. The kind of stillness that means every instinct he has is now locked onto one point. “They know you,” he says quietly.
“Yes,” I reply. I don’t bother denying or softening it. The truth settles heavy but clean in my chest. “They do.” Another message follows, like they sensed the shift.
Unknown number: You should’ve left it alone.
I warned you…you’re mine,
given to me by your father.
My thumb hovers over the screen. “Asher.” Sterling’s voice morphs into something low and dangerous—a growl that vibrates through the cab like a warning.
I nod once. The name tastes like rust and old blood. “It was always him.” I swallow, feeling the shape of it click into place with sickening clarity. “He knew where to look. He knew how to get past Cam’s safeguards just enough to leave a fingerprint…without showing his whole hand.”
“And he knew you’d recognize it,” Sterling says, his voice holding a darker edge.
“Yes,” I say, my jaw tightening. “Because he wanted me to.”
The truck drifts slightly. Sterling corrects it sharply, knuckles whitening around the wheel. “He took Cam and Lila.”