Chapter 18
June
My legs gave out beneath me, and I collapsed, crashing onto the cold marble.
The sound that tore out of me startled even myself—raw, primal, ripped straight from a part of me I didn’t even know existed.
It was grief, panic, terror—all the pieces of me I’d shoved down finally breaking free, echoing off marble walls until the quiet afterward felt louder than the scream. Deafening.
What happened here?
We’d finally made our move—the big, brilliant plan Dave and my brother had spent weeks perfecting. The timing, the signals, the diversion, Lucy’s scarf, the team ready in position.
And for what?
Blood streaked across the marble in dark lines. Bodies groaned. Some lay unconscious. Others sat slumped against the walls, clutching bruised ribs or faces split open from impact. Furniture was overturned. Bullet holes perforated the plaster. A haze clung to the air like ghosts of chaos.
But none of them—none of them—were him.
My chest tightened so violently it felt like someone had reached inside and squeezed my lungs into fists.
Who moved him?
Who got to him before we did?
I lunged toward the nearest man, fisting the front of his collar, yanking him upright. A strangled gasp tore from his throat.
“Who took him? Where is he?”
The words came out sharp, jagged, tremors threaded through me with a mix of fury and desperation. I didn’t even realize how close my face was to his until he blinked, wide-eyed, confused.
That’s when I noticed a thin red line slid down his temple—the swelling around one eye—the dazed, frantic look of a man who’d been through hell and barely crawled out.
The poor bastard couldn’t understand a word.
Dave stepped in with a clipped, mission-sharp tone he used in the field, translating my rage into something the guard could comprehend.
“What is she asking?” the guard stammered in Mandarin, voice quivering as if the memory itself still haunted him.
“He wants to know where the young master is.” Dave translated back, frown deepening. He listened to the man’s explanation, brow knitting tighter with every word.
“The guard said…” Dave paused, jaw tightening. “He swears he doesn’t know. The door didn’t just open—they blew it apart. It happened fast.”
The injured man nodded frantically, hands trembling in the air as he tried to mimic the explosion. “Whoever stormed the room moved like trained soldiers,” he said in Mandarin. “Masks. Guns. No talking. No warnings.”
They.
My stomach dropped as if the floor vanished beneath me.
“Who’s they?” I demanded, voice cracking. “Who the hell were they?”
The guard’s pupils shrank. His lips trembled. “So many,” he whispered, voice thin and broken. “Very fast. Impossibly organized. I—I didn’t see faces.”
This wasn’t random.
This wasn’t sloppy.
This wasn’t desperate.
Whoever came had been trained.
Professionals.
And that made everything a thousand times worse.
My grip tightened on his collar, knuckles white. “Did they take Lucy? Kai’s mother? Answer me!”
I shook him so hard his teeth clattered. The shock, the fear, the helplessness burning through me like acid made it impossible to think.
“June—stop!”
Lincoln’s shout cracked through the chaos like a whip. His arms wrapped around me from behind, iron tight, prying my fingers off the guard.
“Calm down, honey,” he murmured against my ear, the gentleness at odds with the steel in his body.
I thrashed against him at first, fueled by sheer terror, by the unbearable image of Kai being dragged somewhere darker, somewhere I couldn’t reach him.
“Let me go! He knows something—he has to!”
But Lincoln didn’t let go. His grip only tightened until my breathing hitched, until anger gave way to something softer—something far more dangerous.
Fear.
A cold, hollow fear that spread through my ribs like cracks in glass.
“CCTV,” I gasped out, like a drowning woman reaching for air. “They must have cameras—every corner of this house has surveillance!”
Dave and Lincoln exchanged a look—and something in that look shattered me.
“I checked,” Dave said, finally.
My heart stalled.
“It really did happen fast,” he continued, voice low. ”Too fast. Nearly the entire system was taken offline.”
My breath caught.
“And the ones that were left…” He hesitated, jaw locking. “All of them wore masks. All except—maybe—one guy.”
“By the time the system rebooted, they had vanished. Whoever it was—they knew how to hack the system.”
A tremor rolled down my spine. My mouth went completely dry. The taste of metal bloomed on my tongue.
Someone on the inside must’ve helped them.
“Clare.”
Her name ripped from my throat before I even knew I was speaking. It tore through the room like a gunshot.
“Where’s Clare?”
The entire room froze.
The stillness that followed wasn’t natural silence—it was thick, heavy, suffocating. The kind that comes right before a truth no one wants to hear.
I hadn’t seen her since I arrived.
Not a glimpse.
Not a whisper.
Not even a fleeting shadow.
Like she’d been avoiding me on purpose.
My pulse spiked, blood roaring in my ears as my mind spun—when Kai mentioned her in Hong Kong, the careful tension in his voice when he told me not to trust her too easily.
He didn’t know where her loyalty stood—with him or his mother.
And now he was gone.
Completely gone.
Everything inside me twisted into ice.
“What’s the problem?” Lincoln asked, stepping toward me. “June—talk to me.”
I opened my mouth, but the words jammed in my throat. How could I explain something that felt like instinct sharpened into a warning? Nothing concrete. Nothing solid. Just everything pointing in one direction.
“She was supposed to keep watch, right?” my voice rose without permission. “So tell me—how the hell does a trained guard let an entire group come in, take multiple hostages, and disappear without alerting anyone? Without even trying to stop them?”
The room sank into a heavier hush.
Even Lincoln didn’t have an answer.
Dave opened his mouth. “It cannot be. Clare…”
But he didn’t finish.
And that hesitation—soft, cracked, uncertain—was louder than if he’d screamed it.
My stomach flipped. “What, Dave, spit it out.”
The guard glanced at Lincoln, then returned his stare to me. His jaw worked, clenching and unclenching, like he was battling the truth with every breath.
“Clare’s been… different lately,” he said finally. “Distant. Less talkative. Jumpier than usual. At first I figured she was just being awkward with me again, but…”
He trailed off, tension coiling through his shoulders.
Lincoln muttered a curse under his breath—a sharp, vicious sound. “You think she sold us out?”
The words hung in the air like an explosion.
Finally—finally—someone said the thing I’d been too terrified to voice.
“I don’t think anything,” Dave muttered, dragging a hand down his face. “But she knew every detail—the plan, the timing, this house—every blind spot, every entry point.
A cold chill ran down my spine.
My hands curled tight, nails biting into my palms. “Then we find her.”
“But this doesn’t make sense,” Dave muttered, a grimace of disbelief tightening his features. “Who could Clare possibly be working for?”
“Kai’s mother?” The accusation tore out of me.
“Then why would they take her too?” Lincoln cut in. His tone was maddeningly controlled—too measured. Logical. Detached. I hated him for it. He always dissected everything with surgical precision while I was busy drowning in panic.
“Yes, she disobeyed orders sometimes,” Dave added, rubbing the back of his neck. “Challenge Mr. Li more than anyone else dared. But I never thought she’d go this far.”
“Then I don’t know—you tell me,” I fired back, my voice splintering like breaking glass. “You’ve been his bodyguard for years. You must’ve seen something.”
Dave’s jaw tightened. “Mr. Li made plenty of enemies. But none of them would go through this much trouble. Not like this. It doesn’t add up.”
“Dave isn’t wrong,” Lincoln said quietly, “Why take Lucy and Mrs. Li too?”
“Two possibilities,” I answered, flat and hollow. “Wrong place, wrong time. Or it’s personal.”
Before either of them could respond, Andy burst into the living room, wide-eyed, nearly gasping. “I’ve got Clare on the phone!” she shouted, waving her phone like a flare in the middle of the storm.
“Give it to me,” I barked, already storming toward her.
“June, no.” Lincoln’s voice sliced through the room—sharp, commanding. “Let me handle this.”
I froze mid-step, rage sparking so quickly it felt electric. Of course. One minute he wanted me to grow up, to stop waiting for people to tell me what to do—and the next? Suddenly I was too fragile to talk on a damn phone?
“Put it on speaker,” I demanded, turning with a glare sharp enough to cut bone.
“Win-win. You get to supervise, and I get my answers.”
Something shifted in the room at that moment.
It wasn’t big or loud.
Just a flicker—tiny, but unmistakable.
Like a seesaw tipping in the other direction.
For the first time, I wasn’t the one being managed, handled, protected.
I was leading.
And Lincoln knew it.
He could either fall in line… or walk out that door.
He didn’t move.
Andy tapped the screen, and Clare’s unsteady words filled the air.
“Dr. Bennet,” she whispered out, her words thin, fragile. “I’ve been following them.”
“Who?” I snapped, blood roaring in my ears.
“The kidnappers.” Her voice dropped to a whisper.
The word slammed into me—the weight, the meaning, the terror of it.
Kidnappers.
My stomach clenched, burning with rage and dread. I loathed the word. It turned Kai into a victim—something I couldn’t stand. Hated what it turned us into—reactive, helpless, always a step behind.
“They just went into the car park of a private apartment,” Clare continued, tremors threaded through her words despite her efforts to sound composed.
“Did you sell us out?”
The question tore out of me before I even realized I was speaking.
It came out guttural.
Raw.
Instinctive.
Because trust was a luxury we couldn’t afford—not with Kai in danger, not with someone playing games with our lives.
And Clare?
She could be luring us straight into a trap.