32. Drystan
Chapter Thirty-Two
DRYSTAN
Iplace the computer on the huge wooden table in the dining room and open it. I need to find him so I can find her.
I walk to the bathroom and grab the alcohol, pouring it liberally over my hands. The burn flares, but it is nothing compared to the pain tearing through my heart and soul. I roll some bandage around my knuckles, the fabric quickly soaking through with fresh blood, and walk back to the table.
Archibald. He is the key. He has to be the key.
I sit at the table in the dining room, the spare laptop open in front of me.
My bandaged hands leave faint red smears on the keys as I type.
I start with Archibald’s accounts, the ones I already cracked months ago.
Nothing new. I dig deeper, pulling every transaction from the last six years, every wire, every cash withdrawal.
Shell companies. Offshore transfers. Fake consulting fees that lead nowhere.
I chase them one by one until my vision blurs, but every trail ends in dead accounts or names that don’t exist. I slam my fist on the table. The wood cracks under the force.
I move to the men who took her. The black truck.
The ski masks. The way they knew exactly how to override my system.
I search traffic cameras near her apartment, then expand outward.
No plates. No faces. I run the decoder signature through every database I have access to and come up empty.
No purchase records. No traceable purchases of the equipment they used.
It is as if they appeared out of nothing.
My breathing grows heavier. I wipe sweat from my forehead with the back of my hand, leaving a streak of dried blood across my skin.
I open every dark forum I know, every encrypted channel, offering money, threats, anything for information on the men who took Briar Linden.
Messages come back empty or with people who have never heard of her.
I check her father’s old contacts again, every name I pulled from his phone before I killed him.
Dead ends. Burner numbers. Accounts closed years ago.
The hours bleed together. My shoulders ache from leaning over the screen.
My eyes burn from staring at lines of code and bank statements that refuse to give me anything.
I stand up so fast the chair scrapes loudly across the stone floor and I kick it hard.
It crashes into the wall with a loud crack, one of the legs splintering.
I pace the length of the dining room, fists clenched, chest heaving.
Every lead I chase dissolves into smoke.
There is nothing. No payments. No names. No trail. They left nothing behind.
I stop in front of the tall window. Rain still lashes the glass, the night outside black and merciless.
Thunder rolls in the distance, shaking the old stone walls of the mansion.
I press my forehead against the cold glass, breathing hard, the reflection of my own face staring back at me—hair still damp, eyes wild, blood on my hands.
She is gone. Taken right out from under me while I watched another woman bleed. And I have nothing. No name. No location. No way to reach her.
A raw sound tears from my throat, half growl, half broken sob.
I turn and sweep everything off the table in one violent motion.
The laptop hits the floor with a loud crack.
Papers scatter. A glass shatters against the stone.
I grip the edge of the table until my bandaged hands throb and fresh blood seeps through the fabric.
Nothing.
There is fucking nothing.
I have never felt this powerless. Not in prison.
This is worse. This is deliberate. They knew exactly how to erase themselves, and now my Briar is in their hands while I stand here with nothing but broken glass and dead leads.
The rage burns so hot it feels like it might consume me from the inside.
I will find them. I have to. But right now, with every hour that passes, the silence feels like it is swallowing her whole.
I hear the door and do not even turn. The twins walk in.
I see their reflections in the tall window, bags slung over their shoulders, rain still dripping from their clothes onto the stone floor.
Enzo sits at the table without a word and opens his computer.
He is the hacker, the artist with the quiet fingers that can pull secrets from nothing.
Easton walks toward me.
“What do you know?” He faces the window, his hoodie pulled low over most of his face.
“Nothing.” The word comes out raw as my hands curl into fists at my sides. “I have nothing—”
“Any images from the cameras?” Easton asks.
“They did an override. An image of Briar sleeping was played on loop and I did not fucking notice.” My voice cracks, the rage boiling so hot in my blood that my vision narrows to the rain-streaked glass in front of me.
“You said they—” He does not finish.
“I had cameras on a closed circuit.” I nod toward the stairs. “The computer is fucked but you can get the images from the disk. It is on the desk.”
Enzo stands without a word and walks out.
“I failed her—what if he keeps…” The words die in my throat, the images from the feed flashing behind my eyes again, her small body limp under that bastard’s hands.
“Don’t do that. She needs you sharp, Drystan.
If anyone can find her it’s you. Do not fucking break now.
” He places his hand on my shoulder, heavy and steady, and memories of prison rush in unbidden.
How the three of us came together after I defended Enzo in a cafeteria fight that ended with me in solitary.
When I got out they were waiting, and from that day we became inseparable.
And now here we are again, deep in shit.
Enzo walks back in and I turn. He stops with the disk in his hands. “Don’t watch the—” It comes out more as a plea than an order.
“I won’t.” Enzo does not look away. “I would never.”
I nod and walk to my shattered computer on the floor. “Fuck.” The grunt escapes me as I kick a piece of plastic across the room.
“Use mine.” Easton walks to his bag and pulls out his laptop. We both sit at the table and start searching again, the quiet of the mansion pressing in around us, broken only by the distant rumble of thunder outside.
Eight fucking hours. The sun is beginning to peek through the heavy clouds outside, casting pale, broken light across the stone floors, but we still have nothing.
The twins keep making calls and digging through every small lead on the dark web, but there is nothing we can hold on to. Every trail dissolves into smoke.
I walk upstairs to our bedroom to change my clothes and see her phone on the nightstand. The one I gave her. If only she had it with her. I had a tracker on it.
Fuck, Briar, where are you, baby?
A single tear runs down my face at the thought of what they might be doing to her right now. What if I never find her? What if they have already killed her and left her body somewhere I will never reach?
My stomach turns violently. My heart beats so hard it feels like it will burst out of my chest. I cannot do this without her.
What if she’s awake? What if she’s calling my name? What if she’s waiting for me to come…and I never do? Without her the world is nothing but shadows and decay, a tomb I have no desire to inhabit.
The bathroom still smells like her, sweet and flowery, clinging to the air like a ghost that refuses to leave.
Her clothes sit in the basket and I pick them up, pressing the fabric to my face and inhaling deeply.
Her scent fills my lungs, warm and familiar, but instead of comfort it carves a deeper hole in my soul, a void that threatens to swallow me whole.
She is mine. She has always been mine. The thought of her out there, scared and alone, with hands that are not mine on her skin, makes the beast inside me roar louder, demanding blood and ruin until every last person who dared touch her is erased from existence.
I stand there for a long moment, her clothes still pressed to my face, the mansion quiet around me except for the distant rumble of thunder outside.
I will find her.
I have to.
I get my black cargos and pull on the hoodie, the fabric heavy against my skin.
In the mirror I catch my own reflection, the raised scars of her name carved across my chest. My beautiful girl.
The sight of it sends a fresh wave of pain through my chest, sharp and constant, like a blade that never leaves.
I slide the hoodie down and walk down the stairs.
“I need to think,” I tell Easton as he peeks from the dining room.
I walk to the car and speed out, tires kicking up wet gravel as I tear through the gate.
The road opens, empty ahead, dark from the trees covering the sky and endless under the storm.
I press the pedal harder, the engine roaring like something alive and furious.
Wind slams against the car, making the whole frame shake, but I grip the wheel tighter, forcing it steady as the speed climbs.
Who the fuck took you, Briar?
Why did they risk coming here, right under my roof?
Why now? Why not when I was in jail? The assault was five years ago. They had all that time. They could have taken you then, when I was locked away and powerless.
I push harder, the trees blurring into dark shadows on either side of the road. The car vibrates beneath me, the tires gripping and slipping in the wet dirt as the rain starts hammering the windshield in heavy sheets. My mind sharpens with the speed, questions slicing through the panic like blades.
She moved. They followed her but did nothing. Not one attempt. Not until now.
What changed?
The rain pounds louder, the wipers fighting to keep up as I take a curve too fast. The back end of the car slides for a second before I correct it, heart pounding in time with the engine.
I keep repeating the question in my head, over and over, every scenario flashing through my mind like lightning.
Why? Why?! What changed?
Enzo’s words cut through the noise like a sudden light in the dark.
“Until you showed up.”
Until I showed up.
No. That doesn’t make sense, it was always about Briar. Wasn’t it?
Before I went to prison I watched her like a hawk. No one came near her, I went inside and she gets assaulted. She moves and they don’t do anything. I show up and they come for her.
Fuck.
What if it was never about her?
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
I slam the brakes. The car skids violently, tires screaming against the wet dirt as stones and leaves spray up around me.
I wrench the wheel hard, the whole vehicle spinning in a violent arc before I straighten it and slam the pedal again.
The engine growls as I race back toward Hellebore, the storm raging around me, my mind finally clear and burning with one single, terrifying truth.
They were never after Briar.
They were after me.
I reach Hellebore, slamming the brakes so hard the tires scream against the wet gravel.
The sound echoes off the massive stone walls like a gunshot in the night.
I run inside, boots pounding across the cold floors, rain still dripping from my clothes and leaving dark trails behind me.
I burst into the dining room, the twins turning to face me in unison.
“Don’t investigate her or Archibald.” They look at each other, expressions shifting like they think I am losing my mind. “Me. Investigate me. Before I went to jail. All of it.”
“Drystan—” Enzo stares at me, his eyes narrowing.
“You were right.” I sit next to Easton, the chair scraping loudly against the stone floor. “I am the fucking problem.”