Chapter Seventeen
~ Ocean, Baby ~
Kit
I drift in and out of darkness, consciousness flickering like a faulty lightbulb.
My body feels heavy and disconnected, like it belongs to someone else.
I can hear voices, but they’re distant and muffled, as if coming through a thick wall or a bad phone line.
One of them is Soren’s, deep and familiar.
For one fragile, desperate second, I pray this is all a nightmare.
That I’m back at the estate, curled up in Soren’s bed or my own tiny room, and the last twenty-four hours were just a fever dream.
The milkshake, the shopping mall, the strange man in the bathroom… none of it real.
But then Soren’s voice sharpens, raw with fury, and reality crashes back in. He’s shouting… threatening someone. The words fracture and break apart before they fully reach me.
“…touch him again and I’ll…”
“…rip your fucking spine out…”
“…bring him home or I swear to God…”
Finn… he keeps saying the name Finn, he knows this man.
My eyebrows try to pull down into a frown, but my face feels numb, sluggish, like it’s wrapped in thick cotton; I can’t move properly.
Whatever this man keeps injecting into my neck has turned my limbs into dead weight.
Every time I start to surface, the needle bites in again and drags me back under.
I groan softly, the sound weak and pathetic even to my own ears. I try to move my fingers, to show Soren I’m still here, still alive, but they only twitch uselessly against whatever surface I’m on.
Then Finn’s voice cuts through the haze, taunting and gleeful. “Oh look… the little boy is awake!”
A bucket of ice-cold water slams over me. I jolt violently, gasping, eyes flying open. The shock rips through the numbness like electricity. Water streams down my face, soaking my hair and clothes. Everything is blurry, the world tilting and swimming in sickening waves.
Finn’s hand fists in my wet curls, yanking my head back hard enough to sting. “Say hi to Daddy…”
I frown, confused, still half-drowned and disoriented. What is he talking about?
In front of us, on a low table, there’s a television. Through the blur I can just make out Soren’s large, imposing silhouette dominating the screen. A few other indistinct shapes hover behind him… other people, maybe, I can’t tell.
Soren’s voice booms through the speakers, raw and desperate. “Christopher?”
I try to answer, I really do. My lips move, but the sound that comes out is slurred and broken, barely more than a mumble. “Mm… I… mm… I’m… o-kay…”
It’s the biggest lie I’ve ever told. I’m not okay; I’m terrified.
My stomach is empty and churning. The last thing I remember having was that stupid milkshake, and before that… I don’t even know if I had breakfast. Maybe two days now since I’ve eaten properly. The thought of food makes me want to vomit again.
I just don’t want them worrying. I’m not important; I’m just the orphan they took in. They should be able to get on with their lives, not feed into whatever sick game Finn is playing.
But the words won’t come out right. All I can do is stare at the blurry screen, heart aching.
Finn kneels down right beside the chair I’m slumped in. “I think…” Finn says, voice oily and delighted, speaking directly to the screen, “your boy here… is going to be very useful to me.”
He laughs… that psychotic, unhinged cackle that makes my skin crawl… and crawls closer to the TV like he wants to climb through it.
“And you know the best bit?” He tilts his head, grinning wide. “You can look wherever you want. You can search the city. You can ask my brothers for help… because they don’t know either. Christopher is at my complete mercy.”
He pauses, still grinning, head cocked like a predator playing with its food. “And when I’m done… I’ll be sure to leave his body in little pieces across the city, where you’ll slowly find them.”
Soren’s growl comes through the speakers, deep, like a bull ready to charge. I can almost picture him on the other side, fists clenched, wanting to rip Finn apart with his bare hands.
My body is starting to wake up again, sluggish and reluctant. I manage to sit up a little straighter in the chair. The movement sends a wave of nausea rolling through me. I immediately reach for the bucket on the other side of the chair, barely getting it in front of me in time.
I gag violently, but there’s almost nothing left to throw up. Just bitter, burning bile that scorches my throat and leaves me gasping and shaking. My stomach clenches again and again, empty and painful. I feel like death.
Through the haze I hear Selina’s voice crackling over the feed, raw and furious. “I swear to God, Finn, you little fucker… I’m gonna personally chop your tiny dick off and feed it to you!”
Finn just laughs louder, clearly thrilled by the reaction, and reaches forward to shut the feed off.
The screen goes black. The only sound left is my own heavy, ragged breathing and the wet drip of bile into the bucket.
My eyes feel heavy again. I need real sleep, not this drugged, forced unconsciousness.
I spit one last time into the bucket, then set it down with trembling hands and wipe my mouth with the back of my forearm.
When I finally look up, Finn’s already grinning at me, wide and manic.
We just stare at each other for a long, awful beat.
I wonder what the hell this guy’s problem is.
I’ve never heard of him before today. I have no idea how Soren knows him, but this man is completely insane…
eyes too bright, smile too wide, like he’s enjoying every second of my fear.
I frown when I notice movement that’s almost dizzying.
Finn stands up slowly and says, almost conversationally, “You know why they’ll never find you?”
He walks over to the wall and pulls up one of the blinds. Behind it is a circular window, and outside… the ocean, sparkling blue water stretching under the late afternoon sun. The boat rocks gently, the motion subtle but unmistakable.
Finn laughs, bright and triumphant, like he’s the smartest person alive. “We’re in the fucking ocean, baby!”
I close my eyes and inhale shakily, the salt air sharp in my nose. I’m really going to die out here with this freak.
Soren
The screen goes black. For a long, suffocating second, the entire room is silent.
Half my team is crammed in here… Ray, Armen, Selina, Sam, Luke, a few others…
all of them frozen, staring at the dead feed like it might flicker back to life and give us Kit again.
No one speaks; the only sound is the low hum of the monitors and the ragged scrape of my own breathing.
Twenty-four hours… it’s been twenty-four hours since Finn took him. All night since we figured out it was him.
I haven’t slept more than twenty minutes at a stretch.
I’ve been living on black coffee and rage, pacing this room like a caged animal until my legs burned.
At some point I must have passed out in this chair, because I remember jolting awake to the slam of my office door when Sam and Luke stormed in shouting that they had Finn on a video call.
It didn’t take long for the rest of them to pile in, even Lorraine, who I would have preferred stayed far away from this.
But she came anyway, eyes red-rimmed, refusing to be left out when it came to Kit.
And now this. Finn’s psychotic grin is still burned behind my eyelids. The way he leaned into the camera and promised to send Kit back in pieces. The way Kit looked… pale, drugged, and terrified, but still trying to mumble that he was okay.
My hands start to shake. The silence stretches another second. Then something inside me snaps. A low, guttural sound tears out of my throat, not quite a growl, not quite a roar, something worse. My fist slams down on the desk once, twice, the wood splintering under the force.
“FINN!”
I grab the heavy leather chair beside me and hurl it across the room with every ounce of fury in my body.
It slams into the wall so hard the wood splinters and the leather tears, leaving a jagged dent in the plaster.
The crash is deafening. I’m breathing like a wounded animal, chest heaving, vision narrowing to a red tunnel.
My hands are shaking with the need to destroy something.
“That psychotic little rat thinks he can take what’s mine?” My voice is raw, shaking with fury so deep it feels like it’s tearing me apart from the inside. “He thinks he can drug my boy, put his filthy hands on him, and taunt me on a fucking screen?”
My hands are still shaking as I grab a heavy glass paperweight and throw it so hard it shatters against the far wall, shards raining down like confetti. “I will skin him alive.”
The words come out quiet at first, almost whispered, then build into a snarl.
“I will cut him open while he’s still breathing and pull his intestines out inch by inch.
I will make him beg for death. I will send every last piece of him back to his brothers in gift-wrapped boxes.
I will burn their entire bloodline to ash and piss on the fucking ruins. ”
I’m pacing now, hands clenched so tight my nails cut into my palms. Blood trickles down my fingers but I don’t feel it. “He touched him. He touched what’s mine.”
My voice cracks on the last word; raw and broken in a way I haven’t let myself sound in years.
I stop pacing, chest heaving, vision blurring at the edges. I look at the blank screen one last time, the screen that just showed me Kit’s terrified face, and the last thread of control snaps.
A roar rips out of me, loud and primal, echoing off the walls like thunder. “FIND HIM!”
The order explodes through the room.
“Every camera. Every contact. Every fucking rat in this city. Find. Him.”
I slam my fist into the nearest wall, cracking the plaster, and leave a smear of blood behind.
The room explodes into motion as everyone scrambles at once, voices overlap in urgent bursts.
Sam’s already barking orders into his headset while grabbing his laptop.
Luke lunges for a tablet and heads for the door.
Armen is on his feet, phone pressed to his ear, snapping commands as he moves.
Selina grabs her own device and hurries toward the exit, face pale but determined.
Ray is the first one out, already coordinating the street teams on his phone.
They pour out of my office in a chaotic rush, the door banging open and shut behind them.
No one hesitates, no one speaks to me directly, they know better. Because right now, I am rapidly running out of patience.