Kasien
Present
I pace around the tech room, all the blue screen light stinging my head, threatening to blow it up. The heavy metal in my hand taps nervously against my thigh as I suddenly stop and look at the guy sitting behind the three screens, chilling there like we have fucking time.
I raise my hand with the gun and press the cold metal end to his nape. He freezes.
“What’s your fucking problem, huh? How fucking hard is it to find him!”
My voice blasts out of me so loud I feel the sharp sting behind my eyes, a hot needle driving straight into my skull. I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to keep the world from spinning, but when I open them again, he already has his hands above his head, slowly turning to me.
He looks so damn young. Barely older than Natalya.
Terror fills his eyes, eyebrows shaking, pupils blown wide like a trapped animal. I press the gun to his forehead and he shuts his eyes instantly, chin trembling, sweat beading on his upper lip.
“Why can’t you do your job! You fucking useless piece of shit!”
My jaw ticks violently. I shift my grip on the gun and press the barrel harder into his skin. His head tilts back with a whimper, and something inside me snaps tighter, pulling at every fucked-up wire in my body.
“Kas!” Adrien’s voice slices through the room.
His scent hits me next—blood, metal, sweat, smoke. And a second later his chest is against my back, grounding, heavy, warm in a way I hate that I need. His hand slides down my forearm, slow but firm, taking mine with the gun and forcing it down, away from the kid’s face.
I blink, disoriented, breath shaking out of me in broken pieces. Adrien gently pries the gun from my fingers like he’s taking a weapon from a wounded animal.
“Kas, stop. He’s trying his best. They all are.”
I quickly look around, all the men in the tech room frozen, scared. Eric, the kid I just threatened, looking like he’s about to faint.
Adrien’s knuckles are bloody, cracked open, the skin torn from hours of beating information out of people. My own hands feel numb. The bodies are piling up in the basement, and still not a single piece of information, not a single trail.
My chest tightens, hard, like someone’s tying a wire around my ribs and twisting. The air disappears, completely. Familiar pain blows up in my chest. My lungs flutter, shallow and useless, my vision tunneling until only the blue glow remains.
And then my knees just stop holding me. I hit the floor before I even realize I’m falling, a choked sound ripping out of my throat. Heavy sobs slam into my chest, shaking everything loose inside me. Pain flashes in my skull, white and sharp, every breath making it worse.
Adrien drops with me instantly, arms wrapping around my torso from behind, pulling me against him, holding me together before I break apart on the floor.
My head falls against his chest, tears leaking hot and fast down my face, soaking his shirt.
I don’t even hear myself sobbing, it’s just a raw sound, panic swallowing all thought.
“Why are we alive?” I gasp, voice broken. “Why did he let us live?”
The pressure in my chest climbs and climbs, no air getting through. My fingers claw at my sternum like I can prise it open.
“I can’t find her,” I choke out, barely forming the words. “I can’t find her, Adrien.” The words come out shattered, breathless, torn straight from the center of my ribs. Adrien cups the back of my neck, pulling my forehead to his shoulder.
“We’ll find her,” he whispers, voice hoarse, his breath warm on my ear. “I promise, Kas.”
I curl closer without meaning to, my body shaking so violently his grip tightens around me.
Then he moves, decisive and practiced. He shifts behind me, one arm still around my chest while the other reaches into the med kit on the desk beside us.
I hear the zipper, the metallic click, the soft tearing of plastic.
“Kas,” he murmurs, tilting my chin up with his fingers, “breathe for one more second.”
“I—can’t—”
“You can. Look at me.”
I try. His face swims.
He uncaps a small vial with his mouth and draws up clear liquid into a syringe, no hesitation.
Lorazepam.
He uses it on himself. Fast-acting benzodiazepine. Calms the nervous system. Stops the panic before it becomes a seizure.
“Adrien—don’t—” My voice cracks.
“This won’t knock you out, I promise,” he says softly. “Just slow everything down.”
He finds a vein inside my forearm and slides the needle in with practiced ease, and I finally feel the burn, then warmth.
Then a slow, thick wave rolling through my body, melting the wire wrapped around my chest. My breath stumbles, then eases. My vision blurs, then settles. The roaring in my ears fades to a dull hum.
Adrien exhales shakily, pressing his forehead to the side of mine.
“There you go,” he whispers. “I’ve got you. I always do.”
I close my eyes, chest still trembling, but air finally moves in.
My brain finally settles down on one thought at a time.
She saved us—runs through my head again, unbidden. Kiara saved us from that fucking car. And now I’m not capable of saving her.
?
The stink of dead bodies and blood lingers in my nose, not making me sick anymore, instead, it’s the only thing calming me down. Seeing the trail of blood we leave behind.
I want him to be scared. I want him to pray we never find him.
The silence down here is heavy, wet and calming, as I sit on the cold metal chair.
Why is he not doing anything? Why is he letting us kill his people?
Why does nobody know where he is?
A tremor goes through my fingers, not fear, but the opposite. My instincts are scratching at the inside of my skull. I’m missing something. This is not right.
It feels like he’s hiding. Like he wants us to suffer.
The wheels in my head are spinning at a normal speed since Adrien gave me something to calm my brain again.
Four fucking weeks.
Whatever she’s going through, she’s going through it for four fucking weeks.
Sudden grunting wakes me up from the trance and I shoot my gaze back to the guy in front of me, tied to a chair covered in blood that is not his. Not yet.
Good, he’s waking up.
The chair under him creaks softly as he shifts, the sound runs a spark down my spine.
I lean forward slightly, breath held without noticing.
His head turns to the side, probably the smell of the bodies draws his attention.
He slowly turns back to me, his expression confused, tired, exhausted.
He probably expected this. His brows furrow in disgust and fear combined.
I stare at him, my eyes lit up, and I feel it.
This rush again. The feeling of hope every time someone wakes up in our basement.
The familiar fear in their eyes, filling me with this spark of chance that this one is going to tell me where he is.
It’s like someone cracked a window in a room I’ve been suffocating in.
A thin, fragile breath of air, nothing more, but enough to keep me from collapsing.
And once it’s just another useless person, useless body to rot in my basement, the hope twists back into a painful despair.
He blinks slowly, finally seeing me, and something shifts in his expression. Recognition. And dread. He knows me very well. We used to be almost friendly.
I don’t move, just wait for him to look around and take in the surroundings, to make himself comfortable. His breathing gets faster when he sees the smear of dried blood and brain on the wall behind me. Good. Let him be afraid.
I really hope he’s going to give me what I want, cause I feel a glimpse of sentiment toward him since I actually liked him in a way. But not enough to keep him alive if he doesn’t.
His throat bobs. He knows that too.
“Kas,” he starts, his voice hoarse from whatever drug Adrien pumped him up with. “I will tell you whatever you want,” his words are cut off by cough, “I want both young and old Devereaux dead the same as you do,” he gulps, “Let me help and I will tell you anything.”
His voice cracks on the last word, and that’s the first real thing I’ve heard from anyone in weeks.
All muscles in my body suddenly relax, the tension gone as I shoot up from the chair. Hope fills my body as if someone just injected it into my vein. A clean, electric hit straight to the chest.
“Talk,” I snap at him.
“Promise me, you’ll take me in. I have my own revenge to take.”
He lifts his chin an inch, like he’s trying to hold on to some scrap of dignity.
Jackpot. Fucking jackpot. I always knew Marko was my blood type. I fucking knew it.
I take the knife from my pocket and flick it open, circling his body tied to a chair, and cutting the zip tie, freeing his hands. The blade clicks shut like a promise.
“Don’t make me regret it, Marko. Speak.” I get back in front of him as he lets his head fall into his palms, probably still under the influence of that substance.
“He owns this estate, in the south,” he pauses and rubs his eyes. His voice trembles, grief bleeding through the words. “I know where it is, because I found my wife there. Dead. After I tried to leave Vermilion.”
He lifts his head up to me.
And for a second, just a second, I see myself in his eyes. The broken version. I gulp and drop my eyes to the concrete bloody floor.
That’s not my case. That’s not what’s going to happen.
Calm the fuck down.
“Let’s go,” I grab him by the collar and drag him out of the basement, his body stumbling, his legs not working properly yet. His shoes scrape across concrete, leaving smears in the blood puddles. His breathing hitches, shallow, but he doesn’t resist.
I drag him all the way up the stairs and right into the tech room, throwing his not-very-cooperative body onto the floor right at the poor IT kid’s legs.
Eric jumps like he’s been electrocuted and his eyes flicker between me and Marko lying on the ground, clutching his head.
“Tell him,” I snap at Marko.
He looks up at the screens, the maps, the heat signatures, the satellite feeds, and his eyes widen.
For the first time in weeks, I feel it. I’m going to find her.
?
Adrien drags one hand through his curls and taps the map on the center screen.
“Okay. We have twenty-one men.”
My pulse jumps. That’s enough. More than enough, if we do it smart.
“The estate is buried in the woods,” he continues. “I pulled the last satellite sweep. I’m betting twenty guards tops.”
Marko lets out a low, bitter laugh.
“Twenty you can see. Devereaux keeps around forty total.”
Adrien doesn’t even flinch as I add, “Good. Then we can match him quietly.”
That word settles the whole room. Not desperate. Not reckless. Just possible.
Marko steps closer, fingers tracing the estate like he’s handled this blueprint in his sleep.
“We split into groups.”
Adrien nods once. We’re already thinking the same way.
“Me, Kas, Marko, and two silencers go in through the drainage tunnel,” Adrien says, pointing to a thin line running under the foundation as I continue, “We hit the generator first. Once the power drops, all cameras and internal comms die.”
Marko adds, “When the lights go out, they’re blind. Half of them won’t know what to do without cameras telling them where to stand.”
Good. Perfect.
Adrien zooms the map out to the woods around the property.
“Eight men in pairs sweep the perimeter. Quiet only. Knives, suppressors, wire, whatever. We clear every lookout point before they even smell us.”
Marko nods. “Take the woods first and the estate goes deaf.”
I click to the floor plan.
“Five men follow our tunnel route and start the interior sweep once the generator is down. Hallways, staircases, rotating patrols. No gunfights, no noise. Slow, clean, and silent.”
Marko runs a thumb over the east wing.
“Shift change is at one in the morning. Half of them will be eating or half-asleep. That’s when we move.”
Adrien’s voice drops lower. Focused. “The last three block the main road. No explosions unless they’re spotted. Silent takedowns only. If reinforcements come, they don’t make it to the gate.”
The tension in my spine loosens by a fraction. Twenty-one against forty. If every move is silent? Yes. We can wipe the whole estate before they understand the power’s out.
Adrien nods, processing.
I tilt my head. “Where would he keep her?”
Marko doesn’t hesitate. “South wing. Second floor. Small windows. It’s where he keeps himself and anything valuable.”
My fingers tighten around the edge of the desk.
“Kas,” Adrien says carefully, “when we find her, don’t run in alone. Don’t go blind.”
“I won’t,” I lie.
Marko swallows. “Lucien won’t kill her, I think. His father might, but I don’t think he stays at this property anymore.”
My head snaps to him. He lifts his hands, palms up. “Not yet, at least. Lucien is just a full-time daddy’s boy, you give him too much credit, to be honest. His father is the real psychopath. He likes to break people the long way.”
The room freezes. Even the screens seem to flicker more quietly.
Adrien turns to me. “How’s your head?”
I clench my jaw. “Don’t ask me that again,” I shoot my eyes to his waist. “How’s your wound?”
“Don’t ask me that,” he snaps back at me.