ALERT: MOTION DETECTION - NAOMI LEFTHAND RESIDENCE
CAMERA 2: ARMED SUBJECTS - REAR APPROACH
Below the text, a grainy night-vision feed showed two figures moving through the shadows of Naomi’s back porch, weapons visible at their sides.
Every molecule of warmth drained from Ghost’s body, replaced by a savage, icy focus.
“What is it?” Jax asked, alarm edging into his voice.
“Naomi. Trouble.” The words came clipped, mechanical.
“I’ll grab my keys?—”
But he was already out the door, boots hitting the wet earth in a dead run, Cinder keeping pace right beside him. The apology, the moment, Jax himself—all of it faded to background noise against the roaring in his head.
The last image—armed men approaching her cabin, her alone inside—burned behind his eyes like a brand. Whatever softness had flickered to life inside him moments ago now guttered out, replaced by something colder, more familiar.
The predator. The ghost. The man who knew exactly how fast a life could be extinguished when no one was watching.
He reached his truck and threw it into reverse, tires spinning in the mud before catching. The last thing he saw in his rearview was Jax on the porch, face tight with worry, a phone to his ear.
It didn’t matter.
Nothing mattered except getting to Naomi before those men took her from him.
nineteen
The truck ate gravel,headlights cutting through rain-softened darkness like twin blades. Ghost pushed the engine hard enough to make the chassis groan, one hand white-knuckled on the wheel, the other scrolling through camera feeds on his phone. Nothing new. The last transmission showed two men at the back door, then static.
He wasn’t a praying man, but at that moment, he prayed with everything in him that Naomi was okay.
Cinder sat rigid in the passenger seat, ears forward, almost vibrating with urgency.
The cabin appeared ahead, a lone porch light swinging wildly in the wind. He wanted to gun the truck up the drive, but training took over—no headlights or engine noise to announce his approach. Surprise was his best weapon right now.
He killed the engine halfway up the drive and continued on foot, Cinder at his side.
“Find Naomi,” he whispered to Cinder.
The dog shot forward, a black streak against the night. He followed and drew his gun. The weight of it felt too familiar in his palm. Each step was careful, his eyes sweeping for movement, ears straining past the whistle of wind through pine.
The back door had been forced—not picked, not finessed, but broken with brute force. Wood splinters littered the small back porch. A boot print stood clear in the mud beside the step, deep enough to suggest a heavy man or someone carrying weight.
Inside, the lights were on, but the house was silent, eerily so. Cinder’s nails clicked against the hardwood as she moved room to room, nose working frantically, a low whine building in her throat. The sound sent ice through Ghost’s veins.
Cinder never whined.
Naomi’s evening came to him in snapshots as he scanned the room—a laptop closed on the table; car keys and shoes untouched by the front door; an unopened bottle of wine and a half-empty glass of whiskey on the counter. One of the kitchen drawers was open, and a quick glance inside revealed that a knife was missing from the butcher block.
He moved through the space with mechanical precision, cataloging every detail while something inside him coiled tighter with each discovery. A chair overturned. A lamp askew on a side table. The rug rumpled where someone had clearly struggled.
But not enough blood for a killing. Just a few drops near the kitchen—bright red, recent.
“She fought,” he murmured to Cinder, who circled back to him, ears pinned flat against her skull.
He checked the bedroom next. The bed was made, tidy, but a suitcase lay open on top, clothes a chaotic pile inside like she’d recently dug through it. Her bathroom counter held the mundane intimacy of daily life—toothbrush standing in a cup, hair tie looped around a bottle of lotion, a tube of mascara. He felt like an intruder, witnessing pieces of her that weren’t meant for him to see.
Back in the living room, Ghost crouched by the laptop and pulled his sleeve down over his hand to open the lid. WhateverNaomi had been looking at before they took her was still there, locked behind a password. He could break it, but not here.
