His voice snapped, violent and final.
“You belong to me!”
Chapter 22: Knox
Istared down at the documents scattered across the table, my focus flicking up to the map pinned on the wall, routes and locations marked in sharp lines.
Where would Marco take Lena?
The door slammed open drawing my attention.
“We’re moving,” Silas said, striding in. “T-minus four hours. I pushed Mallory. We go now, not later.”
I straightened. “He approved it?”
“Seven teams assembled. All briefed and on standby.”
“Good,” I muttered, dragging a hand across the table, shifting papers, searching for something I might have missed. “But we can't move until we have her location. If we hit blind, we could lose her.”
Silas stepped beside me, leaning over the table, eyes scanning the spread.
“Anything?” he asked, tension bleeding through the single word.
“I’m trying to think like her,” I said, forcing my thoughts to sharpen. “If Lena were here, she wouldn’t guess. She’d know.”
Silas grabbed a file, flipping it open.
“What’s this?”
“Shell corporation,” I said immediately. “Marco’s. He uses it to buy and hold properties off the books. Most of the private homes purchased are abandoned. Uses the commercial properties as fronts to launder money.”
Silas’s jaw tightened as he scanned the page.
“This one’s familiar,” he said.
“The stakeout house. We used his own property to spy on him,” I confirmed.
He exhaled sharply, flipping to the next page.
“There’s over a hundred properties tied to this,” he said, frustration creeping in. “How the hell are we supposed to narrow that down?”
I stared at the map, forcing myself to slow down, to think like her, seeing each piece as a puzzle that fit together into something whole.
“We’re not looking for a random location,” I said, more to myself than to Silas. “We’re looking for a decision.”
Silas frowned. “What?”
“Marco didn’t just take her anywhere,” I continued, my finger dragging across the marked districts. “He chose a specific place for a reason.”
Silas leaned in closer. “What the hell are we missing?”
“He kept Lena for five years in his personal residence,” I went on, my voice tightening. “She's special. You think he finally gets her back and throws her in some stash house withrandom guards and other omegas?”
Silas shook his head once. “No. He isolates her.”
“Exactly.” I tapped a section of the map. “Private. Controlled. Somewhere he can keep her quietly, no business operations or traffic…”
Silas’s eyes sharpened. “Not a residential district. Too risky and too much traffic.”
