I know it in my soul. The thought settles like a blade sliding into place. I release myself from Victor’s touch slowly and straighten to my full height.
“Atlas. Track her phone. Track her car. I don’t care how. Ping towers, traffic cams, farm CCTV. I want a location,” my voice comes out cold even to my own ears.
Atlas just nods once before he starts moving.
“Victor. Riggs. Felix. You take the north end of the village and the outer roads. Every lay-by. Every ditch. Every abandoned unit. If you see tyre marks that look fresh, you call me.”
No one argues. No one hesitates. We move. The room shifts from domestic noise to operational silence in seconds. The girls get ushered into different rooms, but I pay them no attention. My girl is somewhere and I need to bring her home.
I see Felix grab his keys, but I catch his arm before he can step past me. For a moment it’s just us. My friend, her twin. His face is pale, but his eyes are steady.
“You good?” I ask quietly.
“I could ask you the same.”
“Don’t worry about me,” I murmur. “Worry about the son of a bitch who has her.”
Something dangerous passes between us in that second, that shared brotherhood and shared rage for someone we love deeply. Felix nods once before he pulls free.
I’m in my car before the front door finishes closing behind me. The engine roars to life and I’m already moving. Quinn said she was meeting at the café. It’s the last normal point in her timeline.
Stealing a breath, I pull out of the drive and head towards the café. Every bend feels hostile now. Every passing car is a potential threat. The sun has completely dipped beneath the horizon, dragging the last streaks of light with it. The sky is bruised purple, fading to black.
Streetlights flicker on one by one like witnesses refusing to speak as I scan everything. Lay-bys. Hedges. Field entrances. Dark shapes that could be nothing, or everything.
My phone buzzes in the passenger seat and for half a second my heart leaps, stupid and hopeful, but it’s not Fae.
It’s the vicar.
Fuck.
The wedding.
I pull over briefly and type out a message cancelling before I’m moving again. The village roads stretch endlessly in front of me. Familiar streets feel foreign. Somewhere in the distance, a dog barks. Every minute that passes tightens something around my ribs. Did she fight? Of course she did. Did she scream? The thought makes my grip on the steering wheel turn white. My mind runs through faces that could have done this like targets in a line-up.
If she is hurt, I?—
My phone rings. I answer before it finishes vibrating.
“Tell me,” I bark.
“I hacked into the tracker registered with her car company,” he says, voice clipped like he’s already moving. “They log live data through their security system. I’ve got her last ping.”
“Where?” Every muscle in my body locks.
“Old Mill Road. Marks Tey. Last hit was forty minutes ago. Exact coordinates are coming through now,” Atlas continues. “There’s an old structure tagged nearby. It looks like a barn.”
“Tell the others,” I say quietly. “We will meet there.”
I hang up before he replies. The engine growls as I slam the car into gear and turn hard, tyres spitting against the road as I make my way to her location. Begging, praying to a god I don’t believe in that I’m not too late.
The streetlights disappear the further out I get. The sky has fully bruised into night, deep and heavy above me. Trees close in on either side of the road, their branches clawing toward each other like they’re trying to seal the path shut. My headlights cut through the dark in narrow beams.
Gravel spits under my tyres when I turn onto the road. My stomach drops. The road narrows immediately. No houses. No passing cars. Just fields, silence, and the low hum of my engine slicing through it.
Why the fuck was she here?
Old Mill is the kind of place people drive past in daylight and never think about twice, but it becomes something else entirely once the sun goes down.
