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“But they what?” I spit, already racing out of the restaurant, the boys heavy on my heels, Roman gripping my arm to pull me along faster. “WHERE’S MY SON?”
The boys mutter behind me, and before I’m even fully seated in the car, my door still open, Roman hits the gas, but all I hear is the principal’s heavy sobbing on the other end of the phone. “Tell me now,” I growl, the lethal warning thick in my tone. “Where the fuck is my son?”
“I’m sorry, Miss Moretti,” she says, desperately trying to pull herself together. “He’s gone. They took him.”
4
The tires screech along the road as Roman barrels into the school parking lot, the usual ten-minute trip barely taking us four, but fuck, they were the longest four minutes of my life.
Tears stream down my face, the undeniable fear and worry crippling me as we pour out of the car and race into the school, the sirens of the police far in the distance. The boys are right there at my side, all of us racing toward the front gates for any kind of clue of what could have happened to our little boy.
The school is on lockdown, but the moment the principal spies us from the front classroom window, she barrels out through the main doors, letting us in. “What happened?” Roman roars, his tone like a thousand knives piercing through my soul.
The boys don’t slow their pace, heading straight for Sebastian’s classroom as the principal scurries to keep up with us. “I . . . I don’t really know. It happened so fast.”
“Then start fucking talking,” Marcus growls.
“There were two armed men,” she says, hiccuping over her own fear. “They stormed through the door and went straight to the kindergarten room as if—”
“As if what?” I demand.
Her gaze looks to me, pity deep in her eyes. “As if they knew exactly where he was going to be.” I hear the accusation in her tone, suggesting that this has everything to do with our line of work, that we somehow brought this on ourselves. “They went right for him. Knew who they were looking for.”
“What happened?” Roman growls, slowing as we reach the kindergarten room. He doesn’t wait for her response before shoving the door open and seeing the gut-wrenching horror for himself.
Sebastian’s kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Hutchins, lies dead in the corner of the room, a bullet hole right between her eyes and a pool of blood on the ground beneath her. Her arms are out wide, her eyes open and filled with fear.
“Where are the rest of the children?” I ask, aimlessly searching the room.
“Lockdown procedure,” she says, her gaze falling away. “Once the threat was gone, the rest of the kinder class was moved into another classroom. Their parents have been notified. They’re on their way.”
I nod, hating that this is even a discussion we have to have.
The principal’s gaze shifts back to her dead colleague. “From what I can understand, she threw herself in front of your son. She didn’t want to let go, but they . . . they allowed no other option.”
Levi turns, his gaze shifting around the room. “You have surveillance within this room? The hallways?”
“Yes,” she says with a firm nod. “I’ll need to hand it over to the police.”
“You’ll do no such thing,” Roman says, turning on the principal as he clutches my hand, my knees threatening to give out beneath me. “I need to see it. Now.”
She swallows hard and nods as Marcus walks out of the room, his phone at his ear, and I know without question that he’s contacting Mick with orders to get every bit of surveillance this school has and the roads leading in and out. Any clue as to where my son could be, and who the fuck would have the nerve to touch him.
On Roman’s say-so, the principal scurries out of the room, making sure to close the door firmly behind her before leading us down to the administration block. We’re taken through long corridors before finally arriving at their version of a surveillance room.
She looks over the computers, and having absolutely no idea what she’s looking at, Levi shoves her out of the way, finding what we need.
It’s a long few minutes as Levi breaks into the system, bypassing the passwords the principal doesn’t seem to know, and the moment he brings up the footage of Mrs. Hutchins’ classroom, my stomach sinks.
I shake my head. Even knowing what’s coming, I find myself sick to my stomach. How am I supposed to stand here and watch my child being abducted from his classroom? It’s one of the only places outside of our home where he’s supposed to be safe, where this very school guaranteed his safety when we first enrolled him. And yet, even with the chill seeping through my veins, I can’t find it in me to look away.
