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I fly out of the car, already running towards the building. “You haven’t been answering your fucking phone,” I bark.
Leon’s expression filters through every emotion before he digs his phone out of his pocket. His jaw clenches. “No signal.Fuck.”
The signal was jammed. Whoever did this planned ahead.
Yasha comes running up fast behind me, but I get to the back door first. I throw it open and head inside as Leon calls, “What should we do?”
If Yasha responds, I don’t hear him. I don’t hear anything.
My entire focus is on getting inside. Getting to Jorden’s apartment. Getting to Cora.
Even though some part of me already knows she won’t be there.
What I heard on that phone call told me enough. They were dragged out of the apartment screaming.
We skip the bank of elevators in favor of the stairs, leaping up them three at a time. We exit on the third floor landing and immediately, my stomach drops.
Jorden’s door is open.
More specifically, it’s open because someone kicked it in with enough force that the trim ripped off the wall.
“Shit,” Yasha spits.
I hear his gun slide out of his holster, but I don’t even reach for mine. I know I won’t need it.
They’re already gone.
I push the door open and storm inside, stomping over spilled papers, an overturned stool, and the remnants of someone’s burnt toast.
“Careful, Ivan. Let me clear the apartment before—”
“They aren’t here.”
There was a struggle, I can tell that much. The closet in the hallway is open and hanging off its hinges.
I imagine someone dragging Cora down the hallway in my mind’s eye. I envision her fighting, helpless to stop whoever had a hold of her.
My fists clench at my side as I move back to the bedroom.
The blankets are hanging off the bed and the nightstand is knocked over, but my eyes are locked on the closet. On the clothes and hangers piled in the middle of the floor. At the closet rod ripped from the wall.
“This is where they were when she called.” I know it’s true. I can feel it. The scene is playing out like a horror movie in my head, and I know I’m right.
I should have been here.
As soon as Cora told me Francia was missing, I should have brought her back to my house.
Better yet, I never should have let her leave in the first place.
That’s when I see Cora’s phone on the floor. It’s the phone I gave her when she arrived at my house. The one I had a tracker installed in. It’s useless now.
I pick up the phone and slide it into my back pocket.
Yasha has cleared the bedroom and the bathroom already. Now, he is moving back into the living room.
“Ivan! In here,” he calls a minute later. I follow his voice into the living room. He’s standing by the window next to the couch.
“The window was unlocked and cracked open. I think this is how they left.”
