Page 89 of BounBound By Scars

I wanted to throw my chair at the wall.

“Fucking CIA,” I muttered, my voice low, resigned.

When I looked around, Zarek and Sebastian both wore the same expression—confusion tangled with a small flicker of hope. Because if what she said was true… Zane was still alive.

I forced down the rising panic and spoke evenly, carefully. “Thank you, Detective Inez. They think Zane might have attempted to…” I hesitated. I didn’t know how much I could safely say with them in the room. “…access sensitive information from a federal agency.”

Mateo barked a laugh, dark and unbothered. “What a moron. He’ll be dead in a few hours. We’ll call—if we find the body.”

Sebastian’s sigh was audible. “Please leave.”

“He’s not wrong—” Inez started, but Seb cut her off cold.

“I said leave.”

Inez blinked at him like she was just realizing the tension in the room wasn’t just about Zane. “We can help,” she added slowly. “Maybe it wasn’t the CIA. I know y’all don’t leave evidence behind.”

That last sentence settled heavily in the air. She knew more than she was letting on. Just enough to stay cautious. Just enough not to push.

I kept my voice calm. “Do you know which officers responded?”

They both nodded, but Inez was the one to speak, her voice grimmer now. “What good is that gonna do?”

I swallowed—hard. Because nothing. It would do nothing.

“I—”

My chest tightened, lungs barely working. Because it wasn’t a coincidence. And deep down, I already knew.

Zane had sent me a file—his logs from two days ago.

He’d done exactly what I told him not to.

He accessed the Crazon infrastructure shielding the Pentagon.

The fuckingPentagon.

And now he was gone.

The CIA didn’t take people into custody. They erased them.

Zarek. Sebastian. Dylan. Logan. They all knew it.

And Zane had walked right into it.

“Could you give us the room, Detectives?” I asked, trying to keep my voice steady.

They nodded without protest and slipped out. I waited until the door clicked shut before finally breathing out.

I turned to the team. “Zane made four attempts,” I said quietly, stepping back to my laptop, “in the past week to infiltrate the Crazon defense matrix stationed at the Pentagon.”

Sebastian’s head dropped. His hands fisted on the table, like all the air had left his body.

“I checked every digital trail,” I continued, almost talking to myself now. “They were clean. Whoever took him knew what they were doing. There’s no trace. There never will be.”

Seb looked… hollow. A man trying to come to terms with something he’d already started mourning.

“What do we do?” Delara asked. Her voice wasn’t the sharp, composed tone we knew. It trembled.