Page 129 of Fallen Empire

“Hey, sis,” he murmured. “We’ll find her. We’ll get our girl back. Just like we did for you.”

But his voice didn’t reach me. Not really.

Because I had nearly died.

And right now, I wasn’t sure if being alive was the better option. If I had died that day, maybe none of this would be happening. Maybe Millie wouldn’t be missing. Maybe I wouldn’t be lying here, watching the world unravel thread by thread.

“Jax,” Nic said suddenly, not bothering to shield me from the conversation anymore, “I think he knows it was you.”

Jaxson turned toward her. “Why do you think that?”

“You left a trail,” she said. “One of the offshore accounts you shut down had a masked signature—barely detectable, but it was there. A virtual fingerprint.”

Jaxson didn’t respond, and she continued.

“I traced it to a ghosted IP address. It was hidden under layers of encryption, but if they had anyone half-decent working tech, they could’ve followed it. Just like I did.”

Another beat of silence passed between them, thick and suffocating.

And still, I didn’t move.

“Damn it, Jax,” Nic snapped, her tone sharp but not cruel. “You have to leave this stuff to me. I get why you did it, but I would’ve done itforyou. I would’ve kept it clean.”

“It doesn’t matter,” he muttered, dragging a hand through his hair. “They would’ve known either way. The timing was too much of a coincidence. I should’ve waited, but…”

His voice trailed off.

“I would’ve done the same, brother,” Ben said, still kneeling beside me. His gaze never left my face. He patted my shoulder gently before pushing to his feet.

“You want this all in your office?”

“We’ll set up in the kitchen,” Jaxson said, already turning. “I want to stay close to Savannah. Be near if she needs anything.”

There was no hesitation. No wasted motion. Just a silent understanding between them, a rhythm built from years of doing this exact kind of work. Not just tracking cameras. Not just hacking networks.

They moved fast. Precise. Like pieces on a battlefield locking into place. I could see them in the reflection on the glass—Ben and Nic at the kitchen counter, spreading files across the surface like a war map. Jaxson was hunched over the laptop, fingers flying with calculated urgency. And Reaper… he moved in and out of the Penthouse like a silent machine, rolling in equipment I didn’t even have names for.

Monitors on stands. Portable servers. Something that looked vaguely like a satellite dish.

Damn. He really did run a full-blown ops team.

There was no hesitation. No panic. Just instinct.

Like this wasn’t the first time they’d pulled off the impossible. And deep down, I knew it wouldn’t be the last.

My body was still frozen, slumped into the cushions, but something flickered faintly in my chest.

Hope.

Because they weren’t just guessing.

They were planning. Calculating their moves. They were coming for her.

I didn’t know how long Millie had, or what kind of twisted message someone was trying to send, but I knew one thing—they’d just triggered the wrong fucking team.

And even without knowing all the details of what they’d done before, I knew one thing for sure.

They didn’t lose. Ever.