Page 143 of Fallen Empire

I stalked over, snatched it up, and turned on my heel, heading back into the kitchen. Holding the phone up as I stepped inside, I met Ben’s gaze.

“She’s fucking gone,” I said, my voice low and lethal. “All that’s left is this.”

“Um, Jax… I hate to be the one to say this.” Nic looked up at me, and for the first time, I saw something I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen on her face—confusion.

“What the fuck is it?” I snapped.

She clicked a button, and the image on the monitors shifted. At first, it was all black, grainy nothing. Then a light bled in, cutting through the darkness.

Someone had opened a door.

The camera angle was low, enclosed—like it was inside a stairwell.

My stairwell.

And then she appeared. Savannah. Her frame slipped into view, and my heart plummeted.

She was alone.

And she was running.

“This doesn’t make any fucking sense,” Ben said, his voice tight and fraying with frustration.

Nic adjusted the angles, tracking Savannah as she descended the stairwell and stepped into the lobby. She paused, turning her head, scanning the space like she was weighing her next move.

But the longer I watched, the more it sank in—she wasn’t running away from something. She was running toward something.

“Where the hell is she running to?” I muttered, mostly to myself, but the words still cut the room.

Nic cycled through feeds, jumping blocks at a time, until Savannah vanished just like Koslov had, swallowed whole bythe city. The last camera caught her near the industrial side of Manhattan. Empty streets. Half-finished buildings. Nowhere she had any business being alone.

The phone in my hand lit up. One glance, and my stomach dropped. Directions. Walking directions.

“Look.” I slid it to Nic. “She asked me for a phone earlier. I didn’t think anything about it.”

Nic’s fingers flew over the screen. “It’s directions… to 45 Park Place. Isn’t that the building you tried to buy a few years back?”

“Yeah,” I said. “She asked about it on the way here.”

Ben’s head snapped toward me. “What the fuck do you mean she asked about it?” His voice was laced with accusation, and I knew exactly what he was thinking.

There was a time, before Savannah had taken a bullet for me, that I would’ve thought the same thing. But not anymore. Not after everything she’d been through.

“Light turned red, we were stopped, she saw it and asked. That’s it.”

“You think she knew where he was taking her?”

The question hit a nerve. “She couldn’t have. If she did, she never would’ve let Millie be taken.” My tone sharpened. It was a warning that he was close to crossing a line.

Ben held up both hands, but the doubt still lingered in his eyes. “I know she wouldn’t. But what if… what if she remembered something? What if Millie being taken triggered it?”

I could see it in his face, the flicker of uncertainty giving way to something heavier. The weight of knowing Savannah had already given up her life for me once… and that maybe she’d do it again for Millie.

“She’d die for her,” I whispered, the truth cold in my mouth.

The words felt heavy enough to split me in half. Because it wasn’t just some abstract loyalty—Savannah had already proven it. I’d seen her stare death in the face without flinching, for me. And if she thought walking into Koslov’s world meant saving Millie, she wouldn’t hesitate.

No one spoke. Not for several beats. And in that silence, the other truth crept in. The one none of us wanted to say out loud.