Page 40 of Fallen Empire (The Fallen Trilogy #2)

Savannah

I couldn’t move.

Not since the realization hit me.

I always thought that if something happened to someone I loved, it would send me into a full-blown frenzy. A manhunt, a meltdown, something . But I couldn’t stop staring at the hardwood floors, tracing every groove like they held the answer.

My body swayed slightly, disconnected. Just… silence. Pure and devastating. Silence from the room. From Reaper. From my mind.

Is this what it felt like when someone was taken? When you knew— really knew—that someone you loved was going to die?

I’d never felt this before.

My parents’ deaths were instant. No warning. No time to process.

And Bruce? I was already dead in every way that mattered when I watched the life drain from his eyes. Not that I would have cared. I wouldn’t have grieved him. Not for a second.

But now… something else struck me. Something I hadn’t noticed until this very moment.

The panic that used to crash into me like a tidal wave was gone. It wasn’t rising. It wasn’t clawing its way through my throat. It wasn’t hovering at the edges. And it hadn’t been there for days.

Not since the dream.

The one where I saw him in my hospital room. Alex. A ghost from hell.

The fear had gripped me then, wrapped tight around my ribs like barbed wire.

But it hadn’t come back.

No tightness in my chest. No scraping through my lungs. No screaming silence in my ears. Not even when Jaxson said Alex was still a threat.

Maybe it was the pain meds.

Or maybe, the panic died with Bruce.

The day I stopped being scared of men who dangled my life like it was theirs to control.

Maybe this wasn’t numbness.

Maybe it was clarity.

The door handle turned, then flung open so hard it slammed against the wall.

Jaxson barreled into the room like he couldn’t waste another second getting to me.

His chest rose and fell in ragged bursts, shirt stained with sweat , hair a chaotic mess like he’d been dragging his hands through it nonstop.

But it was his eyes that caught me.

Wild. Frantic. Scanning the room like he expected to find blood or broken glass. Like something inside him had already accepted the worst and was scrambling to undo it.

And I just watched him.

Still sitting there. Still swaying ever so slightly in that same spot.

He looked like panic. I looked like silence.

But between us, the air cracked with everything we weren’t saying.

He moved to me slowly, like I might break if he came too fast. Then he dropped to his knees in front of me, his hands reaching for mine, his voice soft but laced with urgency.

“We’ll find her. I promise.”

My eyes locked on his. I heard the words. I knew what they meant. But nothing inside me moved to meet them. No tears. No questions. Just more silence.

“Why don’t you lie down for a bit?” he offered gently. “Ben and Nic are coming up. We’re going to start scanning footage, try to figure out where she is.”

Still, I didn’t answer. Couldn’t.

Jaxson shifted, guiding me back against the couch. He adjusted my legs, his touch careful, like I was glass barely held together. I let him. Not because I trusted him. Not because I needed comfort. But because I didn’t know how to tell my body what to do anymore.

Lying there, I couldn’t sway. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t feel the give of the cushion beneath me or the softness of the throw he pulled up over my lap.

My eyes stayed open, fixed on a spot across the room. One I wasn’t really seeing. Everything felt both far away and too close at the same time. Like sound was muffled, even though I knew people were speaking. Like my thoughts were moving in circles, but not landing anywhere that made sense.

The world kept spinning. But I didn’t. I wasn’t frozen. I wasn’t calm.

I just… wasn’t.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the door open again. Two shapes stepped in—one broad, one smaller—but I didn’t turn my head to look. I just stayed where Jaxson had left me, curled against the couch, eyes glazed over, limbs limp.

They paused near the threshold. I could hear the subtle shift of whatever they were carrying, something crinkling or metallic maybe, but it stayed in my peripheral. Just another piece of a world that didn’t quite feel real.

No one spoke at first. Then Nic’s voice, quiet but urgent, broke the silence.

“Jax… what’s wrong with her?”

“I think she’s in shock,” he said, his voice lower now. Raw.

Silence again.

Then Ben moved, crossing the space between us until he knelt beside the couch. His hand rested on my arm, warm and steady.

“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 it for you. 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.

I closed my eyes, not because I was tired, but to focus. To sharpen my hearing. To soak in every word and pretend I had the strength to be useful.

"Did you find anything at the café?" Jaxson’s voice was low, clipped.

"Not really," Ben answered. "Outside of it, there was coffee stains on the sidewalk. Spilled like someone dropped it mid-step. But that was it. Nothing else obvious. No witnesses."

"I showed the girls behind the counter her photo," Nic added. "They remembered her. Said she wasn’t there long."

"And then?"

"Nothing. Said she left kind of in a rush. But there’s no exterior camera on that block. We’re blind until she hits the crosswalk."

I cracked one eye open, gaze sliding to Jaxson. Even through the reflection, I could see his jaw was clenched tight as his hand gripped the edge of the countertop.

"Then we trace the intersections one by one," he said. "Somebody picked her up. A van. Car. Anything. There has to be something."

Ben nodded. "We’ll find it. We’ve done it before."

“This is why I wanted trackers. We could’ve avoided this,” Nic said, but nobody responded. By the sound of it, she meant putting something into our bodies. But no one ever mentioned trackers.

I’d seen what happened on the other side of danger. Not a front row seat, but the main character. If they wanted to make sure finding us was easier if something happened, I would’ve done it. I would’ve convinced Millie to also. But nobody ever asked.

The silence that foll owed was razor-sharp and charged with determination. No fear. No failure.

Just a plan.

And if Millie could hear them, I knew she’d be doing the same thing I was.

Holding on.

Because they weren’t going to stop. Not until they got her back.

“Goddamn it,” Ben muttered, breaking the silence that had stretched for what felt like hours. “It’s like they’re invisible. I’ve scanned everything. Every fucking angle we have, and I can’t find a fucking thing.”

His nerves were fraying. I could hear it in his voice, the edge of desperation creeping in.

“Jax,” Nic said, her tone calm but resolute. “I need to go under. Just for a bit.”

I didn’t know what that meant, but Jaxson did.