Page 41 of Fallen Empire (The Fallen Trilogy #2)

“You can’t,” he snapped. “If they even suspect you’re there, if you’re caught, CIA will be knocking down that door in seconds.” He pointed toward the door in front of me. The only entrance.

“Do you want to find her or not?” Nic asked, unfazed. “It’s a risk we have to take.”

Silence followed, heavy with tension. This wasn’t a simple decision. This was a line they weren’t supposed to cross.

“Do it,” Ben said, before Jaxson could respond. “If Gunner shows, I’ll handle it. Just fucking get her back.”

Nic’s fingers flew across the keyboard. The monitors flickered, the screen layouts shifting. A girl taking a selfie. A couple laughing in front of a street sign. A phone pointed at the pavement, walking somewhere.

She’d tapped into cellphone cameras.

“Her phone last pinged here?” Ben asked, pointing to a location on the map—about two blocks from where we were.

“Yeah,” Nic confirmed. “Corner of Broome and West Broadway.”

“I’m rescanning all visual models from that area,” she said. “And I’m pulling from transportation nodes. Traffic cams. Crosswalk feeds. Anything with a lens.”

The screens expanded—four feeds turned to eight, then sixteen. One after another, image after image flickered in and out. I sat up, my body finally moving as I turned toward the wall of monitors.

I couldn’t keep up. They were moving so fast.

“There. Right there.” Ben said sharply.

One frame maximized and I squinted my eyes to see better.

Millie. Standing at the crosswalk, coffee in one hand, bag in the other. But it wasn’t her that stole my breath.

It was the man behind her.

Alex—no, Aleksei—holding the door open, smiling as he said something to her. Casual. Calm. Like they were old friends running into each other on the street.

My stomach turned. And in that moment, I realized I’d failed her. Because she was blind. I knew who Alex was, but Millie never even saw his face. She never knew what danger looked like in a smile. And it was my silence that put her there. My name. My legacy. I’d single-handedly made her a target.

And I never gave her a warning sign. I watched as her smile faltered. As realization crept in too late. Because what appeared to be a kind man holding the door open…

Was her demise dressed in Armani.

A predator cloaked in charm.

And by the time she sensed the danger, she was already marked.

Already his.

Then a SUV pulled into frame, blocking the view. Then another. By the time the lens cleared, she was gone.

“That feed is from a moving vehicle,” Nic said. “Cell tower triangulation confirms. Switching to transit surveillance now. Give me ten seconds.”

Jaxson moved beside her, tension radiating off him in waves. “Get out of the phone system. Now. Before they trace it back.”

“I’m already out,” she said. “We’re clean.”

But none of us were breathing easy. Because we’d seen him.

And it confirmed what we already knew—she was in Alex’s hands now.

“They went toward the industrial side,” Ben said, his brows pulling together. “There are over a dozen abandoned buildings in that radius.”

“We’ll be going in blind. It’ll take time,” Jaxson said.

“Time we don’t have,” Ben replied.

I closed my eyes, whispering a silent prayer.

Please, God. Show us where.

But as the words I wasn’t saying filtered through my thoughts, something else slipped through—something darker.

A vision, like a reel playing in slow motion.

A tall figure, backlit and faceless. Just a silhouette, sharp and cold.

He turned, like he was leaving, and said the words that sent ice through my veins:

“If you crawl your way back to life… maybe you can save her before I bury her at Park Place. Don’t pass Go. Don’t collect two hundred dollars.”

My eyes flew open.

It wasn’t a dream.

Alex had been at the hospital.

He’d stood over me. Spoken to me.

But when?

The only time it could’ve happened was after surgery. While I was still in holding. Still vulnerable. Still unaware. I had come out of surgery conscious. But then everything went black.

Something pulled me under. Dragged me into that coma. It wasn’t my injuries or my body shutting down. It was him . His voice. His threat.

And maybe… my mind did the only thing it knew to do.

It shut me down to survive.

But I didn’t need to shut down anymore. I couldn’t afford to. Not now. Now I just needed to get to her. Because Alex didn’t want them . He wanted me . And he knew exactly how to draw me out—by taking the person most valuable to me.

I’d give him exactly what he wanted, but on my terms. I thought out a plan, mapped the risks, and moved.

“Jaxson,” I said softly.

His head snapped toward me, and in a few long strides, he was by my side.

“Can you help me to the bed? I think I need to rest for a while.”

“Anything you need,” he said instantly, reaching down to grab the untouched bottle of water from earlier. I started to sit up, letting my movements seem slower, weaker—like my body still hadn’t recovered.

Most of it wasn’t a lie. I was still in pain. But I could push through that. I would. Because Millie needed me.

He helped shift my weight into him, guiding me gently toward the bedroom. He eased me down onto the mattress, brushing the hair from my face like I was made of glass.

“I’ll grab some medicine,” he murmured.

He left and returned a minute later with a single white pill in his palm, holding it out to me. I took it, because I’d need something to take the edge off.

“Do you know where my phone is?” I asked, careful not to seem too eager. “I just... want something to distract me.”

“It was lost the night you were taken,” he said. “But I’ve got a spare. You need something?”

“No. Just something for my mind to do. Maybe order some food.”

“Shit, that’s right,” he muttered. “You never got to eat.”

Like I could eat right now.

“I’ll go grab it—and I’ll order something, too.”

He returned a few minutes later with a brand-new device, fully charged. “Here. Got it set up with basic access for now. Ordered food, but with the roadwork down the block, it’ll take about thirty.”

Thirty minutes was more than enough time for what I was planning.

“If you want,” he added, “I can see what we have if you’re hungry now.”

“No, it’s fine. Thank you. Just bring it in when it gets here?”

He nodded. “Of course. Try to get some rest. We’ll keep working.”

He leaned down, pressing a soft kiss against my forehead.

I stopped him. Just for a second. My fingers curled gently around his arm, holding him in place.

I wanted to memorize the weight of his touch, just in case I never got this again.

I gave it a few moments after Jaxson left before pulling up the search bar. When the browser opened, I typed the one place I knew she had to be.

45 Park Place.

Switching to the maps tab, I adjusted the settings to walking directions and zoomed in, tracking the dotted blue line from my location to hers. Seven blocks. I memorized every turn, every street name, committing them to memory like a countdown. I dropped the phone beside me.

Then I moved. Slowly, quietly. I slipped off the bed and padded to the closet. Please, God, let this Penthouse be built like mine.

I pushed the clothes aside, brushing my fingers against the back wall. Nothing. Then, an indentation. Barely there. I ran my hand across the groove until—

Click.

A faint shift. A square portion pushed slightly outward. I fumbled for the edge, nails scraping until I found a grip, and pulled.

The panel opened to reveal a hidden safe, sleek and dark, flush with the wall. Expensive. Well-secured. And now, wide open.

Inside: a Glock, loaded magazines, stacks of cash, two passports, and a watch I didn’t recognize.

Two passports. Why two?

I picked up the first one, flipping it open. Jaxson. His photo. His name. His cover identity.

Then I opened the second.

It was me.

Only, my last name had been changed.

Westbrook .

It should infuriate me that he’d forged an official document with a name that wasn’t mine, but somehow the identity settled something deep inside of me.

I glanced back toward the bedroom. Silence. I stared for a moment longer before returning everything to its place. But then I paused. Instead of shutting the safe completely, pretending I’d never intruded, I reached for the gun.

I pushed the button and checked the magazine. Full. My father made sure I knew how to handle a weapon—whether I knew the full truth of him or not. And I wasn’t scared to use it now.

God, I hope they forgive me. That he forgives me.

I spun toward the dresser Millie had opened earlier and yanked out a pair of jeans, shimmying them on despite the sharp pain shooting up my thigh. The gun slid easily into the back of the waistband. I fixed the closet quickly, restoring everything to how I’d found it.

Only… there was no exit. No escape.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

I looked around the space, trying to remember the mirrored layout of my own unit. In mine, the hidden passage was just past the shoes.

I turned toward Jaxson’s towering shoe display. A wall-to-ceiling fortress of solid wood and designer leather. I shoved at it from one side. Nothing. Tried the other. Still nothing.

Dropping to my knees sent a sharp pang up my side, but I gritted through it and crawled beneath the row of neatly hanging pants. Fabric brushed against my shoulder as I searched blindly. Then I looked up.

There it was.

A keypad.

I hesitated, fingers hovering. Then I punched in the numbers— 1-2-8-0.

The wood split. A narrow seam opened, just enough for me to squeeze through. Inside was a secure panic room. Metal-lined walls, rows of high-powered rifles, ammo, and surveillance monitors glowing in the dark.

And a door.

A back stairwell.

A way out.

I hadn’t thought about the stairs. About how my body would handle them. But I didn’t have the luxury of hesitation.

I punched the code in again on the pad beside the exit and slipped through the steel door, closing it behind me. The stairwell was dim and cold, the only sound my bare feet hitting each concrete step.

I didn’t feel the pain anymore. Not in my ribs. Not in my leg.

Only one thing pulsed through me now.

Resolve.

Unshakable. Vicious.

I was going to find her.

Even if it killed me.