Page 108 of Falling for Mr. Ruthless

TWENTY

THE TRUTH IN HER HANDS

JAKOB

The Aston Martin eats Manhattan streets, Chanel beside me, the space between us electric with shared terror.

Not touching. Not speaking.

My hand shifts gears with mechanical precision while my mind calculates kill points, exit strategies, contingencies that end with Jaden safe and Latanya broken.

"Faster," Chanel whispers, the first word since we left the museum.

I push the engine harder, threading through traffic with cold precision. Yellow lights become suggestions. Horns blare in our wake. I drive like the predator I've always been beneath bespoke suits and boardroom smiles.

My phone rings through the car system. Tyson.

"You're on speaker," I say, voice stripped to function. "Chanel's with me."

"We've started the trace on Latanya Davis," Tyson says, all business. "I need to know what devices to target."

Chanel answers immediately, mind sharp despite the fear radiating from her skin. "Her personal iPhone. MacBook Pro forschool planning. iPad. And—" her voice catches, steadies "—she has keys to my apartment. For emergencies."

I glance at her, the implication landing cold. "How long?"

"Three years." Her eyes meet mine, realization dawning. "Since right after the divorce."

Something clicks—a puzzle piece I should have seen sooner. I press harder on the accelerator.

"Tyson, pull everything. Not just today's movements. Go back months. Years if you can. Focus on patterns around Chanel's schedule and Jaden's activities."

"Already on it." Keys click in the background. "Where are you headed?"

"Her brownstone in Fort Greene first." Chanel leans forward, fingers white against the dashboard. "If she's not there, check my apartment. She has access to both."

"Sending Collins to the apartment as backup," Tyson says. "I'll call when I have the first data sweep."

The call ends. Silence rushes back, heavy with possibilities too dark to voice. Chanel stares ahead, profile carved from marble—beautiful, unyielding, terrified beneath perfect composure.

"I never saw it," she says finally, voice barely above the engine. "Four years, Jakob. She was with me through everything. The divorce. The nights I couldn't breathe. Jaden's nightmares. All of it."

I don't offer empty reassurance. Don't say what we both know is meaningless—that she couldn't have known, that obsession wears perfect disguises. Instead, I give her the only thing that matters.

"We'll get him back."

My phone rings again. I answer before the first ring completes.

"First ping on her devices," Tyson says. "Her phone's at her residence in Fort Greene. Been there approximately forty-three minutes."

"Security feed?" I ask, already recalculating approach vectors.

"Working on it. But there's something else." His voice drops. "Partial access to her cloud backup. There's a folder. Encrypted, but the file names are visible."

The car fills with the sound of his typing, the soft clicks somehow ominous against the engine's growl.

"What kind of files?" Chanel asks.

"Photos. Thousands of them. Dating back four years. File names are dates." A pause. "Most include 'C' or 'J' in the naming convention."