Page 65 of Forbidden Empire

No Esme. No flash of dark hair, no stubborn tilt of her chin.

Rhea wouldn’t slip up so easily. She’d hide Esme somewhere off the map, somewhere only she knew. Personal.

The clue was out there. In someone’s memory, or some small thing we’d missed. I just had to get to it before the clock ran out.

Ares and Helena watched me from the plush red velvet couch, eyes glued to my every twitch like I was about to explode and take half the room with me.

Maybe they weren’t wrong. My hands wouldn’t quit shaking. I kept glancing at my watch, then the clock on the wall, over and over, like maybe if I stared hard enough the minutes would reshuffle themselves and give back what I’d lost.

Every second made the anger in my veins twist tighter, heavier, colder.

I slammed my fist against the desk, not caring about the jolt of pain burning up my arm. Pain was easier than this…this gnawing emptiness hollowing me out.

Somewhere, Esme was breathing, bleeding, screaming.

Or maybe not breathing at all.

Rhea wouldn’t blink before hurting Esme. That was the whole damn point of it all.

Taking Esme was the perfect revenge play.

Rhea had sniffed out my weakness, the one thing sharp enough to cut through everything else and bring me flat on my face.

But I was still breathing. And unless I saw a body, Esme was too.

The clock was running. I spun around to face Ares and Helena, both of them staring at me like I might go off at any second.

“Your men find anything?” I snapped.

Ares pressed his lips into a tight line. “They placed her anklet in a Faraday bag in under two seconds and attached a tracker to a courier. We monitored the broadcast for thirty minutes before realizing the signal wasn’t coming from her. We’ve checked the band’s internal log up to the moment just before the kidnapping; after that, it was silent until they removed the tracker sleeve.”

“Fuck.” The word just blew out of me, loud and ugly.

I stalked over to the balcony, grabbing the rail and squeezing until my knuckles ached.

Down below, the Underworld was dead quiet, the dance floor a black sea.

Hours earlier, this place had been packed with the city’s finest, laughing and plotting, not a clue there was a war brewing right above them.

My fingers clenched tighter around the balcony rail. I could practically see Rhea's body flying out into the dark, limbs flapping, dress riding up, her scream cut short before she slammed straight through one of those stupid glass tables.

That sound, that last disgusting wet crunch, would be the payoff for every miserable hour I’d wasted tracking her down.

I shut my eyes, grinning at the thought like some junkie who could finally taste water. If it weren’t for the promise of her death, I’d have torched this city a long time ago.

“We’re missing something,” I gritted out, nails biting hard into my palms.

Helena cut in, no patience in her tone. “Aidon, you need to get your head on straight. Running around like a rabid animal isn’t helping. You’ll get yourself killed. You’ll get Esme killed. You know how Rhea thinks. She didn’t take Esme just to kill time.”

The door swung open, and an Olympus courier in a charcoal suit stepped in, holding a cream-colored card in his palm like a summons. He placed it on the desk and waited.

“From Zeno Theodorus,” he said. “Interdict: Esme is black booked at all Olympus properties. Access revoked. Accounts frozen. Associates flagged. A bounty is authorized for the device and any copies. Not for her life.”

I kept my face expressionless.

“To reverse the Interdict,” he continued, "return the original hardware and a verified full copy. Or cut one of Rhea’s arteries and bring proof. Until then, no Olympus, no favors, no name.”

He handed me a receipt pad, and I signed my name. The courier took the pad and headed out the door.