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CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

THE KNOCK ON the door came hard and fast, yanking me from my thoughts.

I turned just as Mystic pushed it open, his face dark, tense. The moment our eyes met, my stomach dropped. Something was wrong.

“It’s about Lucy,” he said, voice urgent.

My heart stuttered. “What?”

“We haven’t been able to track her.” His jaw clenched. “And now, we know why.”

I didn’t want to ask. Didn’t want to hear it.

But I already knew.

“It’s possible Dragon Fire has her.”

The words punched the air from my lungs. I gripped the edge of the dresser to steady myself. “No… no, she wouldn’t have been so careless—”

“She was,” Mystic cut in, his voice softer now, but no less serious. “She ran, Zeynep. And they may have caught her.”

Panic swelled in my chest, thick and suffocating. My mind spun, throwing me back to before—to the night Drago’s men dragged me back, to the way they had hurt me, to the way I had barely escaped with my life.

Poor Lucy. What Drago would do to her.

Mystic was there before I even realized I had moved. His hands found my arms, steady, grounding. “Breathe, sweetheart.”

I sucked in a sharp breath, my hands fisting into his shirt. His presence wrapped around me, strong and unshakable, but it didn’t make the fear disappear. Not when I knew exactly what Lucy was facing.

“They’ll kill her,” I whispered, the words scraping from my throat like shattered glass. “Mystic—”

“They won’t,” he said, firm and steady, like he could will it into truth. “We’ll get her back.”

But I shook my head, the panic already clawing its way up. “You don’t know that.”

Drago didn’t make threats. He made examples. When he thought I had lied, he hadn’t laid a hand on me—he’d called Fang. And Lucy had paid the price.

I still heard her screams when I closed my eyes.

Mystic stepped closer, his forehead pressing gently to mine, grounding me for a heartbeat. Then his hands were on my face—rough, scarred palms cradling my skin like I was something fragile he knew how to hold. I couldn’t remember the last time someone touched me that way.

“I know we’re not gonna sit around and do nothin’,” he said, voice low and full of fire.

Tears burned, rising hot and fast. “I can’t lose her,” I breathed, fingers curling into his shirt. “I owe her everything.”

She was the only one who ever stayed.

Since the day I was taken at sixteen, I’d learned not to trust anyone. Not the men who promised to help me—right before the hurt me. Not the ones who smiled before locking the door. But Lucy... she’d seen what Drago really was. She’d seen what I had become—broken, silent, afraid—and she hadn’t walked away.

Even after he made her bleed for my mistakes, she stayed.

She helped me escape when no one else would’ve risked it.

“She’s my friend,” I choked out. “Please—if they have her... if Fang—” My voice cracked, memories slamming into me like fists. “He’ll hurt her again and he’ll kill her this time.”

“You won’t lose her,” Mystic said, fierce and certain. “Not while I’m breathin’.”

I looked up, and in his eyes I saw more than just fire. I saw intent. A promise.

I swallowed hard, my voice barely a whisper. “Find her.”

“I will,” he said, gentler now, like he could feel how close I was to shattering. “But I need you to stay calm. Trust me, Zeynep.”

I nodded, though the panic hadn’t left me. I was choking on it.

Then he did something I didn’t expect.

He leaned in and pressed a kiss to my forehead. Just a breath of contact, tender and quick. It stole the air from my lungs.

When he pulled back, his expression had shifted, like he’d revealed something without meaning to. Something he didn’t know what to do with.

And then he was gone.

I stood there, the quiet rushing in to fill the space he left behind. My hands trembled as I walked to the door, resting my palm flat against the wood.

Lucy had been the one to remind me I wasn’t alone.

Now she was out there, trapped in the dark, and all by herself.

“ Lütfen, ” I whispered, voice catching on the edge of a sob.

Please. Bring her back to me.