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CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

SOMETHING WAS WRONG .

Not just a bad feeling, this was heavier. It wrapped around me the second I stepped into the hallway, crawling over my skin like a live wire, squeezing tight around my chest like a vice with every step I took.

The clubhouse had a rhythm. A pulse that never stopped. Even at three a.m., there’d be signs of life—low murmurs from the common room, the clink of a bottle, the occasional outburst over a game, laughter spilling from behind closed doors.

But tonight? Nothing. No sound. No movement. No fucking heartbeat.

My boots thudded against the hardwood, every step echoing louder than it should’ve, like the silence was trying to swallow me whole. I moved down the hall, my eyes locked on one door. Hers.

I stopped, hesitating like a coward who didn’t want to find the truth already clawing at the edges of my gut. She hadn’t looked at me, hadn’t spoken more than a whisper since that night… but she was still here. Breathing. Sleeping behind that door, just out of reach. That had to count for something.

I lifted my hand, knocked once, softly. Waited. Nothing. No footsteps. No rustle of covers.

Something shifted in me, low and sour. The kind of dread that didn’t shout—it whispered. Quiet. Cold. Knowing.

I knocked again, harder this time, my knuckles connecting with the wood like they were trying to force the silence to break. “Zeynep,” I called, voice flat, too rough to be calm but not quite panicked. Not yet.

Still nothing.

I twisted the handle. Locked. A curse scraped up my throat as I stepped back, dragging both hands through my hair. “Talk to me,” I muttered, jaw clenched so tight it ached. “Please…”

The silence behind that door stopped being silence. It turned into something else. A warning. Too long. Too still.

I pressed my palm flat to the wood, trying to calm the beat of my heart that was now pounding out a fast rhythm in my ears. “Zeynep.” Her name came out lower this time, thick, broken. “Open the damn door.”

Nothing.

My breath hissed between clenched teeth. No more waiting. I stepped back, drove my boot into the door. Wood splintered and gave way with a loud crack, slamming open so hard it bounced off the wall.

The room was empty.

Untouched.

The bed hadn’t been used. The blanket folded. Pillow clean. The small bag of clothes Brenda gave her? Gone.

Ice spread through my chest, settling heavy in my gut like concrete.

I started to turn away, mind already racing, when a flicker of white on the window sill caught my eye. A piece of paper. Folded. Sitting there like a fucking ghost.

I grabbed it, fingers closing tight as my eyes locked on the words.

“It is dangerous… to be too close to something you know you cannot keep.”

Fuck!

I turned on my heel and barreled down the hall, fury and fear crashing together in my chest, burning hot and fast.

“Wake up!” I roared, the sound slamming through the silence like a gunshot.

A door creaked open behind me, Thunder stumbling out, shirtless and rubbing the sleep from his face. “What the fuck—”

“She’s gone.” My voice dropped, but the weight behind it only grew darker. “Zeynep’s fuckin’ gone.”

Thunder froze, blinking away the haze, his expression tightening in real time. “Shit.”

“Wake everyone. Now.”

He nodded, already moving.

The clubhouse came alive fast. Too fast. Like blood racing after a near death hit.

Boots slammed the floor. Doors opened with violence. Voices rose, angry and clipped. That kind of chaos didn’t just fill the air—it sliced through it. Because when someone under our roof goes missing… there’s no such thing as calm.

Devil pushed through the crowd, Chain right behind him. Devil’s stare locked on mine, unblinking. “Talk.”

“She’s gone. Room was locked from the inside. Bag’s gone. Note on the sill.”

Lucy and Spinner rushed in, Lucy’s voice cracking with hope she didn’t believe in. “Tell me she’s still here. Please—tell me she’s here.”

Across the room, Gatsby was already at his laptop, fingers flying. “Checking security footage.”

I stood there, fists clenched, heart slamming so hard I thought my ribs might split open and let it fall out.

How long had she been gone? Was she alone? Had someone else already found her?

The bile rose up before I could stop it.

“Shit…” Gatsby’s mutter cut through the room as he leaned closer, squinting. “She climbed into the backseat of Oliver’s car.” His face went pale as he turned the screen toward us. “That was hours ago.”

“Lucy.” My voice was hoarse now, panic sharpening every word. “Ask Oliver if he’s seen her.”

She was already calling, phone pressed to her ear. As she spoke and then listened, her face fell before she even said it out loud. “He doesn’t know. Says he had no idea she was in the damn car.”

“She probably slipped out the second he parked,” I muttered, more to myself than anyone else, running a hand over my face, lungs working overtime. “She’s runnin’… kept it quiet… planned it.”

I turned to Devil, locking eyes. “We move. Now.”

He didn’t hesitate. Just nodded, already pulling out his phone. “Start with every motel in a twenty-mile radius from Oliver’s last known stop. She won’t have gone far if she’s hiding.”

Chain was moving, strapping on his holder, sliding a mag into his piece like this was just another mission, but we both knew it wasn’t. This was personal.

“We’ll find her,” he said, voice steady like steel.

I didn’t speak. Didn’t let the fear win. Because if I did—if I stopped to feel it—I’d fall apart. And if we didn’t find her first?

Drago would.

***

THE NIGHT BLURRED by in streaks of headlights and rain spotted pavement, the roar of my bike a constant in my ears, loud enough to drown out the thoughts, but not the sick weight sitting in my gut. I’d been riding for damn near two hours now, checking every rundown motel, corner store, and gas station with a flickering sign from here to the edge of the county line. Still nothing. Not a fucking trace.

Each time I pulled off the road, the ache in my shoulders got worse. Hope clawed its way to the surface with every turn of the handlebars, only to be dragged back down by reality the second I stepped into a lobby or knocked on a door and saw the blank stares that greeted me. No one had seen her. Not the clerk with the glassy eyes behind the convenience counter. Not the old man sweeping up cigarette butts outside the Motel Six. Not the woman with too much makeup and not enough soul standing behind the gas station register like she was waiting to die there.

I flashed her picture. I described her soft voice. I talked about the small mole on her jaw. The soft accent. The way she moved, quiet, and graceful. But it didn’t matter. Every single person looked at me with that same shrug. That same fucking disinterest. Like she was nobody.

But she wasn’t nobody. She was something so goddamned special, and I’d let her slip through my fingers.

The wind kicked harder as I pulled into the next lot, gravel crunching under my tires. The neon vacancy sign buzzed overhead like it was mocking me, throwing dull red light over the cracked pavement and the old cars lined up crooked in their spots. I parked close to the office, jaw tight, shoulders stiff, my eyes scanning the windows for any sign of her shadow. Nothing. Just the flicker of a TV and a silhouette behind the blinds that didn’t match her shape.

I stepped off the bike, boots crunching into the grit, and pushed open the door to the lobby. It smelled like bleach and burnt coffee. A bored kid sat behind the counter, chewing on the end of a pen and scrolling through something on his phone like the world outside didn’t matter.

“Hey,” I said, voice rough, worn thin from too many hours of panic pretending to be control. “You seen this woman?” I pulled up the photo on my phone, holding it out, already expecting the answer I didn’t want.

He barely glanced at it. “Nah, man. Sorry.”

“You sure?” I didn’t raise my voice, but the weight behind the words made him look up. “She might’ve come in quiet. Short girl. Red hair. Beautiful. Would’ve paid cash.”

The kid blinked, shrugged. “Ain’t seen her. Only checked in two tonight, old couple and some trucker.” He turned back to his phone. “Want me to write your number down in case she shows?”

I didn’t answer. Just stared at him until the silence got uncomfortable. Then I turned and walked out.

Back on the bike, the cold dread seeped deeper, biting through the leather of my cut and the denim underneath. I sat there for a moment, staring at nothing, my hand clenched around the throttle. The street ahead was empty, just blacktop and old trees stretching into the dark, no sign of her. No trail to follow. Just silence and the pulse of failure knocking against my skull.

She was out there somewhere. Alone. Vulnerable. Probably terrified, even if she wouldn’t admit it, and it was my fault.

I should’ve seen the signs. Should’ve known by the way she looked at me without speaking, by the way her hands trembled when she thought no one was watching. Should’ve known that something was building in her, something ready to snap.

She left because of me.

To get the fuck away from me.

The engine rumbled beneath me, steady as ever, waiting on me to move. But I didn’t—not yet. I couldn’t shake the image of her slipping into that car like a ghost. So fucking quiet no one noticed. Not even Oliver. That was the part that gutted me. How easy it had been for her to vanish.

I started the engine again and pulled out, riding toward the next row of cheap, nameless motels. The wind whipped past me, carrying the scent of salt from the distant coast and the stale stink of diesel and wet pavement. I kept going. Didn’t know where the road would take me next, but I wasn’t stopping. Not until I found her. Not until I knew she was safe.

Because if I didn’t? If he found her first—if Drago put his hands on her again—I’d bury his body so fucking deep they’d did him up in China.”