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CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO

I KNEW SOMETHING was wrong the second I stepped through the door. Bone deep. Instant. That kind of wrong didn’t need an explanation, it just settled in the air.

I might’ve been running on fumes, muscles aching from days without real rest, but exhaustion couldn’t dull the instincts carved into me from war and blood and every fight I’d ever walked away from. Some things you don’t forget.

The air had changed. It was heavier now. Thick with silence, but not the quiet kind. This was the kind that came before something broke. The kind that warned you to brace yourself.

Chain and Devil stood near the bar, both of them still, like men waiting for a verdict. Their faces were grim, eyes guarded. Gearhead and Thunder leaned against the pool table, arms crossed tight over his chest, jaw clenched so hard I could see the muscle ticking in his temple. No drinks in their hands. No jokes in the air.

Not a sound in the whole damn place.

That’s when I knew.

I didn’t want to hear it. Didn’t want to ask. But it was already too late.

Devil stepped forward, his expression carved from stone. When he spoke, his voice was level—low, steady—but it hit like a hammer anyway. “We’ve got information.”

The words landed in my chest like a blast from a twelve-gauge, knocking the wind out of me before I could even react. I didn’t move. Couldn’t. My whole body locked up.

“Yeah?” The word came out raw, scraping across my throat.

Chain answered before Devil could. His tone wasn’t loud, but it carried. “Zeynep. Drago’s got her.”

The ground shifted under my boots, my vision tunneling.

“No.” The denial spilled from my lips before I could stop it. My fists clenched at my sides, nails biting into my palms. “No. That’s not—”

Devil exhaled slowly, dragging a hand down his face like it pained him just to say it out loud. “Drago found her last night.”

The sound of those words splintered through my skull, slicing past logic and rage straight into the part of me that had started to believe she was finally safe.

I stepped forward fast, my whole body coiled tight like I was ready to fight right there in the middle of the goddamn clubhouse. “How the fuck do you know that?”

Chain’s expression twisted, jaw tightening. “The bartender at Margo’s overheard a woman givin’ Drago her location. Sold her out. Gave her right to him like it was nothin’.”

My pulse thundered in my ears, the edges of the room beginning to blur.

I turned, pacing like I could out walk the pain, my boots striking the floor hard enough to shake the glass in the windows. My breathing came fast, sharp, each inhale like trying to drag air through fire.

I had made her a promise.

And I’d broken it.

I told her she’d be safe with me. I swore she wouldn’t have to look over her shoulder again. That no one would hurt her. That she’d never go back.

And now she was back where she never wanted to be.

My stomach twisted, bile rising at the thought of his hands on her again. His voice in her ear, all those twisted words dressed up as devotion. I knew how he worked. I’d seen it in her eyes long before she said a word about her history with him.

She’d pretend now. Smile when she had to. Play the part. She’d let him think he still owned her if it meant no one else would get hurt.

And it would kill her.

Not in one blow. But piece by piece.

I slammed my hands down on the bar, gripping the edge until my knuckles cracked and the wood groaned under the pressure. The sound of glass shattering pulled me out of my head—and I looked down to see the blood already dripping from my fist.

I’d crushed a glass in my hand without even realizing it.

Still, no one spoke.

They didn’t have to.

They knew.

I turned slowly, my chest rising too fast, breath catching like my lungs were starting to seize. Every part of me was shaking, but I kept it buried. Forced it down.

“We get her back.” My voice didn’t sound like mine. It was raw, torn around the edges.

Devil met my eyes, frustration on his face. “We don’t even know where they took her. Their clubhouse moved again, no trace yet.”

“Then we find the fuckin’ trace.”

The silence that followed wasn’t hesitation. It was acknowledgment. That this wasn’t a mission anymore. It was war.

Devil gave a single nod, but I was already gone.

Already lost in the dark, because I knew exactly what she was facing, and I’d thought I knew what hell felt like. I’d lived through it before, but this—this was worse.

This was hell, and I was still breathing.