Page 23 of Ravaged Soul

CHAPTER 3

WARNER

FITZPLEASURE – ALT-J

The laptop screenblurs in front of me, forming drunken, wriggling lines that distort the case files I’ve spent all night pouring over. Perhaps searching for a breakthrough at four o’clock in the morning is a foolish quest after all.

But foolish or not, it’s a lot more appealing than crawling back into that damned bed and lying there, imagining what my best friend is going through while I’m warm and comfortable.

When we got Ember back, I’d thought I’d felt this awful, gut-wrenching anxiety for the last time. I hadn’t thought my terror for Ember could be matched until we got that phone call and heard Tom’s agony for ourselves.

Before, the months and years without any sign of Ember allowed fear to take root in my bones. It laid down spidery vines then expanded until its poison ivy was wrapped around every last nerve cell. But I knew that no matter what happened, my girl is strong.

Hell, Ember’s far stronger than any of us. She always has been, something I realised when she watched her mother being lowered into the ground and didn’t even flinch while her older brother broke down. Ember refused to let him grieve alone.

I can only hope that Tom possesses a shred of her grit right now and that he’ll hold onto it until I can bring him back to her. I won’t watch Ember lose another family member. Not after all we’ve endured to get to this point. She deserves better than that.

Refocusing on the case files, I scour back over Luis’s profile. We’ve garnered all the information we can from international law enforcement, allowing us to build a portrait of the prolific trafficker.

He’s a middleman.

A cog in a bigger machine.

These people are a dime a dozen in every other country across the globe. No matter where you turn, you’ll find power-hungry fools ready to sacrifice their morals to make a profit. I’ve arrested a thousand Luis’s in my time at Sabre.

How did he get the jump on us?

I fitted Tom’s place with security equipment myself, including a biometric system and a panic alarm directly keyed into Sabre’s emergency line. Luis got past it all, manually disabling the power supply and its backup then cracking his apartment open like an egg.

The question is how.

He blew past our contingencies, snatched Tom then disappeared without being seen on a single CCTV feed. No system is truly unbreakable, but Tom’s was damn near close. Not to mention London is one of the most surveilled cities on the planet.

Either Luis has someone incredibly skilled working for him now, or worse still, he had help from someone who knows our tech. Maybe even someone who has perfected the art of disappearing.

“Fuck.” I rub my sore temples.

We’re running out of time.

When Luis’s offer arrived, I knew from the spark in Ember’s eyes that she had every intention to blow us off to march in there and save her brother. It killed me to demand her patience. I know she’s in pain.

Slamming my laptop shut, I massage my eyes with the heels of my palms. A couple hours of sleep have done little to alleviate my exhaustion. At least I’ve managed to rest my screaming residual limb for a bit.

“NOOOOO!”

At the sound of a wail penetrating the silent penthouse, I startle so hard that I almost fall from my desk chair. My hand seizes the grey medical crutch that I use to navigate without my limb as I manoeuvre myself up.

Hyland’s bedroom door smashes open at the same time that I emerge. He squints in the low-lit hallway, chest bare and sweat shorts hanging low on his waist. We both look at Ember’s door.

“No! Tom!”

“Shit,” he curses roughly. “Another nightmare.”

“I’ve got this. Go back to bed.”

“Warner—”

“I’ve got it.” I stalk past him. “Go.”