Page 56 of Thunder's Reckoning

Chain cracked a grin. “Next thing, you’ll be tradin’ your cut for a fuckin’ diaper bag.”

I snorted. “Say that again, I’ll bury you in one.

They laughed, but it was easy this time. Familiar. Remindin’ me that no matter how twisted things got, my brothers were there. Didn’t change the fact that she was in that house, hurtin’, and I couldn’t reach her.

But Chain was right. Strong women don’t stay quiet forever.

***

I WAS STILLsittin’ at the table, elbows grindin’ grooves into the wood, when my phone lit up. Sable’s name. My gut went tight. She wouldn’t call unless it was bad.

I snatched it up. “Yeah, darlin’?”

Her voice came through tight, panicked. “Zara’s gone.”

The world tilted. “What do you mean gone?”

“I—I stepped away. Just for a few minutes. Malik was supposed to be watching her. She was playing out front and now she’s not there.”

I was already movin’. “Lock the doors. Stay inside. I’ll be there in five.”

I ended the call and roared over my shoulder. “CHAIN! GEAR! Get your asses movin’, Zara’s missin’!”

The clubhouse snapped alive like a struck match. Boots hit floors, engines roared, brothers spillin’ out the doors.

By the time I hit the house, Sable was barefoot in the gravel, spinnin’ frantic circles like she could summon Zara outta thin air. Hunter stood nearby, pale as death.

“I just stepped inside for water,” he stammered. “One damn minute, Thunder, I swear—”

I ignored him, grabbed Sable’s shoulders. “We’re gonna find her. Look at me. We’re gonna find her.”

“She had her yellow ball,” she whispered, her voice breakin’. “She was laughing, and then she was just… gone.”

Her eyes were glassy, wide. She looked hollow.

“Malik’s inside?”

She nodded.

“Good. Stay with him. Let me do this.”

I pulled back and scanned the yard. No footprints. No tire marks. Just silence thick enough to choke on.

The brothers rolled in, engines cuttin’ sharp. They spread out fast, fanning into the woods, shoutin’ her name.

“Zara!”

“Little one, where you at?”

Her name echoed, got swallowed by the trees. The woods loomed darker than they had any right to be, shadows pooling under the pines like they’d been waitin’ for a child to step into ’em.

I pushed deeper, branches scratchin’ at my arms, every shout rippin’ my throat raw.

“ZARA!”

Nothin’.

And then—like it slid through the cracks of my skull—I heard a voice. Not hers. Not mine. A man’s. From another lifetime.