Page 25

twenty-five

Davey shoved the door open first, gun in hand, clearing the entry before stepping inside.

The apartment was silent.

Too silent.

His stomach twisted.

“Liam?” Rowan called, already moving toward the back rooms.

Nothing.

Sabin checked the kitchen, the bathroom—every possible place Liam could be. He reappeared a moment later, his face unreadable, as he grabbed his phone and tapped out a text message, probably to Daphne.

Rowan stepped out of the bedroom doorway, arms crossed, tension in every line of her body. “So maybe he ran into traffic. Or a delay getting food. Or he hung out at the office for a bit before?—”

“Daphne says he never went inside. He dropped her off and left.” Sabin’s voice was too flat. Too controlled. His gaze flicked up from his phone, narrowing on Davey. “What aren’t you telling us?”

Davey swallowed the knot in his throat.

Fuck.

No easy way to say it.

He met their gazes head-on. “Cade thinks Liam is the mole.”

Sabin exploded.

A sharp string of French and English curses filled the space as he paced the room, his long legs eating up the floor in a few short strides before he hit a wall and had to pivot.

“No. It’s not Liam.”

“Sabin—”

“No.” His hands curled into fists. “Not Liam. No fucking way in hell it’s Liam.”

“Cade noticed his credentials were being used when he wasn’t in the building,” Davey said, forcing his voice to stay calm, level. “So he started investigating himself and Liam?—”

Sabin laughed. Sharp. Humorless. “ Mais , if Cade says so, we should just believe him, yeah?” His voice dripped with sarcasm and barely restrained fury. “’Cause no way he’d lie, tryin’ to cover his own ass.”

“He’s right,” Rowan said after a beat of heavy silence. “I don’t trust Cade. I don’t think you should either.”

Davey exhaled hard, dragging a hand through his hair. “I don’t. Not fully.”

Sabin stopped moving. “Then why the hell are you telling us this?”

“Because whether it’s bullshit or not, Liam is still missing.”

“He didn’t shoot up that cafe. Liam wouldn’t. I can promise you that.” Sabin started pacing again, his jaw tight.

Rowan folded her arms over her chest. “We need more information.”

Davey checked his watch. Sullivan and Brody were probably asleep, but he needed them to come back in. Without another word, he pulled out his phone and dialed Sullivan.

The line rang once. Twice.

Then—

“Yeah, boss, I’m not coming in.”

Davey’s grip tightened on the phone. “Sully?—”

“But I do have a gift for you.”

That made all of the hair prickle in warning along the back of his neck. “What kind of gift ?”

Sabin went rigid, color draining from his face. His hands curled into fists at his sides, his usual easy smirk wiped clean off his face. He turned in a slow circle, muttering a long string of curses in French, one hand dragging through his hair.

“Merde,” he finally muttered. His eyes snapped to Davey, wide and full of something dangerously close to panic. “He didn’t.”

Davey’s gaze snapped to Sabin, his gut clenching like it used to before he jumped out of a plane. “Didn’t what? Sabin, what the hell are you talking about?”

Sabin ran a hand through his hair, mussing the blond strands into chaotic spikes. “It was just a joke, yeah? A stupid, off-hand comment after not enough sleep. We were talking about how frustrating it was, always being one step behind Frost. And I said, half-kidding, ‘Maybe we should just grab the bastard and make him talk.’ Sully got this look in his eye, like when he’s about to do something spectacularly reckless, and he…” Sabin trailed off and shrugged helplessly. “I didn’t think he’d actually go do it.”

Oh, fuck. That feeling—the sharp, gut-twisting realization that he was already mid-air, no parachute, no backup—hit fast and hard. The split-second before a mission went to hell. The moment before a detonation. The kind of second that stretched endlessly, when you knew you couldn’t stop what was coming, only brace for impact.

He’d seen it before—seen it in ops that turned into disasters. Seen it in soldiers’ eyes right before they realized they weren’t going home. And now?

Now he was watching it unfold in real-time, and he didn’t have a goddamn parachute.

He put the phone on speaker so Sabin and Rowan could hear the conversation. “Sullivan, tell me you didn’t kidnap Atlas fucking Frost.”

“For the record, Brody was against this. But we need answers,” Sullivan said, voice calm, level, like he didn’t just drop a fucking bomb on them. “And this fucker has answers.”

Davey pinched the bridge of his nose. “Jesus Christ.”

“Again, for the record,” Sully repeated, “Brody was very against this. This is all me.”

Davey exhaled through his teeth, already feeling the massive headache forming. “Where the fuck are you, Sully?”

“Went off grid. Don’t trust the safe houses anymore,” he said, sounding annoyingly pleased with himself. “Really, I thought you’d be thanking me, boss. You wanted answers, didn’t you?”

Davey shut his eyes. Breathed in. Out. Failed to find his calm.

“Sullivan.” His voice was dangerously even. “You kidnapped a billionaire with connections to every major criminal organization on the planet. What the fuck were you thinking?”

“I was thinking we needed answers,” Sullivan replied, his tone unapologetic. “And who better to give them than the man pulling all the strings?”

Davey exchanged a look with Rowan and saw his own frustration and disbelief reflected in her eyes. But under that—concern.

For Elliot. For Brody. For Liam. For how completely fucked this had just become.

“Where’s Brody now?” she asked, her voice tight with concern.

Silence.

A long one.

Too long.

Rowan straightened. Sabin stopped pacing. Davey’s grip on the phone tightened.

Finally, Sullivan muttered, “He, uh... he wasn’t too happy about the plan. We had words. He stormed out.”

Another complication they didn’t need. “And he hasn’t checked in since?”

“No,” Sullivan admitted. “Look, boss. I know this wasn’t exactly protocol?—”

“Understatement of the fucking century.” Davey shut his eyes for half a second. Liam was missing. Brody was missing. Cade was possibly lying. And Atlas Frost was now his hostage.

One problem at a time.

He wanted to tear into Sullivan for this idiotic, potentially catastrophic move, but there wasn’t time. “Send me directions to your location. We’re on our way. Don’t touch him. Don’t interrogate him. Don’t?—”

“Yeah, yeah,” Sully cut in. “Relax, boss.” A beat of silence. Then, with pure exasperation, he added, “Sure I can’t punch him? This asshole’s been smirking at me for two hours.”

Davey inhaled. Exhaled. “I don’t have the time or patience to dig a grave for you today, Sullivan. Tomorrow, though? You keep pressing my buttons, and I’ll clear my schedule.”

Sully snorted. “Roger that, boss man.”

Davey ended the call and just… stood there.

One problem at a time, he reminded himself. One fucking problem at a time.

His temples throbbed. He needed two Advil, a nap, and a time machine to undo the last ten minutes. Instead, he got Rowan staring at the floor like she was already blaming herself and Sabin muttering in French like he was debating murder.

Yeah. That felt about right.

Rowan sighed. “I knew today was going to be shit, but even I underestimated.”

“Yeah.” And to think he’d woken up feeling rested. He dragged a hand down his face. “Let’s go.”