Mary is blinking at me with wide eyes, still unfocused from sleep. I unfold from the armchair and go to sit beside her, petting her hair.

“Hey, baby girl.” My little princess. How did I waste so much time I could have spent with her? Barely watched her grow. “I’m here.”

She relaxes, and smiles up at me. “Daddy,” she whispers. It twists my heart sweetly in my chest.

Cole yawns, then reaches up and pulls on his sister’s hair.

She yelps, then shoves at him.

Jesus Christ. Snickering, I untangle Cole’s little hand from her hair and lift Cole in my arms so that I can sit with them. Mary instantly climbs on me, too, and I wrap my other arm around her, so unbelievably fucking glad to have them both safe and sound with me.

“Where’s Tati?” Mary asks, and I kiss the top of her curly blond head.

“Kitchen. Making us some dinner.”

“Mac-un-chee,” Cole states.

“Mac and cheese?”

He nods emphatically.

“Well, I’m sure she knows what you like.” And isn’t that thought a damn warm fuzzy, that I love a girl who also loves my kids?

“I’m hungry,” Mary says in a whiny voice, but it’s not annoying like it used to be.

Or maybe I’m not as pissed with every little fucking thing as I used to be.

“Why don’t we go see what she’s making?” I suggest and groan as I get to my feet with both kids in my arms. “You guys are getting big.”

“I’m little like a butterfly,” Mary says and grins at me.

The brat. “Really? Like a butterfly?”

“I am a rocket,” Cole says, not to be left out.

“Okay, buddy.” I shake my head, laughing, as we enter the kitchen.

And freeze.

Because the door is open, and there’s no sign of Octavia.

“Tay?”

It doesn’t mean anything, I tell myself even as my breathing stops. I walk to the door, glance out.

Nobody is there.

Maybe she stepped out to… take out the trash or whatever. Talk to John.

But John wouldn’t come to the back door. He wouldn’t take Octavia out of the house without letting me know.

She wouldn’t have gone out without telling me.

“Daddy?” Mary whimpers.

“It’s okay,” I whisper and I run with the kids to the front door, open it. The police car is sitting outside, a cop inside, reading something on his phone.

Fuck.

I walk out to the porch and down the steps in a daze. I stumble down the path, and the cop sees me and climbs out of the car.

“Mr. Hansen?” he says, sounding uncertain. “Is everything all right?”

“Where is Octavia?” I ask him, hoping against all hope that he knows, that this isn’t as fucking bad as it looks. “Where is she?”

“Octavia? She was inside with you. I…” He falters, his eyes widening. “She’s not?”

“No, she’s not,” I say tiredly even as my heart booms and slams around inside my chest as if trying to break out. “Tell John Elba that Octavia’s missing.”

* * *

Time is a blur, a broken-up movie. I miss whole stretches of what happens next. One moment I’m talking to the middle-aged cop, and then next I’m inside the house, the kids crying in my arms.

Then I’m slathering peanut butter and jelly on slices of bread for them to eat—and suddenly I’m sitting with them on the sofa, John in a chair across from me.

“Hansen. Are you with me?”

I stare back at him, forcing my mind back into the game. “What?”

“I said I know you’re in a bit of a shock. Today has been a rollercoaster of a day.”

No shit. “Do you… did you find out how…?”

Hell. And I was in the next room. Again.

“We think we have an idea. Cane and Jameson say they didn’t see anyone approach the house, except another cop. They thought it was Every, but turns out Every was sent to Octavia’s mother’s house.”

“He dressed up….?” Jesus. “Fucking hell, man. Find her.”

“We will. We’re searching Jeff Adams’s motel room for any clues we might have missed. Calling everyone who knows him. We have cars patrolling the streets, asking anyone who might have seen them.”

Right. Not likely.

“He’ll probably give us clues,” John says, reading my mind. “Looks like it’s his MO.”

“Unless he doesn’t want us to find her so soon,” I whisper. “Unless he wants to hurt her.”

Mary is crying. Cole is sobbing.

God fuck, this isn’t good. The kids shouldn’t be hearing this shit, shouldn’t be put through this.

But Octavia isn’t here to take care of them.

Because she’s the one missing.

“Listen,” John says, and I do my fucking best to pay attention. “We’ll find her. She’ll be fine.”

But I’m done with people promising what they can’t deliver.

It’s time to take things in my own hands.

And time to make some phone calls that had been a long time coming.

* * *

It’s late at night when my doorbell rings. Close to midnight. I’ve been sitting in the armchair, staring at the TV. It’s off, the screen dark.

The kids are asleep on the sofa because no way am I leaving them alone in another room. My eyes keep closing, and I keep starting awake, terrified they’ve been taken away from me.

The doorbell rings again, finally registering.

I shoot out of my seat and go check through the peephole, blink at the persons standing outside.

Stepping back, I open the door and let them in. “Kaden.” I nod at my brother. And then, “Mom.”

She looks… older somehow, although it’s only been a few weeks. More fragile, more stooped. More sad.

I open my arms and she comes and hugs me. “My Matt,” she whispers, and it makes my eyes hot and my chest tight. “Missed you. How are my babies?”

“Missed you, too,” I tell her, and I realize it’s true. I ran from her and from everything, but it wasn’t her fault. “The kids are asleep.”

I pull back to nod at the sofa, and I’m not surprised when she lets go and heads that way to check on them.

“Hey, man.” Kaden reaches for my hand, but I pull him in for a man-hug. “Long time no see.”

Yeah. After we talked at Christmas, I stopped taking his calls. Barely replied to his text messages.

He looks good, his blond hair pulled back, his cheeks scruffy, blue eyes bright. A spitting image of our father. “How’s your girlfriend? What was her name… Hailey?”

Funny how I remember such details at a time like now when everything else is dark.

“Uh, yeah. She’s okay.” He rubs the back of his neck. “We’re not… we had some problems.”

Shit. “Sorry, K.”

I vaguely remember that he was accused of misdemeanor or some shit like that last year. He was acquitted, but his social and work reputations had suffered.

Then he found his girl and was happy, until it apparently fell through.

That’s how it always is. Life gives you sugar, distracting you, and then fucking mows you over.

“Any news about your girl?” he asks, and I shake my head. He slaps my shoulder. “We’re here now. Go get some sleep.”

As if I can do that, knowing that motherfucker has Octavia.

“There are police parked all around your house,” he goes on. “They’re camped in your garden, dude. Nobody can get through this time.”

But it’s too late. He got her.

The question is, how do I find her?

* * *

Sitting in a chair by the window, I drift in and out of sleep, my cell phone cradled against my chest. Dawn is breaking when it buzzes with a message.

Rubbing a hand over my eyes, I check the text.

It just says, “Open the door, fucker.”

That can only be one person, and for a moment, I forget myself and grin. Pushing to my feet, I walk past the kids and my mom asleep on the sofa, and Kaden curled in my armchair. After checking quickly, I unlock the door and open it wide.

Zane.

He’s my adopted brother. Well, Emma’s adopted brother. And he’s family like few people are.

He lifts his chin in greeting, his blue Mohawk surreal in the gray morning light. Son of a bitch looks scary, his gaze intense and his big shoulders tense. “Matt.”

I grab him in a hug before he says another word. “Jesus.”

“No, I actually go by Zane these days.”

I thump his back, stopping myself from laughing because it’s a thin line between laughter and crying. I can’t afford to break down now, while Octavia needs me.

He seems to sense something because he draws back. “We’re here to help any way we can.”

That’s when I notice another guy stepping up onto the porch, a cop trailing him. “Rafe Vestri.”

The owner of the tattoo shop where Zane works, and one of his closest friends. I nod at the cop to let him know it’s okay and shake hands with Rafe.

“You guys must be beat,” I tell them, rubbing at my chest. Morning time and still no news, goddammit. “Did you drive all night?”

Zane nods. “We took turns. And now we’re here to kick some ass and help you find your girl.”

Just like Kaden said it.

My girl.

I don’t remember telling them that part when I called them yesterday. I may have.

Or maybe they heard it in my voice when I said her name.

“You okay with this?” I ask quietly, somehow finding the presence of mind to ask.

Okay that I’ve replaced his adopted sister with another woman?

“I’m here, right?” He shoots me a long look I can’t read. “It was about time you started living again, man.”

I nod gratefully.

“What do we need to do?” Rafe asks, raking a hand through his blond hair. “Want us to go talk to the police with you? We’ve got experience with that. Zane here can charm all sorts of info from them.”

“No shit?” I squint at Zane with his bulky arms and aggressive hairdo and pierced eyebrow. “When did you have to go to the police?” Suddenly I realize I have no clue how Zane’s life has been the last three years. “Did something happen?”

Zane shakes his head like I’m a hopeless case and elbows Rafe. “Now is not the time for this. Though I gotta show you pictures of my kid.”

“You got a kid?”

“Fucker,” Zane says without heat. “Try to keep up.”

But I tuned out of life for too long. “I will,” I vow and let them inside the house.

* * *

We don’t linger. I make some coffee, and we go back out on the porch to drink it, not to wake up the others.

Then Zane walks down to the cop standing by the police car and somehow gets the latest update and the address of the motel where Jeff Adams was staying until yesterday.

Well, I’ll be damned.

“Told you he’s a charmer,” Rafe mutters, lifting a brow at Zane who bares his teeth in a dangerous grin.

Who would’ve thought? He sure seems different, though, despite the perpetual aggressiveness and bad boy attitude.

He seems… happy. Still dangerous, but also content. Easier in his skin than I’ve ever seen him.

“What else did the cop tell you?” I glance at the police car. Now two cops are sitting inside, looking bored and tired. “Last thing they told me was that they were going through the motel room again.”

John told me that. I called him several times throughout the night, but he had no real news for me.

“Yeah, no clues there,” Zane says. “Guy is good at covering his tracks. How the hell did you get yourself into this mess, man?” He scowls at me. “You lost a baby you never knew you had, girlfriend dead and her brother suddenly coming after you?”

“Just lucky, I guess,” I mutter, my mind elsewhere. John said the same thing. Why now? And why here? “What changed?” I mutter.

“What are you talking about?” Zane demands.

“Why would her fucking brother come after me after all these years, here of all places?”

Rafe looks up from where he’s checking his phone. “You seriously hoping for a rational explanation?”

We stand on the porch as the sun comes up. There’s an ache in my chest, a gaping hole. I need her. I’m failing her.

I can’t take this any damn longer. “Have to find her,” I whisper, rubbing again at my chest. “Fuck waiting any longer.”

But where to look?

“Her mom’s house,” Rafe says. “We can start there.”

“The police checked it.”

“We check again,” he says. “We will find her.”

Unlike when John said it, the conviction in Rafe’s voice hits me like a shot of adrenaline straight to the heart.

“Yeah, let’s start there.” I start down the steps.

“Get in my truck,” Zane says, “and I’ll drive. I don’t trust you behind the wheel right now.”

Just as well. I don’t trust myself today, either.

I call John as we climb into Zane’s beaten-up pick-up truck. “Any news?” I ask the moment he answers, no preamble, no niceties.

“Hansen.” He sounds rough, as exhausted as I feel. “We found a receipt from another motel out of town in his things. We’re checking that and—”

“Just keep me posted.”

There’s a sense of urgency now that the guys are here. A sense we can find her, with or without the help of the police. It’s probably a false sense of hope from seeing familiar faces, having their support after all this time when I was trying to keep them away and survive this on my own.

I direct Zane to Octavia’s house, and as we round the corner and it appears, silent and still in the morning light, I slump back in the seat, my breath coming short and rattling.

Zane grips my shoulder hard. “Hold on in there, fucker.”

“She’s not here,” I whisper, not sure how I think I know that. “He wouldn’t bring her here. Too fucking easy. He doesn’t want it to be easy anymore.”

“You said he’s trying to scare you.” Rafe is frowning at the house. “Make you feel what he felt when his sister died. He doesn’t want it too easy. But he has been giving you clues.”

I barely hear him. “He’s gonna kill her.”

“Man, breathe, okay?” Zane shakes me. “And why the fuck are you saying that?”

“That’s what he said in his last message. He said, ‘You will lose what’s precious to you.’” I pull on my beard, then my hair. I barely feel any pain. “He made me think it would be the kids. Maybe that was his first idea, too. But then… he decided to take Octavia. He lost his sister. Motherfucker will take Octavia from me.”

“Matt, listen to me,” Zane says, and I try. “He’s not getting out of town. The police have roadblocks.”

“They do?” I blink at him stupidly.

“They are taking this seriously, man.”

Yeah. I guess I know that, but it didn’t occur to me they’d close off the town.

“We only have to think like he does. Where he’d go. And why.” Zane lets go of my shoulder. “Where did you last see him?”

“The garage. Jasper’s Garage, where I work. You think he’d hole up there with her?”

“With her or not, that makes no difference. He may have locked her up someplace. If we find the sick fuck, he will tell us where she is.”

Rafe is nodding, and hell, he’s right.

“Let’s go, then. What are we waiting for?”

The shop is still closed, so I call Evan to open for us. He answers after the seventh or eighth ring, sounding like a something out of a horror movie.

“Wha?” he rasps, voice hoarse and gritty. “Who’s that?”

“Evan, it’s me, Matt Hansen. Look, I need you to open the garage for me.”

“The hell? It’s… not even five in the morning, man. What’s wrong with you?”

Lots is wrong with me, and right now I’m not in the mood to explain. “I’ll owe you a big one, man. Okay? Please help me out.”

He grumbles something unintelligible and hangs up on me, but soon after we park outside the garage, he appears walking down the deserted street like a grumpy ghost.

He unlocks the shop and scowls at me. “You gonna tell me what this is about?”

“We’re looking for someone,” I mutter, shoving past him and entering.

“Who?”

“That Adam guy.”

“Octavia’s non-boyfriend? You serious right now?” He follows me as I go searching the place, Zane and Rafe splitting to check the back of the shop. I start opening doors, checking the store room, Jasper’s office, looking behind cars. “Is this for real?”

“Yep.” Where would you hide yourself in a fucking car workshop?

“Why are you looking for him?”

“He took Octavia.” Damn, I wasn’t gonna talk about it.

“You nuts? What are you…?” He grabs me and I jerk my arm free. His eyes widen. “You are serious.”

“Like a death note,” I grind out.

“And how would he have entered? Only I have the key, and Jasper and—”

“Ross, right? Fucking Ross.”

Evan shakes his head. “But Ross hates the guy’s guts. He disliked him from the first look, not like…”

I stop. “Not like what?”

“Jessica. Jessica Moore, who owns the ice cream shop down the street?”

“Ice cream. He and Octavia used to go for ice cream in the evenings. You told me that.”

He blinks. “Well, yeah.”

And the owner of the shop likes that fuckface Jeff Adams.

“Zane, Rafe! We’re outta here.” I turn and head back out, not waiting to see if they follow.

Call it a gut feeling.

Call it a logical conclusion.

I’d bet my right nut that Jeff Adams is holed up in the ice cream shop, with or without Octavia, and I have just enough of presence of mind to send a quick message to John letting him know my suspicions before I sprint down the street toward the dark sign with the ice cream cone.

* * *

Zane and Rafe are right behind me as I reach the ice cream shop and stop. My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I glance at it quickly, finding a message from John telling me he’s on his way and not to do anything.

Right.

“Round the back,” Rafe says, and we take off running again, finding an alley and diving inside.

There’s a door, but when I pull on it, I find it locked.

But that means nothing, because if this Jessica gave Jeff Adams the key in case he needed a midnight snack or maybe to meet her after closing hours for a quick fuck, then…

“We’ll break the door down,” Zane says.

“Or we wait for your good friend the cop to come unlock for us,” Rafe says, reasonably. “Besides, if we start kicking in the door, the fucker could panic and hurt your girl.”

Fuck, didn’t think of that.

So I call John directly.

“Hansen, where the hell are you?” he barks into the phone. “Don’t do anything, you hear me? Wait for me.”

“You got the keys to the place?”

“We’re looking for the owner, but she’s not answering the phone. Wait—”

I disconnect. “We’re breaking the door down.”

“Now we’re talking.” Zane rubs his hands together, a wicked gleam in his eye.

The sunlight reaching us over the rooftops strikes the door, blinds me for a moment.

Then Rafe lifts his booted foot and delivers a thunderous kick to the door, right below the lock. And another. He switches feet, and does it again.

My pulse is drumming in my ears, humming in my throat. My heart is beating so fast my head is spinning.

Is she here? Is she okay? What will I do if she’s not?

Zane shoves Rafe aside, takes his place and delivers a flurry of kicks to the handle and lock, until in my turn I pull him to the side, and slam my boot into the door.

Two more kicks and the fucking lock breaks with a loud crack. The door swings inward, and we burst inside.

Stacks of craters, a freezer, and another door. I shove it open, and it crashes against the wall.

And I see her. Bound and gagged in the corner of the storage room, her eyes closed.

She doesn’t stir, not even when I fall to my knees beside her and gather her in my arms. But I feel the beating of her heart, and I know she’s alive.

Here, with me.