TWENTY-TWO

Zarek

"Are we good?" I asked Logan as we walked back to our escalade with the shipment. The mission had been pretty easy. Too easy. I shook away the thoughts of Leora being in danger yet again. No alarm went off, everything went smoothly, and the squad was unharmed. Logan had been right. I was compromised for the last mission.

"We're fine. As long as you realize you were being uncharacteristically paranoid," Logan smiled.

"Thanks for saving my ass back there," I said.

"That's twenty, Ghost."

"I'll do anything for you to stop counting," I shook my head and Kabir glanced at us in confusion.

"Counting what?" he asked.

"Nothing," both Logan and I muttered at the same time, although his tone was heaps lighter than my scowling one .

Dylan, overhearing us as he loaded the last of the shipment into the car, couldn't suppress a grin. I fought the urge to roll my eyes at his amusement.

"Men," I heard a faint huff from Amelia.

The squad poured into the Escalade and we drove back to the warehouse. An hour later I was ready to walk back in with Leora waiting at the door ready to jump in my arms as she always did.

But the jump never came.

Maybe she's resting , I thought, considering she hadn't been feeling well. While the rest of the squad secured the shipment and shed their gear, I went straight to our bedroom. Leora was nowhere to be found, and panic set in as my heart raced.

Something is wrong.

I flicked on the lights. My eyes dropped to the floor, and my breath caught. A large pool of blood was smeared across the floor near our bed. My knees buckled, and I collapsed to the ground.

"Logan!" I yelled, my voice cracking as the room spun around me. I heard footsteps rush in, but my stomach churned violently, bile rising up my throat. I vomited.

Leora was gone, hurt, or worse. I was losing it, and I didn't care how weak I looked, vomiting again, powerless and terrified. This is what I was afraid of. Losing her.

This was really happening.

"Zar," Logan's hand landed heavily on my shoulder, his voice a mix of panic and sorrow.

I barely heard him as he spoke. Kabir was setting up his laptop on the bed, Amelia was examining the room with clinical precision, and Dylan was trying to hold Logan together .

"No alarms were triggered, nothing else was missing," Kabir reported, frowning at his screen. "The security cams were offline for 43 minutes this evening."

Logan was pinching the bridge of his nose, trying to stave off a breakdown. "Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!"

"Could it be Casteel again?" I managed to ask, struggling to breathe.

"This blood…" Amelia interrupted, looking closely at the pattern on the floor. "It's too deliberate. There's no blood trail on the bed or out the door. It looks staged."

My head spun with her words, and rage mixed with fear as I shouted, "Stop saying blood!"

Amelia placed a reassuring hand on my shoulder. "Listen, this could mean it's not her blood, or it was taken in a controlled setting. She's likely still alive. I'm 99% sure."

"99%?" Logan's voice thundered with a mix of hope and fear.

"She has to be alive," he added, his voice cracking.

"Logan, she's trained for this. She'll hold on," Dylan tried to reassure him.

Seeing Logan so shaken was surreal; Leora meant as much to him as she did to me. I closed my eyes, trying to block out the sight of the blood, the room spinning around me.

"Find her, Kabir," I rasped out.

"Already on it, Ghost!" Kabir called back, already typing furiously.

???

After splashing water on my face, I stepped back into the dim hallway of the safehouse, pausing outside my room. The murmur of hushed conversations trickled from the common area. Leaning against the cool doorframe, I caught snippets of Logan's strained voice drifting through the air.

"You don't understand, Dyl. She told me to stay safe, and I just shut her out," Logan said, his voice tinged with regret and something else—fear, maybe.

"Logan, pull yourself together. If you keep this up, Zarek's going to lose it," Dylan replied in a low, steady tone meant to ground his friend.

They hadn't noticed me yet, too caught up in their own world of worry. But Amelia, ever observant, caught my eye from across the room. She offered a small, reassuring smile and subtly signaled to the others. They turned, and the change in Logan's expression was immediate, marked by a mix of surprise and guilt.

"Zar, I'm so—" Logan started, his voice faltering.

I raised a hand, cutting him off. "Don't. You'll apologize to her, not me. And Dylan's right, you know how I'll react if I think you're stepping out of line."

"I don't have feelings for her, Zar. She's like my little sister," Logan quickly clarified, almost defensively.

As he buried his face in his hands, my chest tightened. This wasn't just about keeping the team in line; it was about her—Leora. My fear of losing her gnawed at me, a relentless reminder of what was at stake.

Turning to Kabir, I tried to keep my voice even. "Got anything, Kabir?"

Kabir's eyes were laser-focused on his laptop, his fingers paused above the keyboard. After a tense moment, his face hardened with resolve. "I've tracked a black SUV and a red Tesla Roadster swapping passengers at a gas station about twenty-five kilometers from here. The SUV came back empty, and the Tesla headed to a nondescript house in Stratford."

My heart skipped a beat. Stratford. It could be a break or another dead end, but we had to move fast. Nodding decisively, I felt the leader in me take over, pushing down the personal terror that threatened to overwhelm me.

"Squad Six, gear up. We're heading to Stratford," I commanded, my voice steady despite the storm of dread inside. "This is a rescue mission, and we're bringing her back."

The room sprang into action, the weight of the situation settling over us like a dense fog. As they prepared, I pulled on my tactical vest, each click of the clasps a reminder of what was on the line. Not just a mission. Not just a teammate. But my Leora . I realized it then. No matter what, she was ingrained into me. I couldn't let her go.