57. Camille

Chapter 57

Camille

I barely registered the phone buzzing on the table next to me, lost in a book I was pretending to read while Elise doodled on her sketchpad as the TV blared an episode of The Office. Glancing at the phone screen, I didn't recognize the number but felt a ripple of unease—calls from unknown numbers had never been the bearers of good news lately.

I answered, my voice as steady as I could make it. "Hello?"

"It's Talon," came the reply, his voice like gravel. "There was a shootout, Dante's hurt, taken to the hospital. Kage was taken by the shooters. Ty went after him."

I shot to my feet. The room spun, and I grabbed at the couch to steady myself. “Dante?—”

“We don’t know how bad it is yet.”

I closed my eyes, feeling sick. I thought of Dante, his blue eyes, his smile, his words of love. God, please don’t do this to me. Please don’t let me lose him.

"Were Ty and Kage hurt?" I managed to choke out, my voice barely above a whisper.

"Alive when I last saw them," he replied.

Elise was by my side now, her small hand slipping into mine, a silent show of support. She knew how much I cared about these guys. I couldn’t lose them, I couldn’t...

"Why would they take Kage?" I demanded, the words tasting like ash in my mouth.

"If they know who he is—head of the Irish mafia—he'd be worth a lot to them.”

"And you're going after them?" I pressed, my grip on the phone tightening.

"My men are down, Camille. I've got to see to them. Can't send reinforcements just yet.”

Panic fluttered in my chest, wild and uncontrollable. "Then how are we going to find them?"

I remembered then, a conversation not long ago, when we'd agreed that if the guys could track me, I wanted the ability to track them too. Dante had fiddled with my phone, but had he implemented the trackers on their phones yet?

Talon's voice brought me back. "I'm at the hospital. We’ll talk when you get here." He was ready to hang up when I stopped him.

"Wait. Was anyone else hurt?"

"Two of my men were killed. Ryker took a nasty shot to the leg, but he’ll live. But Vance…” Talon’s voice seemed to choke on the words trying to escape his mouth. “Vance is fighting for his life."

The words hit me like a physical blow. I sank back into the chair, Elise's hand still clutched in mine, her eyes wide and scared. This happened because of me. There were people dead, because of me. Two so far, but it could get worse...

It could be Dante.

"We'll be there as soon as we can," I said, the determination in my voice belying the fear that churned in my stomach.

After hanging up, I looked at Elise, trying to muster a reassuring smile. "We have to go to the hospital. Dante's been hurt, and Kage... Kage's been taken."

Her eyes filled with tears, but she nodded, a brave little soldier.

I blinked back my own tears. Dante. What if we got to the hospital and it was too late? What if he was gone? And Kage. I needed Kage here, his strength, his sureness. I needed Ty—I didn’t care if he was an asshole sometimes. He was my asshole, and I wanted all of him, alive and well.

The drive to the hospital was a blur and when we got there, men from Devil's Outcasts lined the hallways. Among them, I spotted Raye, the fiery-haired bartender from Devil’s Engine, her usual vivacious demeanor nowhere in sight. She was folded into Talon’s arms, her body shaking with sobs.

As we approached, a doctor emerged from the ICU, his expression somber yet hopeful. "It was touch and go for a while, but Vance should make a full recovery," he announced, and a collective sigh of relief swept through the corridor.

Raye immediately straightened, wiping her tears. I want to see him," she demanded, her voice laced with a mixture of relief and desperation.

The doctor shook his head gently. "It’ll be about an hour before you can see him. He needs to be under observation after the surgery."

"That's not soon enough," she argued, her voice cracking with emotion.

Talon placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. "We’ll give them thirty minutes," he said in a calm, steady voice that reminded me oddly of Dante's soothing baritone.

I felt a wave of helplessness wash over me. Here I was, surrounded by people who were fighting their own battles, offering support to one another, and yet, Kage, Ty, Dante—my anchors in this storm—were all beyond my reach.

I bent over, a sharp pain lancing through my chest, not from physical injury, but from the unbearable weight of fear and uncertainty. I felt Elise's arm wrap around me, her presence a small comfort in the swirling chaos of my thoughts. Then her arm was gone, and thicker, stronger arms embraced me.

For a fleeting moment, I thought I was imagining things, my brain conjuring up comfort where there was none. But as I looked up, the sight that met my eyes almost knocked the breath from me. It was Dante, battered and bruised but unmistakably alive.

"Dante!” I gasped, relief and worry flooding through me.

"Hold on to me," he murmured, his voice a low, warm croak against my ear. "I've got you."

His words unleashed the floodgates, and tears I'd been holding back streamed down my face. Dante held me tighter, offering silent support as I cried out the fear and tension that had built up inside me.

After a few moments, when my sobs had subsided into shaky breaths, Dante gently pulled back to look at me, his own face a mask of concern marred by superficial wounds and bandages that hinted at bullet grazes.

“You’re hurt,” I said.

“I got hit in the shoulder.” Dante said, his voice trying to mask the pain he was feeling. “Hurt like hell but it’s out and I’m not in any danger.”

“I’m so glad. Kage and Ty… can you track them?” I managed to ask, wiping at my eyes with the back of my hand, desperate for some sliver of hope.

Dante shook his head, a look of frustration crossing his features. "No. We never got the trackers synced.”

As if on cue, my phone buzzed in my pocket, the sound startlingly loud in the quiet of the hospital hallway. I pulled it out, my heart hammering in my chest. It was a text from Ty.

My hands shook as I read the message:

In a warehouse. Kage and Bianca are here, along with others. Their captors are getting ready to transport them.

I read the message aloud to Dante, my voice barely above a whisper, the words sounding unreal even to my own ears. He’d found Bianca. And she was alive!

At least, that’s what I told myself. If she wasn’t, Ty would never have mentioned her.

Dante's jaw tightened and I went to text him back, but Dante grabbed my hand and shook his head.

“He’s hiding. We don’t know if his phone is off. You can’t risk it. Can’t call him.”

“So what? We just sit here doing nothing?”

“He’ll get us information on where to find him.”

We both looked at the phone, waiting for the text that would give us his location.

Instead, the text said, Rival gang working with university president. Their jackets, the ones with the bucks, they have the same tree symbol from the gate, but as antlers. I’m going to act but you can’t come here. Now that they have Kage, they said they don't need the other student anymore. She’s somewhere on campus and they're planning to kill her.

We held our breaths.

It's Simone.

Ty

I couldn't believe I was spilling everything to Camille over text. I couldn’t leave Kage and the other students here, but I didn’t want us to lose Simone either. The idea of calling the cops flickered through my mind, but I immediately dismissed it. After what happened with Davis, who tried to take us down in the past, trusting the police felt like playing Russian roulette.

I was texting again when footsteps approached. I didn’t have time, but I couldn’t let it go. I didn’t know what was going to happen, so I finished the text: I've always loved you, Camille. Never stopped. Whatever life and humanity I still have in me, it's because of you, sweet swan.

I hit send then quickly tucked the phone away and pressed myself further into the shadows, the voices of the approaching figures becoming clearer. They were talking about Camille's dad, mocking his death as if it were nothing more than a footnote in their grand scheme. "He was useless anyway," one of them sneered. "But his daughter... Now, she led us straight to the big catch – the O’Hare kid."

The guys liked to talk. In the time I’d been here, I’d managed to learn that the “cause” that Silas and my parents had apparently been involved in was revenge by the Old Guard families, the ones whose children had been turned away from CU because they hadn’t been willing to abide by the Vita Dura’s rules—no dealing in women or children. The implication that that’s what my parents had been involved with made me sick, but I pushed that aside for now. It had been going on for years, apparently. Kidnapping CU students, then selling them off like cattle to the highest bidder

My fists clenched, anger and determination fueling my resolve. I couldn't let that happen. Not to Kage, not to Bianca, not to any of them.

I waited until the footsteps faded before cautiously moving closer, trying to catch any more bits of conversation that might give me a clue about their plans. As they continued to talk, planning their next moves, I memorized every detail. Locations, times, anything that could give us an edge. But as the conversation shifted to loading everyone into the vans, I knew I had to act.

I waited, counting breaths, until the coast was clear. My hand gripped the gun Talon had given me. The guards, two thugs who looked like they'd seen more bar fights than birthdays, hadn't expected trouble. They didn't see me coming.

In a matter of seconds, I took them down. I wrapped my arm around one of their necks as he moved behind his companion and dropped him to the ground. By the time the other had turned, I was ready with a swift punch to the jaw, causing him to crumple into a heap on the ground, unconscious. No gunfire. No noise. Just two bodies lying on the ground.

Navigating the dimly lit room, it didn’t take me long till I came across Kage. He was bound, bruised, but alive – I grasped his wrist, checking that his pulse was still beating beneath his flesh, and it was, a slow, steady thud. His eyes flickered open as I approached, and despite the situation, he managed a grim smile. "See, I told you we’d be friends," he murmured, his voice hoarse.

I couldn't help but let out a short, breathless laugh. "Yeah, you did," I replied, working quickly to untie him. My hands were steady, but my mind raced with what needed to happen next. “Are you hurt?”

“Bastards dislocated my shoulder but I popped it back in. You got a plan, or are we winging it?" he asked, his voice gaining strength.

"We're improvising," I admitted, offering him a hand to help him to his feet. "Got a couple of guards down, but there's more outside. We need to free the others and get the hell out of here."