Chapter 282

ALEXANDER

"Search the entire grounds. Now," I ordered, my voice cutting through what was left of the chaos.

"Every building. Every room. Every goddamn bush. Find her."

My men scattered without a word.

Andy didn't.

He stood there a second too long, face gone the color of old paper, and something in my gut already knew before he opened his mouth.

"Boss..." His voice cracked on the first word, and I watched him force the rest out like it physically hurt to say it.

"I saw her. Being forced into a car. Back of the orphanage. Boss, I'm sorry, I tried to—"

I didn't hear the rest of it.

I was already moving, shoving past him hard enough to knock him off balance, boots pounding down the steps two at a time toward the back of the property.

Panic flooding my veins cold and absolute, some animal part of my brain still convinced that if I just got there fast enough, she'd still be standing in it.

Please. Please still be there.

I hit the back driveway at a dead sprint, head snapping side to side, eyes tearing across every inch of the space like she might materialize out of pure will if I just looked hard enough.

Nothing.

I spun toward the tree line. Empty. Spun toward the service road. Empty.

My chest was heaving, breath tearing in and out of me, and I was moving again before I'd even finished processing that there was nothing there —

The road was empty.

No car. No Santos. No Alina.

"Alina!" Her name tore out of me, raw, useless, into a driveway that wasn't going to answer.

Andy appeared at the top of the steps, breathless.

"Boss—"

The gun was already in my hand before I'd registered pulling it. I closed the distance in two strides, grabbed a fistful of his vest, and slammed him into the nearest wall hard enough to crack the concrete behind him. The barrel found the soft skin under his jaw and I forced his head back with it.

"You had one job."

My hand was shaking. Not from fear. From something so much worse than fear that I didn't have a clean word for it.

You were supposed to protect her." I slammed him against the wall again, harder, needing the impact more than I needed the answer.

"So explain to me — How do you let him take her?”

My voice came out low, but there was nothing calm about it.

“You were right there, Andy. Right fucking there.”

I shook him hard enough that his head snapped back and his teeth rattled.

“Explain that to me.”

My grip tightened around his vest, dragging him forward before driving him back into the wall again.

“Because I don't understand.”

He didn't answer fast enough, so I slammed him again.

“I don't understand how a man can put his hands on my wife, drag her away, and you’re still here.”

I stared at him.

“Still breathing.”

A bitter laugh escaped me.

“Still taking up space.”

Andy’s face had gone pale.

“B-Boss, I tried—”

“Don't.”

The warning was barely above a whisper.

I shoved the barrel of my gun deeper against his throat until his words turned into a strangled gasp.

“Don't you dare give me excuses.”

"Why the fuck did you let him take her!"

My grip tightened on his vest, dragging him forward an inch before slamming him back again.

“Did you fight them?”

I didn't wait for an answer.

“Did you shoot at them?”

Another shove.

“Did you throw yourself in front of the fucking car?”

Another.

“Did you do anything except stand there and watch my wife disappear? You had a fucking gun, you bastard. You had two hands. You had one — one — job, and it was her.

Andy's face had drained of every drop of color.

"B-boss, I—"

My finger found the trigger and tightened.

One squeeze.

That's all it would take. One squeeze and he'd never fail anyone, ever again, and God help me, some part of me wanted that more than I wanted my next breath.

"I ran after the fucking car, boss, I swear to God I did."

The words tumbled out of him fast now, panicked, desperate, like speed alone might save him.

"I couldn't catch it — it was already moving, I got maybe thirty feet before it was gone. She was in the back seat, I saw her through the glass, she was struggling—" His voice cracked, and something in his face twisted, disgusted with himself in a way that almost matched what I was feeling.

Something behind my ribs went very still. Very cold.

"He had her." My voice didn't even sound like mine anymore.

"You watched Santos put his hands on my wife, and you're standing here delivering it to me like a fucking traffic update.

"You watched." Almost a whisper now, which was so much worse than shouting ever could be.

"You watched a car drive off with my wife inside it, and your legs decided that was the moment to slow down. Bold strategy. Truly inspired. I'm sure Santos appreciated the head start you gave him."

"Boss, I couldn't—"

"You couldn't." I nodded slowly, like I was actually weighing it, like this was two reasonable men having a reasonable conversation instead of me one twitch away from ending his life.

"Three years I've had you running perimeter. Full kit, rifle, gear, everything else you people carry — and you've clocked a five-minute mile in that load-out before. But today. The one day it actually mattered." My jaw ached from clenching it. "I trusted you."

"And now she's gone."

Silence.

My finger twitched against the trigger, and I knew — I knew — I was going to do it.

The only thing that stopped me was Dante.

His arm locked around my chest like a steel cable, hauling me backward with enough force to physically rip Andy out of the line of fire.

"Boss!" Dante's voice cracked with the strain of holding me.

"Have you lost your fucking mind?"

I fought him like a man possessed.

"Let me go."

"He's one of ours!"

"He failed her!"

"He did everything he could!"

"I said let me go!"

Vincent stepped directly into my line of sight, hands raised, voice low and steady in a way that should have grated on me and somehow didn't.

"You're angry. You're terrified. I get it. But you don't take this out on Andy. You don't get to put this on him."

I barely heard a word of it.

There was only one sentence left running through my skull, on loop, drowning out everything else in the world.

Santos has Alina.

Panic slammed into my chest like a freight train.

My lungs wouldn't cooperate. My vision narrowed to a tunnel with nothing at the end of it but her face.

She's gone. He has her. I wasn't there.

I stopped fighting Dante's grip, chest heaving, the gun still locked in my fist so tight my knuckles had gone bloodless.

Vincent didn't look away from me.

"We'll find her," he said quietly.

"But not like this. Not by putting a bullet in the men who are still standing beside you."

I turned away from Andy before I did something I'd only regret because of the time it would waste.

"Get me every man we have," I said, already moving toward the wreckage of the gate.

"Every car. Every camera between here and the coast. I want Santos's name in every mouth in this city inside the hour, and I want to know which road that car took before I finish this sentence."

I held Andy's stare a second longer, rage and fear tearing through me in equal measure until it turned my stomach into something cold and hollow.

Then I lowered the gun. Barely.

Andy dropped to his knees in front of me, bowing his head, and set his own weapon down on the ground between us.

A posture of submission I hadn't asked for and didn't have the patience to want.

"I failed you. I failed Alina, madam." His voice was steady in a way that made it worse, not better.

"You have every right to take my life for it."

I bent down slowly and picked up his gun, turning it over once in my hand.

"You're right." My voice came out flat, exhausted in a way rage never let me sound before tonight.

"I could end you right here, and not one man on these grounds would stop me twice. You failed her. That's not in question."

But I couldn't do it.

Not really.

Not when I already knew — that he'd run until his lungs gave out, that thirty feet on foot against a moving car was never a fight anyone could win.

I straightened, tucking his weapon into my belt instead of ending anything with it, and turned away before I said something I couldn't take back.

Around me, the courtyard had gone quiet in that specific, terrible way — my men moving through the wreckage now, gathering the children up from behind planters and walls, murmuring to them in the kind of low, careful voices.

And that was when it hit me — every second, every choice, rushing back all at once until grief blinded me clean through the fury.

I could still see her.

Standing there with that ridiculous baseball bat gripped in both hands, eyes fierce, like she genuinely believed she could go toe to toe with armed men holding a piece of playground equipment.

The way she'd looked at me — stubborn, furious, mine — right before I'd grabbed her and shoved her behind cover.

I'd yelled at her to stay down. Told her not to help. Told her to stay put no matter what she heard.

And she had. Or she'd tried to.

If I'd kept her beside me — right in front of me, where I could put my body between her and the entire world — she wouldn't be in that car right now. She wouldn't be anywhere near Santos.

The thought went through me like the knife I hadn't used enough tonight.

I should never have left her side. Not for a second. Not even to finish off every last one of those bastards in the colonnade.

Because now she was gone, and all that was left was the echo of my own voice telling her to stay put, and the gutting certainty that I might have handed her to him myself.

I stood there, chest heaving, fists clenched hard enough to hurt, fear coating the back of my throat like copper.

Then the rage came back. Hot. Blinding. Absolute.

"Find that car," I said, turning back to what was left of my men, voice raw.

"Every route out of this district, every contact we have, every camera on every street between here and Santos's territory. I want his location inside the hour or I burn this entire city to the ground looking for her."

Nobody moved fast enough for my liking.

"Move."

They scattered.

I stood alone in the drive, staring at the empty road, her face burned behind my eyes.

I'm coming for you, Alina.

And when I find him, there won't be enough of Santos left to bury.

Behind me, Vincent and Dante were already barking orders — check the children, secure the grounds, get medics moving — but it barely registered. None of it mattered. Not the kids, not the bodies cooling in the courtyard, not the small war I'd just won.

The only thing that existed was getting her back.

And making sure Santos never got the chance to threaten anything of mine again.

I would find him.

I would take him apart, piece by piece, slowly enough that he'd have time to understand exactly why.

Until his name was something people whispered in this city out of fear.

And then never spoke again at all.