Chapter 57 The Missing Thread
Kier' POV
“She came here,” Jenna said, nails digging crescents into her palm. “You told her to come alone. She did.” Her eyes were daring me to lie. “What happened after that?”
I could have deflected. I could have thrown up the steel and smoke I used on investors, a polished answer that satisfied no one and changed nothing. Instead, I told the truth. Maybe because Jenna looked like she’d tear the building down brick by brick to get to it. Maybe because Jaxon was beside me, and family demanded it.
“She came,” I said. The words felt like pulling glass from a wound. “We fought. We…” I looked at my knuckles instead of Jaxon’s face. “We crossed a line. She left. I didn’t go after her.”
Jenna stared like I’d confessed to a crime. “And then what?”
"Liora snuck into my shower after everything with Sable. And I betrayed the mate bond."
"What the fuck, Kier" Jacob growled
"What's a mate bond?" Jenna asked
“It's a long story. What matters is I fired Liora." I said. She won’t be a problem here again."
"Wait I don't understand. What does this have to do with Sable?" Jenna asked
"Sable and Kier are mates. They share a bond and when he was with Liora, she would have felt the betrayal." Jaxon ground out "She probably ran away again."
"No she wouldn't do that. We are a family." Jenna was of the verge of tears.
My lips curled. “We were once her family.”
“Oh shut up Kier,” Jaxon put in, voice hardening. “This is all your fault again.”
“No,” Jenna said, standing so fast the chair feet screeched the floor. “Sable would not run and not reach out to me. She's missing. So, if you two are done measuring your dicks, can we do something about it?”
I swallowed the instinct to snap. Her fear was speaking. Mine was, too. I pressed two fingers to my temple and reached—again—for the bond, for the thread that had always been there even when she ran. Nothing. Not even the ache I’d grown used to since my wolf withdrew. The silence wasn’t just punishing anymore. It was a void.
“We’ll start with security,” I said, already moving. “Pull all footage from the main lobby, the service exits, and the garage, Monday from seven to midnight. I want eyes on anyone who matched Sable’s description, and anyone who followed her out.”
Jaxon was already on his phone, rapid-firing orders to our head of security. “Ping street cams on the block,” he told them. “Check the south alley behind the tower, the loading bays, the cross streets. If she left on foot, I want her path.”
Jenna’s voice was quieter now, but it shook. “She wouldn’t just disappear. Not without telling me.” She looked at me, and for once there was no accusation left in it—only a kind of exhausted hope. “You’d know if she was hurt, right? Isn’t that how the mate thing works?”
I wished to the bone I could lie to her. “Usually,” I said. “Right now… my connection to my wolf is compromised.” I met her eyes so she could see I hated saying it. “It mutes the bond.”
Something like horror flickered across her face. “So you don’t know if she’s—”
“She’s alive.” I made it a fact with my voice because I needed it to be one. “And we’re going to find her.”
Jaxon ended his call. “Security is pulling footage. I’m heading downstairs to sit on it.” He looked at me, meaning layered in the glance. We both knew what we were racing: not just time, but whatever could have taken her.
“Jenna,” I said, “give my assistant your contact information. Stay reachable. If you remember anything, no matter how small—”
“I remember everything,” she snapped, then forced herself to breathe. “I’ll wait.”
I nodded once and moved. The hallway felt too long, the elevator too slow, the air too thin. In the car, descending, I pressed my knuckles to the wall and tried the bond again with everything I had left. It felt like tapping a wire in a storm, begging for a spark. Nothing. My wolf stayed crouched in that far room, unreachable.
Coward, I almost called him, then swallowed it. He wasn’t hiding. He was hurt.
The doors opened onto the security floor, and the room buzzed with controlled urgency. Screens lit in a grid—lobby angles, side doors, elevators, garage, the alley Jenna had mentioned. Jaxon stood shoulder to shoulder with our head of security, jaw carved from stone.
“Roll it back to 19:45,” he ordered. “Mark her on entry. Track her exit.”
They found Sable at 7:58 p.m., striding into the lobby with her head high, armor in gray and red. I felt the echo of that moment in my chest like a knife turned twice. We watched her ride up. We watched her ride down. 9:41 p.m.—she walked out of the elevator alone, face pale, mouth set, moving fast.
The camera at the revolving door caught her as she stepped into the night. The street cam took her at the crosswalk. Then another at the corner. Then—
“Freeze,” Jaxon said.
On the far side of the block, where the street narrowed, the light stuttered. Sable paused under a flickering lamp. A shape detached from the deeper dark. A man. Familiar, if you knew where to look.
Jenna leaned in, breath held. “Zoom.”
The grain fought us, but the jawline, the glasses, the neat shirt, the too-careful posture came into focus like a bad dream finding its edges.
“Sam,” Jenna whispered. Then louder, disbelief turning acid, “Sam?”
My vision tunneled. The screens swam until I forced them still.
“Run the next angle,” I said, voice gone low.
The view shifted to the alley cam. For three terrible seconds the bulb blinked out and the feed went gray. When it came back, the patch of concrete under the lamp was empty.
The head of security swore under his breath. Jaxon didn’t move at all. Jenna made a sound I hadn’t heard before—part anger, part grief.
The bond stayed silent. My wolf stayed gone. But something colder than either of them settled into my bones.
“We have her path,” I said. “And a name.”
I looked at the screen where the flicker swallowed Sable whole.
“Find him.”