Chapter 91 The Void
The estate felt like a tomb.
I stood in the middle of the foyer, phone pressed to my ear, staring at the empty spot where Maddie’s car should have been parked. The security lights outside cast long, cold rectangles across the marble floor. Every tick of the grandfather clock in the hall sounded louder than the last.
Marcus’s voice came through the line first. e“Sir, the team just swept Ben’s apartment. The door was unlocked. No sign of either of them. The place is empty. But they found Maddie’s phone and handbag on the living-room floor. Purse still zipped, phone dead, no blood, no struggle marks.”
My free hand clenched until the knuckles cracked.
“CCTV,” I said. The word came out rough. “Building security. Lobby. Hallway. Garage. Everything from noon onward. Pull it. Now.”
“Already on it. Super’s cooperating. Footage is downloading as we speak.”
I ended the call without another word.
The phone hadn’t even left my ear before the next call came in, my tracker tech, a quiet man named Elias who never wasted syllables.
“Both devices are pinging the same location,” he said without preamble. “Ben’s apartment building. Exact coordinates match the handbag recovery point. No movement in the last ninety minutes.”
I closed my eyes for half a second.
So Ben had left his phone behind. Or someone had forced him to leave it.
Either way, he was gone. And so was she.
I exhaled through my nose. “Keep monitoring. Any change in signal strength, any tower ping outside a two-block radius, call me immediately.”
“Yes, sir.”
I lowered the phone.
The bond pulsed again, soft, steady, unnaturally calm. Like she was curled up somewhere warm, breathing slow, drifting in and out of sleep.
It should have comforted me. Instead it terrified me.
Maddie didn’t sleep this deeply. Not unless she was exhausted, or drugged, or…
I shoved the thought away so hard my wolf snarled inside my chest.
I needed more. I needed something.
I scrolled through contacts until I found the one I hadn’t called in months.
My father.
The line rang once. Twice. Three times. He picked up on the fourth.
“Alexander.”
No hello. No small talk. He never wasted time on pleasantries.
I didn’t either.
“Maddie’s missing.”
Silence. Then his voice, low, lethal, came back.
“Tell me everything.”
I paced the length of the foyer while I spoke. Words came fast, clipped, stripped of anything unnecessary.
“She left for campus this morning. Drove herself. Promised to text when she arrived, when classes ended, when she was heading home. Nothing. The phone goes straight to voicemail. Her friend told me she went to Ben’s house to sign divorce papers with the lawyer and Ben. sent men to Ben’s apartment. They found her bag and phone abandoned. No blood. No signs of fight. Both devices are still pinging in that location. Ben’s gone. No trail. The bond…” I paused, throat tightening. “She’s calm. Too calm. Like she’s asleep. Or sedated. I can’t get anything sharper through it. I don’t know where she is. I don’t know if she’s hurt. I don’t know if the baby…”
I broke off. Silence again. Longer this time.
Then my father’s voice, quiet, deadly calm.
“You have a child on the way.”
“Yes.”
Another beat.
“Who else knows she’s pregnant?”
“Her two closest friends. The household staff. No one outside that circle.”
“Ben?”
“Yes, he knows”
“What about her werewolf side?”
“No. He doesn’t know she shifted either. He only saw me and Rafe that night in the garden.”
A low exhale on the other end. “Good. That buys us time. If he knew she was Silver Pack blood, they might have already tried to use him to get her as leverage with Moonthorn or Ironthorn remnants. He doesn’t know what she is. That’s our advantage.”
I gripped the phone harder. “I can’t feel her properly. The bond is… muffled. Like something’s weakening her.”
“Sedative,” he said immediately. “High-grade. Probably wolfsbane derivative or a synthetic mimic. It won’t kill her or the pup, but it’ll suppress the shift, dull the bond. That’s why you’re getting calm instead of fear.”
My stomach turned over.n“How long does it last?”
“Depends on the dose. Six hours. Twelve. Maybe more if they keep redosing.”
I closed my eyes. Six hours.nIf they’d taken her right after she left campus…
I looked at the clock. 7:42 p.m.
Marcus was already inside, three screens open, footage paused on multiple angles.
I didn’t sit.
“Talk to me.”
He pointed at the center monitor.
“Lobby cam.Maddie enters alone. Take the elevator to the twentieth floor. Ben opens the door. She goes in.”
Next screen.
“Hallway came outside his door. 2:30p.m. The door opens again. Two men exit. One is Ben. The other matches Jace, his friend from university records. They’re carrying a rolled rug between them. Heavy. Awkward. They take the service elevator to the underground garage.”
My claws itched beneath my nails.
“Garage footage?”
“Black van. No plates visible, covered with mud or paint. They load the rug.. Last seen turning north onto 47th Street.”
I stared at the frozen frame.
A rolled rug.
Maddie inside it. My wolf roared so loud I tasted blood.
“Traffic cams,” I said. Voice flat. “Every intersection north of 47th. Find that van.”
Marcus nodded. Fingers already flying across the keyboard.
I pulled out my phone again. Sophia’s number.
She answered instantly. Voice shaking.
“Mr. Blackwood…”
“Maddie told you she was going to Ben’s to sign divorce papers,” I said. “Did she mention anything else? A backup plan? A second location? Anything that didn’t feel right?”
Sophia’s breath hitched. “She… she said he sounded remorseful. Said he wanted to apologize in person. She believed him. She said she’d text us when it was done.”