Chapter 29

I’ve got a bad feeling.

Chase gets busy with the coffee machine, looking to kill some time while we wait for Wyatt to bring Halle and the kids back. “What the hell was she thinking?” my brother asks, shaking his head as he waits for his coffee to brew, sugar ready on the side. “Going out on her own like that.”

“She’s tired,” I tell him. “I can’t exactly blame her. All this hiding. No privacy whatsoever.”

“Well, given the circumstances, it’s the only way to keep her safe.”

“Detail wasn’t far from her. She’s fine, and the kids are fine,” I remind him. “Wyatt’s picking them up in just a bit.” But my own words ring hollow in my mind. Something is off, I can feel it.

“I don’t like this,” he says, his brow furrowed. “Dammit, Eric, we already almost lost her twice. Three times, if you count the diner fire. Colby is hell-bent on hurting her or worse. We can’t take any chances.”

“And you can give her an earful once she gets here while I take Sammy and Luna out by the pool,” I shoot back.

“Where is Wyatt?” Chase asks as he brings my coffee over and joins me in the den. Outside, birds are singing in the trees that surround our backyard. It seems peaceful but I don’t know what it is about this calmness that genuinely irks me. “They should be back by now.”

I check my phone. “He hasn’t called.”

As if summoned, his name pops up on my screen.

Chase stills. I don’t like the ominous look on his face. Probably because he’s my twin, likely mirroring my own uneasiness without even realizing it. I answer the call. “What’s up, Wyatt? Where are you?”

“She’s not here. They’re not here,” he says.

Fuck.

Ten minutes later, Chase and I join Wyatt as we make our way back to the park, desperate to find Halle and the kids. Her phone is off, and no one remembers seeing them at the gelato shop. Something happened. She wouldn’t just disappear like this. My heart is racing, my pulse blaring in my ears as I keep trying to reach her.

“Voicemail again,” I groan with frustration.

We’re outside the park, looking around in every possible direction.

“Where the fuck are they?” Chase hisses, his hands balling into tight, white-knuckled fists, while Wyatt runs a hand through his blonde hair, a muscle twitching nervously in his jaw. “I can’t see them anywhere.”

“As soon as I realized they weren’t anywhere around and I couldn’t get through to her, I called you,” our older brother says, his gaze darting everywhere.

“She’s gotta be here somewhere,” I mutter.

“What if she bolted?” Chase asks, a worried look darkening his face. “What if she went out alone on purpose so she could run?”

“She didn’t leave,” Wyatt replies. “She wouldn’t do that to us. We talked about it. Halle knows she’s safer with us than out there on her own.”

Chase shakes his head. “She’s also stubborn as hell.”

“No, she didn’t leave,” I state, the reality setting in with the weight of a thousand ships on my shoulders. “He got to her.”

Our worst nightmare has come true.

“Colby,” Wyatt hisses.

“If he’s got her, she doesn’t have much time left,” I reply. “Halle is a fighter. She’s not the same woman he kept under his thumb for so long. He won’t tolerate her resistance. He’ll hurt her.”

“And the kids,” Chase adds.

Wyatt’s eyes narrow as he considers every possibility. “Actually, from what Halle told us, Colby was never that interested in his kids. He might drop them off somewhere, to get them out of his way.”

“It’s go time,” I tell my brothers .

They know what that means. We’ve gone over every single protocol for each possible scenario. If there is one thing we learned during our time in the Navy, it’s that people are predictable. They follow patterns, especially those with certain personality disorders. Our enemy combatants fell into particular categories and so does Colby. He’s a narcissistic psychopath with an arsonist tint. He’s got a direction, a plan, some contingencies in place, and he’s not operating alone.

Neither are we.

I swore to Halle that I would keep her and her children safe. We promised her that this would all work out in the end. There is absolutely no way in hell that we’re letting that bastard take her away from us. We just have to dig deep within ourselves and bring out the darkness again—the same darkness that had us leading our squad in the Navy, the same darkness that resulted in all those confirmed kills.

It’s time to stop playing it safe. The task force that Charlie Drucker has in place can handle the legal side of things, they can keep investigating and gathering evidence against Colby and his mother. But if we don’t find Halle and the kids fast, if we don’t save them from that fucking monster, none of that will even matter.