"Fuck!" Jose flips a table and glass shatters everywhere.

All of us are in high alert. We were all a bit shocked when she blew up suddenly and we took a few moments collecting our shattered hearts on the floor before we tentatively followed her. But those moments made all the difference. When we got outside, she was gone.

We have been looking for her for almost 3 hours and we are coming up empty. This damn restaurant doesn't have working cameras outside, and no one saw where she went.

The phone rings. Bas. We sent him back to campus to look for her and I hope to god she is back there and that's all it is. That she took a cab back to school and she is in her room, safe and plotting her next punishment.

But I can't help the nagging feeling of dread. I've been feeling like that all day without explanation.

Fuck. God, let her be safe.

"Yes." I answer.

"She isn't here." Bas breathes heavy on the other line, like he's been running a marathon.

"Library, Simba, or those girls?"

I know the answer before he even says it.

"She didn't come back, bro. The security didn't see her and only a handful of students left the campus in the afternoon."

Fuck. Fuck.

"No." I am hoping my sheer will, will make her materialize. That she would just come walking down the street with her beautiful pouty face and this would be all over.

"Fuck, Drago. I think we should expand our search."

"Yeah, the men are collecting surveillance from the other cameras, but I think we need you for a keener eye."

There is a silence for a beat. Jose approaches me.

"Alright, I'll be there in 5." The line goes dead.

I shake my head, giving him the answer I know he's desperate for.

I can't utter it, my heart feels heavier by the second, like there is a heavy rock in there and it keeps growing in size.

I'm feeling so much I'm not even certain what it is or how to unpack it, not that I'd attempt to.

The whole week has been a lot. It's been long. We have spent many nights talking, strategizing, trying to see what we can do, try to understand what she needs.

But she has been going all out on her revenge mission. Throwing that loser in our faces. We all know it's to be hurtful, and she just keeps him at arm's length, but it doesn't mean it hurts less.

This after her and Mason basically turned their backs to each other last week, making her want to be even more spiteful and leaving us in the middle.

Damn her and Mason.

They are both so fucking stubborn. Always with the power games. None wanting to yield. And it's always left on us to try and make sure things don't fall apart. But I understood Mason. We were all together in a frustrating situation, a situation we created, but we had hoped she would at least let us talk after all that time alone in Switzerland.

But boy had we been wrong.

Getting back with her seemed bleak and all of us were just hurting. On top of everything it was our child, our son, our boy, and we were missing everything.

And none of us knew how we would make it right. She even ran away from us and told us she doesn't love us anymore.

My heart had shattered a million pieces as her words trampled on the hopes I had left for getting her back. If I was a praying man I'd be on my knees fasting and praying for this because it seems hopeless. Even when we find her, she is still going to hate us.

Mason walks in the now empty restaurant and a few of our men in tow. He is from another part of town.

He shakes his head. Another slice to my heart.

Fuck, Hoshi, where are you?

"Bas is driving back, she isn't there either. He'll do a deeper sweep." I say before he gets to me. He has that haunted look in his eyes. It feels like I'm staring at my own soul.

"Where could she be?" Jose comes in looking deshelved, and like he will gut anyone who nears him.

My mind travels back to all the people she's been seen with. Simba has been eliminated, and the girls, she doesn't have a lot of friends...except that loser.

"Darrell." Me and Mason say together

Jose furrows his brows. "You think that fucker could be with her?"

"He called her yesterday wanting to invite her to Winter Jam." I say

"And you didn't tell us?" Mason accuses.

"Aye, fuck off. It slipped my mind. And I was still gonna tell you, but we didn't exactly have time for that last night, did we?" I throw that in his face, I know it's a low blow considering I am not better, but I don't give a fuck right now.

"Mother f-" his fist fly and pain radiates on the side of my face and my ear rings as I stumble back. I didn't even try to duck because maybe I fucking deserve it. It was a low blow.

He disappeared yesterday afterschool, we found him crying in a dingy motel bar in town, drunk out of his mind and we had dragged him back to a room where we sobered him up and we had to talk him back to sanity.

I taste iron and my fingers come back crimson.

"Hitting each other isn't going to help." Jose scolds us as I step closer to give Mason one back. "Drago, that was low." He points to me.

I turn to head out of the restaurant, done with that bullshit, maybe I'll find something. I am stopped by Bas pulling up at the back of the restaurant. He has his tablet on hand when he jumps off and I wait for him, my anxiety through the roof.

"I am getting a hit." He breaths and he runs to me. We walk in together.

"Where?"

"She took a cab." He says as we walk in the restaurant.

"You find her?" the desperate note on Mason's voice is unmistakable.

"She took a cab to Eden 3 hours ago." Bas swipes on his device.

"The cabbie, we need to find him. Bring him to us we are going to the heli." Mason orders some of our men as Bas sends them the cab driver's registration. "Let's go."

We walk out to the car.

"She checked in at the hotel. But it's under a fake name." Bas continues.

"Is she still there?" I ask

"Yes, she hasn't checked out."

"Her phone? Is it still off?"

"Yes, she still has it off."

"And she still has us blocked."

"Fuck. Fuck, what are you doing, star?" Mason murmurs from the passenger seat as Jose drives.

"Shit. This is all a giant mess. What are we even going to do?" Jose asks, the devastation and weariness inseparable from his voice.

"Beg until she allows us back in." I say.

"I thought she would have come around by now, you know?"

"We shouldn't have let her be alone in Switzerland." Mason mutters

"The first trimester is the hardest. She needed to not see us for a while as one of her biggest stressors." Bas says, nose still deep in the tablet.

That gets no reply from the car. We all know her valid reasons for not wanting to be near us but doesn't mean we accept them. We were made for each other, and I wish she could just give us even a chance for us to prove how devoted to her and our son we were. There is no alternative. We can't give up on either of them. And she thinks she is expendable. She doesn't trust us anymore.

It hurts that she has every right to be but still I wish she would give us a chance, just a small one and we would show her we mean everything.

"Do you think she meant it?" Jose asks after a beat of silence, and we are all thoughtful for a moment. That had been worse than a slap in the face. To be rejected by the one you love most is indescribable. But it sucks balls, I'll tell you that.

"No no no no no." Bas says just as the car stops in the parking where our helicopter is waiting.

"What?" all of us ask.

"The asshole. She's with him." He says vaguely

"Who?!" Mason growls.

I think we all know fucking who.

"Darrell. She just got in his car."

"What!" We all growl at him like maybe he is directing her movements.

"Lemme see that." We all get out of the car and hurdle around Bas and the screen. And indeed, she's with him in the car. She is in his car, and they stop at a gas station store.

We all watch, frozen, not believing what we are seeing.

"Let's fucking move!" Bas gets us all out of our shock.

We run to the helicopter. My mind runs a thousand miles a minute. She called him instead of us. Him? Instead of us?

All at once I regret listening to Bas when Mason wanted to kill him. Bas had asserted that maybe she needed to use him to feel even. It had fucking sucked watching her smile at him and laugh at his unfunny jokes.

But he isn't going to see the morning. I don't give a fuck, but I will kill him myself today. This thing she's doing with him fucking ends, and it ends to fucking day.

"We will have to intercept them on their way." Jose says

We are all on calls getting our men out there, so they get to her. I don't have a great feeling. Its more than rage but I feel panicked for some reason.

My worst fears come to pass when the bastard moves them, and he takes an unmarked car carrying her out like she was asleep. By the time we get to Eden, he is gone and none of our men can find them. The second car is found dumped just outside of the city and they are both gone.

"Fuck!" Jose hits the steering wheel after our 7th sweep of the town.

My hands rake my hair. I just hope it isn't what we are thinking. The only possibility is too horrible to fathom. I keep looking at the phone hoping its her every time a phone rings but it's never her asking us to come get her.

After midnight we check in at a hotel. The same room she stayed, and we have to call the fathers.

"We need to know who the motherfucker is. I want you to find his mother, his father, his dog, his first girlfriend, his fucking favorite barista, I want everything." Mason barks orders at our men as I sit next to Bas as he searches for him. For the most part he is coming up as a ghost until 8 years ago.

"Why isn't nothing surfacing about him until 8 years ago?" Jose pulls a chair..

"Does this mean he has had her in sights since the school year began? Is he working for someone?"

"Maybe or he's just obsessed with her."

"You think he's a psycho in love?"

"Or maybe someone hired him after seeing her close with him."

Silence falls on us as we consider all the possibilities.

"By all accounts I'd say it's possible he isn't even American." Bas flies his fingers over the screen swiping and running code.

"If he isn't American, then who the fuck is he?" Jose flips his knife open, close.

"Fuck, we have so many enemies."

"Could be her father's enemies. Our enemies. Our father's old enemies from the old gangs, the Triads, the Bratva, the fucking Outfit. Everybody hates us." Bas answers and Mason closes the door.

"All of them are fucking dead if its them. I swear to god, America is about to be a fucking horror story." The violence and malice in Mason's words only matches what I feel too. I will skin whoever it is this Darrell, and his accomplices are.

How fucking dare he touch her?

"I will carve his heart out." Jose twists his knife on his index finger that's now dripping blood. He broke skin but it's like he doesn't even feel it.

"He won't even make it to hell because he will be fucking unrecognizable." Mason moves to the window.

I stay put dreaming of all the things I will do to that mother fucker as we try to find her.

After we call the fathers, we leave to continue driving around looking for cabins, properties outside the city.

The mood is lower than negative and all of us are dying a thousand deaths when we think of what could happen to her.

What a fucking shitshow.

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