Every second was a mistake.
I shoved off the wall, unable to stay quiet any longer.“We need to move faster.”
Heads turned and the room shifted.
Wrecker’s gaze locked onto mine.“We are moving.”
“No,” I snapped.The word came out sharper than I meant it to, but I didn’t take it back.“We’re circling.We’re guessing.We’re waiting.”
“We’re gathering information,” Wrecker corrected, voice calm but edged.“So we don’t go blind into a trap.”
“A trap?”I took another step forward before I could stop myself.My pulse hammered in my ears.“She’s already in one.”
That landed.
A few men shifted uncomfortably.
Freak’s head turned slightly toward me, his eyes dark.
I didn’t care.
Wrecker didn’t look away.“You think I don’t know that?”
“Then why does it feel like we’re treating this like it’s optional?”I demanded.
The air went thick.
Kingston’s presence behind me tightened subtly, like he was ready to step in if I crossed a line.
I was already standing on it.
Wrecker’s voice dropped, quieter but harder.“Because if we rush, we fuck it up.And if we fuck it up, she dies.”
My stomach clenched.
I stared at him, jaw tight.
He held my gaze like a challenge.
Then he added, steady as a blade sliding into place, “She’s still alive.”
“How do you know?”I asked, voice lower now.
“Because if she wasn’t,” Wrecker said, “we’d have a message.We’d have proof.We’d have something.Whoever did this wants leverage, not a corpse.”
I wanted to argue.
I wanted to throw every awful possibility at him and make him feel the panic clawing at my throat.
But the logic was solid.
It didn’t calm me.
It just kept me from falling apart in front of everyone.
“We will find her,” Wrecker said, looking around the room now.“That’s not a question.That’s a promise.”
Freak finally spoke.“Damn right,” he said, voice low and rough.“And when we do… I want them breathing long enough to regret it.”