A choked sound slips out of my throat. I can’t hold it back.
“Hey,” Chace says softly, his voice like wind in a storm. “We’re not giving up. We’ve got this, Mac. Okay?”
Sam squeezes my hand. “He’s tough. And smart. He’s Logan. He’s yours. That means something.”
But all I can do is nod, because if I open my mouth, I’ll scream.
Or beg.
Or break.
And I don’t know which one would be worse.
The knock on the villa door isn’t loud. Just two short raps. Calm. Controlled.
But it slices straight through the thick fog in my head like a razor.
Security moves fast, opening it without hesitation. And just like that—police flood in.
It’s been hours since Lola took Logan. Over an hour since Trey vanished into the night. And now—finally—they arrive.
Uniforms. Badges. Radios crackling softly at their shoulders.
Their presence doesn't bring comfort. It changes the room, draining the chaos into something quieter. Colder. More final. One of them—a woman, maybe mid-forties with short blonde hair and kind eyes that make it worse—gives a small nod to our head of security before stepping toward us.
“We need you all to sit,” she says, soft but firm. “Please.”
Chace looks like he’s about to argue, but Sam gently tugs him down onto the couch beside me. I barely feel my body anymore, just the space where Logan should be—where Trey should be.
The officer kneels in front of us. Her smile is gentle, but her eyes are glass-hard.
“I’m Detective Ramsey. I need you to stay calm and listen carefully.”
Sam’s hand tightens around mine.
“There’s something you need to know about the woman involved in Logan’s disappearance. Lola Vincent.”
The name drips like acid through the air. Chace flinches. I freeze.
“She’s extremely dangerous. Our team has just come from her residence. We were acting on a welfare check—based on past complaints and inconsistencies in her ID records. What we found was…” She glances over her shoulder, as if making sure we’re ready for what’s coming. “Two bodies. Elderly. Believed to be her adoptive parents.”
“Do you have any idea where she could have taken him?”
Sam scoffs, sharp and bitter.
“If we did, you think we’d be sitting here?”
“Miss Smith, anything can be important.”
I want to answer but I can’t. I feel a million miles away. Like I’m burning alive in slow motion, choking on a scream that’s been stuck in my throat for hours. My skin itches like it doesn’t belong to me. I want to claw it off. Dig my nails so deep into my palms they break.
My ears start to ring.
Ramsey’s voice becomes background noise, distant and muffled like she’s underwater.
The room tilts. My stomach lurches. I barely manage to turn before I’m vomiting, violently, the acid scorching up my throat and splattering across Detective Ramsey’s polished black boots.
She doesn’t even flinch.
