Hope flares in my chest—a dangerous, fragile thing I can't afford to nurture. Not yet. Not until Charlotte is safe in my arms again.
Ratchet's fingers fly across his phone screen, muttering curses under his breath as he navigates through V's digital fortress. “Got it,” he finally says, angling the screen toward me. “Last upload was thirty-seven minutes ago, around when the attack started.”
The footage is grainy but clear enough. Black SUVs screeching to a halt outside. Men in Heaven's Rejects cuts pouring out, weapons drawn. V shoving Charlotte toward the basement door before taking position behind the couch, gun raised.
The footage is brutal. V takes down two attackers before a hail of bullets forces him behind the kitchen counter. He's moving well, fighting smart, until a shot catches him in the shoulder, spinning him like a rag doll. The camera angle shifts as he crashes into it, blood spraying across the lens.
“Fuck,” Ratchet hisses beside me.
I can't speak. My throat closing up, watching my brother fall while I wasn't there to have his back. The footage jumps, clearly taking on some damage during the firefight, and when it resumes, the basement door is being kicked in. The angle changes to a different camera, this one mounted in the basement corner.
And there she is.
Charlotte crouched behind the water heater, making herself small. Terrified but alive. My heart hammers against my ribs as booted feet appear on the stairs, flashlight beams cutting through darkness. They find her quickly—too quickly—and drag her into the center of the room.
Then Terrance appears.
Seeing him in the flesh makes my blood crystallize. He looks like he's attending a business meeting, not orchestrating a kidnapping. When his hand connects with Charlotte's face, something inside me breaks. The sound that escapes my throat is pure rage.
“I'll kill him,” I snarl, the words a promise carved in stone. “I'll peel his fucking skin off while he watches.”
“We'll find her,” Ratchet says, his hand gripping my shoulder. “And we'll make him pay. All of them.”
The footage cuts out as Terrance delivers another blow that sends Charlotte crumpling to the ground. The final frame freezes on her unconscious form being lifted into Terrance's arms, her head lolling back, blood streaming from her split lip.
“Play it again,” I demand.
Ratchet hesitates. “Thor?—”
“Play it the fuck again!”
He restarts the video, and I force myself to watch dispassionately, to see beyond the violence to the details that matter. The men's cuts. Their vehicles. The way they move. Anything that might lead us to Charlotte.
“There,” I say, stabbing my finger at the screen. “Freeze it.”
Ratchet freezes the image, enlarging it with his fingers. The frame shows one of the men dragging V toward the door, his limp body leaving a smear of blood across the hardwood.
But it's not V's broken body that catches my attention. It's his wrist. The smartwatch he never takes off is still there, glowing faintly as they haul him outside. The screen illuminates, catching the light from overhead.
“Holy shit,” I breathe, grabbing Ratchet's arm. “V's watch. It's still on him. And it's fucking working.”
Ratchet leans closer, squinting at the tiny screen. “GPS tracking?”
“Better. V syncs everything.” My mind races, hope flaring like a match in darkness. My fingers tremble slightly as I punch in a number I've only called a handful of times—Presley, V's wife.
The phone rings three times before she answers. “Please tell me you aren’t calling because Ricca is pissed at you, and you want m to talk to her off a ledge.”
“Hey, Presley, it’s Thor. Sorry to bother you. V's being a pain in my ass again.”
“What did he do now?” she asks, suspicion creeping into her tone.
I laugh, the sound hollow in my ears. “He snuck off to some Comic-Con thing in the city. Said something about limited edition Funko Pops he couldn't miss. Now we can't find him, and he's not answering his damn phone.”
“Are you serious?” Presley sighs. This sounds exactly like something V would do. “That man and his collectibles. I swear he loves those little plastic figures more than me sometimes.”
“You know how he gets.” Ratchet nods approvingly at my performance. “Don't you guys have that family GPS tracking thing set up? The one he insisted on after Han wandered off at the grocery store?”
“Yeah, hold on.” I hear her tapping on her phone. “Let me pull it up. I'm always tracking that man. Last week, I caught him at Dairy Queen. He is supposed to be on a diet.”
