Page 119 of The Endless Want

And I’m going to burn the world down to get her back.

The compound gates slam open the second I approach, and Rory waves me through with a grim expression that tells me he already knows something has gone very, very wrong.

Word always travels fast in our world, faster than bullets, faster than sense. I park the bike so hard the tires chirp, and I nearly forget to kill the engine before swinging off it. Inside the main room, Liam stands at the head of the long table, arms braced against the wood, shoulders tight. Nadia sits on the couch with her phone in hand, talking fast and low to someone in Russian. Conor paces like a caged animal, hands clenched in fists. Ronan checks weapons. Everyone moves, talks, prepares.

Everyone except me.

The moment I step in, everything in me locks up.

Liam looks up. His eyes are calm. Too calm. That kind of calm always means the world is about to break.

“Tell me everything.”

His voice is controlled, but underneath it lays something molten—fear, fury, guilt, I don’t know. Maybe all of it. I swallow, then force my brain to replay what happens, detail by detail. I list the number of SUVs. The precision of the ambush. How they knew the route and where to hit hardest. How Ailish was dragged kicking, screaming, fighting harder than any pregnant woman should have to.

Nadia closes her eyes when I say that last part, and her hand tightens around her phone until her knuckles whiten.

I force myself to stay upright and not punch the wall until plaster rains down. “Any communication yet?” I ask.

Rory shakes his head. “Nothing. No calls. No messages. No sightings.”

Liam watches me with a stare that feels like being examined under a bright light. Clinical. Careful. “Sit down.”

I don’t. “I’m not sitting.”

“It wasn’t a request.”

My pulse throbs in my temples. “We don’t have time for this.”

“We do, actually,” he says, still maddeningly calm. “Ailish hasn’t been taken to kill her. If they wanted her dead, none of your Italians would’ve been alive long enough to confirm anything.”

The accuracy of that statement makes nausea twist in my gut.

Ronan clears his throat. “They’ll move her twice. Maybe three times. They’ll clean the route behind them. They’ll use a different group to interrogate. They don’t let the takers do the questioning. Weak link problem.”

Liam straightens, fixing me with a look that forces the air back into my lungs whether I want it or not. “Declan. Sit.”

Something in his tone—brother, leader, man barely holding himself in check—breaks through the panic boiling inside me. I drop into the chair, elbows braced on my knees. My vision tunnels briefly, then clears.

He takes the seat across from me. His voice lowers.

“I need a clear head from you. I need your instincts. But I can’t use you if you’re pacing the ceiling.”

I hate how rational he sounds when everything in me feels feral.

“I shouldn’t have let her go,” I say, the words ripped from somewhere deep. “She kissed me goodbye, and I let her get into that damn SUV.”

Liam doesn’t blink. “Ailish made that choice. And it was the right one. She needed to prove she could operate again.”

“Not like this.” My voice cracks like something is giving way beneath it.

Conor grabs a map from the wall and spreads it on the table. “They’ll need a secondary holding location—close enough for transfer, far enough to avoid heat.”

Ronan loads another clip. “We hit all the usual Russian rat-nests. They can’t hide her everywhere.”

The room spins into motion. But I stay seated, unable to shake the image of Ailish being thrown into a van, arms reaching for help she never got because I didn’t arrive fast enough. I press my palms to my face, dragging in a breath that scrapes my insides like broken glass.

Liam sits beside me, lowering his voice so only I can hear. “Declan.”