Chapter Nineteen

The Trail Of The Vanished

(Aurora + Zane POV)

AURORA

The world outside felt wrong.

Too bright.

Too normal.

Too unaware that Zane Wilson had been ripped from the city like a vein cut from a beating heart.

I stepped out of the destroyed penthouse and into the corridor, my ribs aching, my face bruised, but my mind razor-sharp. My breath hissed through my teeth as I walked. Pain was good. Pain kept me steady.

Pain reminded me of what I had to do.

I reached the elevator and hit the button. My hand shook with leftover adrenaline, but the cufflink was still tight in my grip — anchor, evidence, promise.

Zane was alive.

But someone had taken him, and they’d moved fast. Too fast for amateurs. Too strategic for coincidence.

As the elevator descended, I took inventory:

No body.

No casing shells left behind.

No forced entry.

The flash drive gone.

Zane’s blood — not enough to kill him, but enough to weaken him.

And that cufflink… placed, not dropped.

My jaw clenched. Whoever the “boss” was — they were playing a game.

And I had just been invited.

The elevator dinged. The doors slid open.

The security guards looked up, startled. “Ms. Lupin? What—”

“Emergency,” I said sharply. “Call law enforcement, call internal security, call Wilson’s executive detail. Zane Wilson has been taken.”

They froze, like statues carved from panic.

One finally stammered, “Taken? As in—”

“Yes,” I snapped. “And every minute you stand here, you waste time.”

They scrambled. Good.

I strode across the lobby, ignoring the stares, ignoring the voices asking questions I didn’t have answers to. My mind was already running ahead, replaying the scene in the penthouse, searching for gaps.

There weren’t many.

They’d wiped the room almost clean — except one thing.

The location of the shattered window.

It faced East 47th Street.

Which meant…

A jump point.

A line of escape.

A planned extraction route.

I barreled out into the street, ignoring the cold bite of night air against my injured skin. Cars honked, pedestrians cursed, and the city pulsed around me — unaware, uncaring.

But I saw it.

A faint skid mark on the pavement, almost invisible.

A tire track leading toward the intersection.

And further down — a single drop of blood.

Zane’s.

My pulse throbbed with something feral and electric.

“You’re leaving me a trail,” I whispered.

Is it deliberate?

Or desperate?

Either way, I followed.

---

ZANE

The warehouse was cold enough to bite bone.

My wrists were tied behind me, my ankles bound to the steel chair. My head throbbed. Blood crusted at the side of my temple. But I was awake.

Barely.

Good.

Pain meant I wasn’t dead.

Light flickered above me — harsh, white, impatient. Shadows danced around the room like vultures circling a barely breathing body.

One of the masked men circled me. “Comfortable, Mr. Wilson?”

“If this is your hospitality,” I said, voice low, edged with ice, “you’re more broke than your boss.”

A fist slammed into my jaw.

Copper filled my mouth. I smiled through it.

I’d had worse.

Much worse.

The man leaned down, voice dripping with arrogance. “You think your little girlfriend is going to save you? She won’t even find you.”

My blood chilled — but only for a second.

Aurora would find me.

Aurora would tear holes in the world to reach me.

She didn’t know it yet, but she was built for this.

Built for war.

Built for fire.

Built for me.

The second man approached. Taller. Colder. He pulled off his mask slowly — revealing sharp features, calculating eyes, and a smile that didn’t reach them.

“Zane,” he said smoothly. “We finally meet.”

He knew my name.

But I didn’t know his.

That made him dangerous.

He crouched, tapping the floor lightly with a gloved finger. “You’ve been interfering in business that doesn’t concern you. And now, unfortunately, it concerns you too much.”

I didn’t blink. “You’re going to regret touching me.”

“Oh, I expect I will,” he murmured. “Especially when she comes for you.”

My breath stilled.

So he knew about Aurora.

Then his smile sharpened. “But that’s precisely why we took the girl’s flash drive first.”

My pulse stuttered.

The drive was theirs.

Which meant Aurora—

Aurora was going to run straight into danger.

The man leaned closer, lowering his voice.

“And when she comes looking… we’ll be ready.”

A cold dread slid down my spine — the first emotion I’d allowed myself to feel since they’d taken me.

Aurora was walking straight into a trap.

And I was chained in a chair, unable to stop it.

No.

Rage surged through my veins, violent and blinding.

I would break these restraints.

Break these men.

Break the entire building apart brick by brick if I had to.

Because Aurora was the one thing they could not touch.

The one thing I would not let them hurt.

The man stood up. “Bring him to the main room. The boss wants a more… persuasive conversation.”

They moved toward me.

Let them.

I welcomed the pain.

Pain would keep me awake long enough to destroy them.

But God help them if they laid a finger on Aurora.

---

AURORA

The trail led me to the alley behind East 47th — then across two blocks, through a construction zone, and finally to a stretch of abandoned industrial buildings.

My breath fogged in the cold.

My ribs ached.

But my focus never wavered.

Then I saw it.

A black smear on a broken crate.

A dent in the concrete where something — or someone — had been thrown.

And then…

A van tire print. Clear. Fresh.

My heartbeat thrummed.

I reached into my pocket, clutching the cufflink.

“I’m here,” I whispered into the night. “Just keep leaving me pieces of you.”

A sudden noise cracked through the silence.

A metallic clink.

Behind me.

I froze.

Then—

A gun cocked.

“Turn around slowly,” a voice growled.

I lifted my hands.

Turned.

And found myself staring into the barrel of a weapon held by a man with a black mask — identical to the ones from the penthouse.

My blood went cold.

He smirked beneath the mask. “Boss said you’d come crawling.”

My heart hammered, but my voice was ice. “Where is he?”

“Alive,” the man said. “For now. If you want him back…”

He gestured with the gun.

“…you’re coming with us.”

My pulse spiked.

My stomach twisted.

My throat tightened.

But I steadied myself.

Because Zane had left the cufflink.

Because Zane wanted me to find him.

And because if they thought I was prey…

They were about to learn how wrong they were.

I lifted my chin.

“Fine,” I said. “Take me to him.”

But inside —

I was already planning how to kill them.