ANDREA’S POVI heard the front door open just as I was pouring my third cup of coffee—though I’d stopped tasting it after the first.My heart jumped, unreasonably hopeful, and then settled the moment I heard the steady weight of his footsteps.Kade.He entered the kitchen first, covered in a thin layer of dust and soot, the sleeves of his shirt rolled up and streaked with grime.His eyes landed on me immediately, and relief flooded through me like a bath. His presence alone made things bearable.He didn’t say anything at first. Just walked across the space, cupped the side of my face, and pressed a kiss to my forehead.“I missed you so much,” I murmured.He pulled back, his eyes glinting with affection that warmed me down to my toes as he searched my face, and then my body.“Are you okay?”I laughed softly, leaning up to peck his lips. “You should look in a mirror before you ask me that question.”He chuckled, and I yelped when he pulled me to him, and I got a mouthful of dust. I melt
KIERAN’S POVThe stench of antiseptic clung to the air, as if trying to mask something darker. Fouler.But no amount of bleach or sterile scrub could cover the stink of what had happened here.I stepped further into the gutted lab, boots crunching on broken glass. The overhead fluorescents had been smashed out, but daylight slashed through the boarded windows, harsh and revealing, baring everything.“Anything?” I asked, though I already knew the answer.David, tall and sharp-eyed, stood before an overturned surgical table. His face was grim as he shook his head.“They stripped the place clean, Alpha. If I didn’t know better, I’d think this was a regular warehouse.”It was a lie, of course. Everything about this space reeked of cruelty, even with the equipment gone. The walls were still stained in spots—brown smears and darker splotches they hadn’t quite managed to scrub out. The outlines of chains remained etched into the concrete floor like ghostly shadows.And beneath it all, the si
ANDREA’S POVAs full as the house was, it was quiet. Somber.Gina and Julia offered me gentle smiles as I walked into the kitchen.“Morning, amore,” Julia said as she moved around the island to hug me. “Sleep well?”I shrugged, feeling a little guilty that with Kade’s arms around me, I had, in fact, slept well.I perched on a stool and smiled gratefully when Gina pushed a coffee mug my way.“Where’s the Velcro Alpha?” Julia asked. “Odd for him not to be by your side.”I snorted. “Back at the lab site.”We’d left abruptly with Natasha the day before, without a chance to see if there was anything we could salvage, any clue that might have been left behind.Kade had gone back with a team, promising that if there were any clues to uncover, he would find them. He’d been gone less than an hour, and I was already feeling his absence.I took a sip of coffee and sighed as warmth spread through my body. “Where’s everyone else?”“Fabio is checking in on Natasha,” Gina answered. “Bella and Nico—”
ANDREA’S POVThe sight of her was haunting.Even now, hours after our failed raid, sitting at the edge of my bed with the moonlight spilling across my hands, I could still see Natasha’s body—battered, bruised, bones jutting from angles they shouldn't, skin torn in places no one should ever bear pain.Her pain wasn’t mine, but I felt it anyway. Like it had burrowed beneath my skin and made a home in my chest.Bringing her back had felt like dragging a corpse out of a grave, praying it might breathe again.After her few whispered words earlier, she had fallen silent, her wide, sunken eyes darting between us like we were the enemy, cringing every time someone tried to touch her.Seeing anyone like this would have been bad.But seeing Natasha, formidable, grandiose Natasha, who’d only ever known a life of opulence and respect, be reduced to such awful conditions…I shuddered every time I thought about it.Last I’d seen her, she was getting set up in the guest room, attached to different I
NATASHA’S POVThe light was blinding.After so long in the dark, even the flickering beam from a flashlight was enough to send daggers through my skull.I flinched instinctively, vision swimming, and tried to lift my arms to shield my face—only to remember, too late, that my limbs barely obeyed me anymore.“Natasha?!”That voice—Andrea’s—splintered something in me. Not because it was familiar. Because it wasn’t supposed to be here. None of this was supposed to be real.I opened my mouth, but only a rasp came out. The last time I’d spoken, it was to beg for my life. Or maybe I’d been screaming. I couldn’t remember anymore.I tried to focus, but everything hurt. My skin felt stretched too thin. My throat was cracked and raw. My joints creaked like old wood, and my muscles trembled just from the act of pushing myself up.The floor beneath me felt colder than anything I’d ever known. The chill seeped through my skin, gripped my bones.“Help her up,” Kade barked. The voice was sharper than
NATASHA’S POVI thought my life was over when my cushy world as an Alpha’s daughter—and fiancé—was tipped on its axis when my dad gave me away to his ‘friend’ for protection.Then I thought I’d hit rock bottom when the ‘friend’ shoved me into lingerie made of cheap net and plastic diamonds and forced me to dance and fuck under the name Vixen.And then, when Kade had me dragged out of that strip club, kicking and screaming, I thought there was absolutely no fucking way things could ever get worse.Little did I know that that night was only the beginning of my misery.The dungeon I was thrown into after my so-called arrest was little more than a holding pen—a pit of damp stone and silence. No windows. No voices. Just the mocking echo of my own thoughts.Kade had said I could be pardoned if I persuaded my father to cooperate, but I never even saw him.Days passed, and I didn’t see my father. Didn’t see Kade. At some point, I would have even been happy to see fucking Andrea.But no one ca