Jayjay POV
The screen on Keiren's tiny watch had blinked and gone black, but the map dot stayed alive in my head like a brand: out by the old warehouses, past the broken freight line. I tried not to think about how small the dot was — how little it made me feel, lying on cold cement with my ribs burning.
My fingers went to my mouth because I breathed through my teeth. Warm, metallic taste. Blood on my lower lip. I wanted to wipe it but Keagan's voice cut across the ache.
"Don't touch it—" he said, sharp and soft at once. "There's blood on your hand."
Keiren crawled closer, eyes huge in the dim. He was still shaking from the fall. He didn't speak much, but he knew what to do. Quiet fingers. He brushed the heel of his hand on the gritty floor, came back and smeared the cement-dust over my palm like a child pressing flour onto a wound. The grit made me cough; it scratched, but it took the dark away. Keiren's small face set with that determined look he wears when he's trying to be brave.
I watched Keagan the whole time — the way he breathed, the way he blinked slow. He was trying to be steady for us. He kept his jaw clenched like he was holding something in.
The door opened again. Two men came in and moved like they owned the dark. One of them reached for me; his hand was rough and his eyes were empty.
"Get her up," he said.
Keagan shoved himself between us and the man. He tried to pull me up. "No—" the word ripped out of him.
The man pushed Keagan. Keiren scrambled in front of him like a little shield. I felt the man's hand on Keiren's shoulder and then — God — someone threw Keiren to the floor again, hard. He hit the cement with a hollow sound and started crying — quiet at first, then louder, small body folding in on itself. The other man's boot came down on the same place Keiren had hit; Keagan landed a knee and went down, his breath punched out of him.
Everything inside me shredded. Pain exploded in my stomach from where I'd been hit but the anger burned hotter. I couldn't wait.
I twisted my hands; the ropes were loose around my wrists — maybe sloppy knots; maybe they'd underestimated me. The cord grated, raw and biting, but I worked at it with my teeth until the first knot slipped as the man holding me was focused on the other guy who was kicking keagan . My fingers stung and the skin brightened to red, but the rope came free. I shoved the man holding me with everything I had. He staggered, more surprised than hurt; I fell forward because my legs were still bound at the ankle. I rolled, bit down to keep from screaming, and the pain sent white fireworks across my vision.
Then I ripped the last knot on my ankles with a feral, stupid strength I hadn't known I owned. I moved like something that remembered how to fight.
I lunged at the man who had kicked Keagan. My fist connected with his jaw and he went down with a sound half-swear, half-shock. The other guard recovered and came at me swinging. I ducked and shoved and, somehow, because fear gives you speed, I beat him into the concrete until he stopped moving.
Breath tore from me in ragged pulls. My hands were raw and shaking. My ribs screamed each time I tried to breathe deep. Adrenaline kept my legs pushing. I crawled to Keagan and Keiren, pulling at ropes with hands that trembled. Keagan hissed and then, with a roar that was half pain, he shoved himself up. Keiren was sobbing, face pressed to his knees. I knelt, untied the cords that bit his wrists, and hauled him up. He was light enough to hoist onto my back and I wrapped my arms around his legs and hiked him up like a pack.
"Come on," I told him. My voice sounded small and rough. "We're leaving. We're leaving now."
Keagan found his feet, swayed, then steadied. He grabbed his little brother's hand and kept moving. The cement cut my palms where I'd fallen, the blood seeping through the dust cloak, but I kept my head down and walked.
Every step was a knife. My stomach tightened until I thought I would faint. I swallowed bile and kept going because Keiren's weight was warm and steady on my back and because Keagan's fingers were tucked into mine. The pain in my middle tucked in like an animal that would not be ignored; breathing became counting and counting became teeth and teeth became the road to the door.
Rain began to patter against the outer metal skin of the warehouse, a soft drumming that blurred sound and helped cover ours. I moved slow and smaller than I wanted. Each step felt like a climb up a hill inside my lungs. I kept my face turned forward so Keiren wouldn't see me falter.
We had to get out. We had to get out and be a problem for them, not for us.
Keifer POV
Rain on the windshield. My hands on the wheel. The world was a smear of streetlamps and black glass.
Edrix and Ciel were watching the live feeds like twin predators; their voices were low in my ear, the only things that pulled me back from thinking of Jayjay's face inside the video. Five cars rolled behind us in a line that felt too small for the fury wrapped in every headlight: Yuri's detail in one, Adrian's group in another —big truck with room for furious hands — then Percy's men, then the rest full of bodyguards ready to cover a thousand exits. Angelo and David had called us; Percy had spread his men like teeth around the dock routes.
"Two blocks out," Ciel whispered. "Keep it quiet until we get the green."
Edrix's side of the headset fussed with coordinates. "Left here. Slow. The lane will be clear."
The city had melted to black behind us — warehouses and broken freight lines and the kind of quiet that makes men stupid. I kept the engine low, the radio low. Every thump of the wipers was a second. Every second was a small death.
I thought about them in the video again: Jayjay leaning against Keagan, the blood at her lip, Keiren's face wet with tears. Keiren's message — misspelled and frantic — still rang in my ears: "kuya, jayjay was punced in the stomc.… plz come." A child trying to type with ropes. That image wouldn't leave me.
No Valerie in the car. She was at the mansion with Angelo, holding the feeds, the control. She wouldn't be out there where men could break her. She would be the eyes that kept us alive.
The convoy moved as one, a snake of metal through the night. I pressed the heels of my hands into the wheel until my knuckles lightened. I didn't permit myself the luxury of rage yet; I needed cold, sharp focus. But under control, the hunger for retribution sat hot and patient.
Don't worry, Jayjay, I said to the dark. I'm coming.
And beneath that, like a vow burned into bone: Anyone who hurt you or my siblings — they will pay.