Page 108 of Isaia

He’s already decided how this ends. He always decides.

For the first time, the fight drains out of me completely. There’s no winning this. No more running. No amount of defiance will change the fact that I can’t fight this—not when it’s her life on the line.

I can’t stop it.

I can’t fight it.

It’s over.

“Oh, God.” A sob catches in my throat, and I choke on it, but it spills out anyway, raw and broken.

My knees buckle, and I grab the edge of the chair to steady myself, but the realization is already crashing over me like a tidal wave. It drags me under, pulling me into a darkness I can’t fight.

My freedom, my future, every piece of the life I’ve tried so hard to hold on to—it’s all slipping away, faster than I can grasp it. Wet sand through desperate fingers.

It's gone. Everything is fucking gone.

This is the moment I lose…

And I can feel it already breaking me.

Chapter 33

ISAIA

Islam the door so hard it cracks against the wall, but I don’t care. The sound barely registers over the roar in my head.

My boots echo against the marble floors as I storm into the study, fists clenched, blood pounding in my ears.

She’s gone. Everly. Gone. I can’t fucking breathe past the thought.

Alexius and Nicoli are waiting in the study, their identical faces grim, but I don’t give a damn about their calm. I don’t give them a chance to speak. “Everly’s fucking gone.”

Nicoli raises an eyebrow. “What are you talking about?”

“She didn’t show up for her shift this morning.” I pace, my pulse thundering. “Molly called me. I went to her house, and she wasn’t there. Half her clothes are gone. The fucking dog is gone. Someone took her.”

Alexius straightens, his jaw tightening. “We have people watching her house. If something happened, they would’ve reported it.”

“Well, someone fucked up because she’s gone.”

Nicoli downs a mouthful of bourbon. “Did it ever occur to you that maybe she just,” he shrugs, “left?”

“What?” I whirl on him. “No. No, she wouldn’t just fucking leave. And even if she did, where was our security on her? No one reported shit.”

They don’t answer. My chest heaves as I fight to keep myself from ripping the room apart.

“Where’s the guard that was assigned to her last night?”

“Here.” Maximo steps into the room, the guard in question trailing behind him. The man’s pale and shaking like he knows what’s coming.

Alexius speaks first, calm but cold. “Isaia, let’s not?—”

“Where were you?” I snap at the guard.

“I…I wasn’t…” the man stutters, and I’m seconds away from strangling a complete fucking sentence out of him.

I grab him by the collar and shove his back hard against the wall, fuming. “Where. The fuck. Were you?”

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