Page 106 of Made for Reign

I’ve spent so long protecting Ben, making the hard decisions on my own, that I never considered he might actually want to be involved.

“You’re right,” I admit, the words feeling strange in my mouth. “I should have told you. I thought you might try to talk me out of it,” I admit. “Tell me I was throwing everything away for a woman.”

Ben snorts. “Since when do you listen to a damn thing I say? Besides—” His expression grows serious. “I saw you at the fight. Watched you watching her. Never seen you look at anyone like that before.”

I chuckle, a weight lifting from my chest. “Turning into a romantic in your old age, little brother?”

“Fuck off.” He glances toward the road. “So, where is she? I want to congratulate my future sister-in-law.”

The reminder sends a jolt of concern through me. I check my watch again. She should be here by now. Thirty minutes since her call, and the drive from the cabin should only take twenty.

“She should have been here already.” I try to keep the worry from my voice, but Ben picks up on it immediately.

“Traffic?” he suggests, but the tension in his shoulders tells me he’s already thinking like I am. Something’s wrong.

I pull out my phone, dialing the burner I gave Audrey. It rings once, twice, three times before going to voicemail. My stomach drops.

“No answer?” Ben asks, watching my face.

“No.” I redial immediately, listening to the same hollow ringing, ending in the same automated message. Audrey would answer. If she could, she would answer.

“Maybe she’s driving,” Ben offers. “Can’t pick up.”

“She knows to pull over if I call. Something’s wrong.”

I stride toward the edge of the tarmac, scanning the road leading to the airstrip. Empty. Nothing but the gathering darkness and distant lights of Cooper Heights glittering against the mountainside.

Where the fuck is she?

I dial again, putting the phone to my ear even as I know what I’ll hear. The same rings. The same voicemail. The same growing dread in my gut.

“We’ll find her,” Ben says firmly, gripping my shoulder. “If someone has her, we’ll get her back.”

I’m about to respond when the sound of running footsteps makes us both turn. Marcus sprints toward us from the direction of the hangar, face grim, phone in hand.

“We have a problem,” he calls, and the cold certainty in his voice confirms my worst fears before he even reaches us.

“Gio’s men have Audrey.” Marcus’s words hit me like a physical blow, then immediately transform into a white-hot rage that burns through my veins. “Rich Hunt just called. They intercepted her at a checkpoint on the mountain road.”

“How?” The single word comes out as a growl, my hands already curling into fists.

“Roadblock disguised as construction. Three black SUVs, six men minimum.” Marcus keeps his voice steady, professional, the way we’ve both learned to deliver bad news. “She didn’t have a chance to call. They took her phone, forced her into one of their vehicles.”

The image of Audrey surrounded by Vega’s thugs makes something primal rise in my chest. A killing fury I haven’t felt since my last deployment, since watching brothers in arms fall to enemy fire.

“Vega’s a dead man.” The words come out cold, certain. A statement of fact rather than a threat.

Marcus holds up his phone, showing a map with a pulsing red dot.

“Hunt’s working on tracking them now. He’s got a contact in Vega’s security team feeding him information.”

“Rich Hunt?” Ben asks, looking between us. “The cop from your old unit?”

“Former cop now,” Marcus corrects. “Works private security, but keeps his badges and connections. Still has eyes and ears in local law enforcement.”

I barely register their conversation, my mind already shifting into combat mode. Tactical assessment. Resource inventory. Extraction strategy. The familiar mental checklist I’ve run a thousand times for clients, but never with stakes this personal.

“How reliable is the intel?” I ask, eyes fixed on the pulsing dot on Marcus’s screen.

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