Rico – POV
I drove like a fucking madman.
Didn’t care about red lights, didn’t care about cops. Didn’t care about the shaking in my hands that wouldn’t stop no matter how tight I gripped the wheel.
Justin’s signal had vanished two days ago.
Just gone.
I’d tried every trick—boosters, reroutes, black box decrypts. Nothing.
It was like he’d been swallowed whole by the goddamn earth.
I kept telling myself he knew what he was doing.
That even if he’d let himself get caught, it was part of the plan.
But I’d seen Justin when it ca to June.
Logic? Strategy? Those words didn’t exist for him where she was concerned.
It was rage and need and that brutal fucking love that made him more monster than man.
And I couldn’t bla him.
I’d seen what they’d done to us all.
I’d sent the team ahead—two trucks, blackout gear, signal disruptors of our own.
We had a lead on a compound not far from the last sighting of their van.
A tip, maybe bullshit, but the only thread we had left.
And you don’t ignore even bullshit when your brother’s life is on the line.
The guys in the back seat were quiet.
Eyes hard, jaws clenched.
They knew Justin had saved every single one of them once.
Pulled them out of hell and kept them from going back.
Now it was his turn in the fire, and we all knew what it ant if we were too late.
My chest felt too tight, like my ribs were made of rusted wire.
Couldn’t fucking breathe right.
All I could see in my head was Justin cuffed to a chair, head down, that dead look he used to get back in the facility—
The look that ant the voices had won.
And June...
Fuck, I’d seen her once, years ago, shaking so bad she couldn’t even hold water.
If they’d broken her again...
If they used her against him...
God.
I swerved onto the dirt road, gravel spitting up under the tires.
Lights off now.
My heartbeat thundered so loud it felt like it’d shake the car apart.
"Ten minutes out," the guy next to murmured.
I didn’t answer.
Didn’t trust my voice not to crack.
Justin had always had our backs.
Always the one patching us back together when the nightmares got too bad.
Making sure no kid we rescued ever saw a lab again.
And now he was the one who’d been dragged back into the dark.
And fuck—fuck—the thought that by the ti we got there, there might be nothing left of him to save...
That killed sothing in .
"Hold on, brother," I whispered, barely louder than breath.
"We’re coming. Just hold the fuck on."
And I pressed the gas pedal to the floor until the world blurred around us.
********
(HOURS AGO)
I’d hacked every fucking road that led out of the city.
Tracked every traffic cara, every hidden feed, even piggybacked on private satellite pings.
Nothing.
The road their van took ended in the middle of nowhere—a patch of wild land that had probably never seen anything bigger than a goat.
My gut scread it wasn’t right.
Justin was there, sowhere.
But where?
We drove out anyway, and the team.
Two black SUVs, dark as sin, crawling over rutted dirt roads that looked like they hadn’t been used in decades.
Wind whipped dry grass into eddies around us, dust choking the air, the sll of hot earth and sunburned weeds in every breath.
"Boss," Kian in the back seat rasped, "sure this is it?"
"No," I snapped, too harsh, voice shredded from hours of cursing at screens and maps.
"But it’s all we’ve got."
We swept the whole area, twice.
Nothing.
No building.
No tal glint.
Not even fresh tire tracks leading off the road.
Just rocks, dirt, and brittle bushes that cracked underfoot.
The sun scorched overhead, sweat running down our spines, mixing with gri and frustration until my skin felt raw.
Why the fuck would they bring Justin here?
Hours passed.
The team got quieter.
You know that silence—the kind that settles in your chest, heavy as wet sand.
Nobody wanted to say it out loud: that maybe Justin was already gone.
Or worse: maybe he’d break before we found him.
And June...
I forced my brain to stop right there.
Couldn’t think about what they might be doing to her.
By dusk, we pulled back to the narrow road.
Empty-handed.
Dust covered the cars, turning black paint to dull brown.
The sun burned low, bleeding red across the sky like an open wound.
"Boss?" Kian asked, voice hoarse. "Now what?"
I opened my mouth, nothing ca out.
My pulse hamred like a trapped bird in my throat.
********
Now we are back the sa place we left hours ago. We ca back because of the tip I received on our way back.
The new tip lit up my cracked phone screen.
Sa area.
My heart stopped, then kicked so hard it hurt.
But this ti, three words that changed everything:
"Facility is underground."
It made sense.
Fuck, it made too much sense.
No wonder I couldn’t find shit on satellite.
No wonder even when we scanned roads,the whole fucking area, there was nothing.
They were hidden under our damn boots the whole ti.
I cursed, the word tearing out of my throat.
The guys startled, eyes snapping to .
"Underground," I rasped. "They’re fucking underground."
Relief flooded , sharp and burning—but it didn’t last.
Because the tip didn’t say where in that wild stretch they were buried.
No tunnel entrance marked.
No hatch.
Just a dirty patch of nowhere big enough to hide ten damn bunkers.
Kian swore under his breath. "We’ll never find it in ti."
"We’ll find it," I snarled. "If we have to dig through every fucking inch of this wasteland, we’ll find it."
As soon as we arrived. I opened the back of the SUV, pulled out the scanners we’d kept for ergencies.
Heat sensors. Ground-penetrating radars.
Expensive tech Justin had insisted we keep "just in case."
Thank fuck for that.
The team moved.
No more hesitation.
We split into pairs, fanning out across the brush.
Footsteps crunching on dry dirt.
Scanners whining softly, sweeping low and slow.
The wind kicked up dust devils that stung our eyes.
Thorns scraped arms raw.
Didn’t matter.
All I could think: Justin’s down there sowhere. June’s down there sowhere.
And we were running out of ti.
Hours blurred.
Beep.
Silence.
Beep.
False alarms.
Rocks. Buried trash.
Collapsed animal burrows.
My eyes burned, every breath dry and harsh.
Hands ached from gripping the scanner, muscles in my arms cramped, but I didn’t stop.
The darkness crept in, swallowing the horizon.
Stars pricked overhead, indifferent.
Night noises rose—crickets, wind rustling dead grass.
The world felt too fucking calm for what we were hunting.
"Boss," ca over the comm. "Nothing yet."
"Keep going," I barked, voice hoarse.
Kian’s voice cut through the static: "Even if it takes all night?"
"Especially if it takes all night."
We kept sweeping.
Every ti the scanner blipped, my chest squeezed so tight I thought it might crack.
Most tis—false.
One ti, the scanner caught sothing deeper, rectangular, too clean to be natural.
My pulse slamd so hard I saw black spots.
"Mark it," I rasped. "Keep moving. We’ll check it after the sweep."
I wiped sweat and gri off my forehead, my hair plastered to my scalp.
My shirt stuck to my back, stiff with salt and dirt.
But fuck it.
Pain didn’t matter.
Justin was the only reason half of us were still alive.
The only reason we weren’t still locked in cages, hands tied, heads full of screaming.
And June...
She’d suffered enough for ten lifetis.
The scanners kept whining.
Sowhere behind , Kian coughed, voice dry and rasping.
"Boss, what if it’s shielded?"
"Then we look for what they missed," I shot back. "Vent pipes. Waste shafts. Anything."
Because no facility, no matter how deep, could survive without breathing.
By midnight, my eyes burned like coals.
I caught myself praying under my breath, quiet and useless words I hadn’t said in years.
Please let them be alive.
Let us be in ti.
We regrouped by the trucks.
Sweat-sared, exhausted, faces hollowed by moonlight.
I looked at them—these n Justin had saved, shaped into sothing stronger.
And I saw the sa thing in every pair of eyes: we’d go back out. All night. All tomorrow. Until.
I glanced back at the empty dark stretch of scrubland.
My chest hurt from hope and fear fighting each other.
One truth settled, heavy in my bones:
They’re here. I can feel it. And we’re not leaving without them.
"Reload," I rasped, voice ragged. "Water. Five minutes. Then we sweep again."
No one argued.
The desert felt endless.
But we’d make it smaller.
Step by fucking step.
Until we kicked down whatever steel door they were hiding behind.
For Justin.
For June.
For every kid they’d locked in the dark.
And we wouldn’t stop.
Not tonight.
Not ever.
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