Page 3 of Last Hand

A second car speeds through the gates while Dante steps out of his vehicle with an infuriating calmness. He walks straight into the gate booth without sparing so much as a glance toward the camera, recording his every move.

He didn’t even try to hide his face. Like he wanted me to see this—to know it was him behind all of it.

“She had the tracker,” Milo says suddenly, jerking me out of my trance. His voice cuts through my spiraling thoughts like alifeline tethering me back to reality. “The subdermal one—you had Stevens implant it last year.”

I fumble for my phone, my hands shaking as I open the GPS app. The screen lights up, and the map loads with agonizing slowness. I stare at it, willing the little red dot to appear—to show me where she is, to guide me to her.

Nothing. Offline. No ping. No signal.

“Jammed?”

Milo shakes his head. “Maybe. If it’s not jamming… then he knew. He either removed it or blocked it at the source.”

“Dante told him.”

He nods slowly. “Yeah. I’d lean more toward a signal jammer. I don’t remember telling Dante she had one.” Neither do I come to think of it.

Everything inside me goes still.

Milo puts a hand on my shoulder, and I shrug it off.

“She’s pregnant,” I whisper. I don’t even mean to say it. And the words leave my lips anyway. Its weight slams into me all over again.

“She’s pregnant,” Milo echoes, quieter. Then, more urgently: “They don’t know that, right?”

“No. They can’t. If they find out…”

We’re both silent.

Then I straighten, jaw tight.

“Call everyone. I want every fucking contact awake and shaking.”

Milo’s already moving, snapping orders into his phone.

I stare at Fallon’s broken phone, the last trace of her I have.

Four hours later, we get our first message. A video of Fallon being dragged from the trunk, her scream sends my blood cold as she’s tossed on the ground and slapped when the footage cuts off.

The video loops for the fourth time.

I should stop watching it.

I don’t.

Fallon’s scream rips through the silence of the room again, and I feel every nerve in my body tighten like a tripwire.

She’s not begging.

She’s not crying.

Just that one, raw cry when they hit her.

And then nothing.

Milo shuts the laptop without a word. We sit in the dark for a long stretch, in silence that only men like us can survive, silence made of rage, not quiet.

“He’s going to contact us again,” Milo says eventually. “He’s not done playing; he just wants us to know he has her.”

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