Page 91 of Infamous
He answers on the first ring. “Jude?”
“Nadia Reed is missing.”
My voice breaks on the last word.
There’s a beat. Not of doubt - ofprocessing.
“Where are you?” Mason asks.
A few minutes later,they appear out of nowhere.
Scar, Mason, Brando, Lucky, Rafi, Kanyan, Jayson - all of them moving with that lethal purpose that means something is about to burn.
Jayson claps a heavy hand on my back. “We’ll find her.”
Scar’s eyes are sharp glass. “Talk to me.”
“She didn’t show for her shift,” I stammer, furious at how I sound. “She was supposed to be at the hospital. She never made it to her shift. No one’s heard from her.”
“When was the last time you saw her?” Scar asks.
“This morning,” I say. “Fourteen hours ago.”
The number tastes like sharp and acidic on my tongue. Fourteen hours - long enough for anything to happen, long enough for a life to be dismantled. Nadia’s life.Mylife.
They don’t know the full extent of what’s happening between us. They know our past, know the old scorch marks between Nadia and me, know I took out Michael without a second thought to keep her safe. But as for now - this thing that’s been building, this quiet, relentless gravity between us - they’re in the dark.
Or they were.
My panic has lit the room like a flare.
Scar’s jaw tightens. A small twitch. Barely there - except I know exactly what it means. He knows. He knows, without a single word exchanged, that I’ve crossed a line. That I’ve let something personal bleed into something tactical. That I’ve compromised the operation by letting a woman -thiswoman - into the part of me meant to stay locked down.
He knows I’ve let my dick sidestep reason. He knows I’ve let my heart get involved in a situation where hearts are liabilities. But more than that - he knows I’m not just worried.
I’m feral. I’m unravelling. I’m seconds away from tearing the city apart with my bare hands. And I’m the most dangerous weapon they have right now - even if only to myself.
Mason shoots me a look - sharp, assessing, the kind you use on a bomb to determine how close it is to detonating.
“What aren’t you telling us?” he asks quietly.
Everything. Nothing. All of it.
I meet Scar’s eyes, and something raw slips through me, a soundless snarl of possession, fear, and the kind of rage that comes from loving someone you never had any intention of letting go.
“She’s mine,” I say, voice low, dangerous.
Scar doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t judge. He just nods once - slow, deliberate - because he understands something ugly and true: this isn’t just an operation anymore. This is war. And if anyone hurts Nadia… if anyone touches her… I’ll make the whole damn city quake.
Kanyan steps forward, calm and coiled, silence snapping under his presence. “Pull the hospital cameras. See if she actually made it here.”
“She didn’t clock in for her shift,” I say, the words thick with the fog in my head.
“Doesn’t mean she didn’t come,” Kanyan replies, steady as a metronome. “We cover every angle. Until we map her exact movements, we won’t know what happened or where. Somebody get the street cams by her building. Now.”
Men start moving in perfect symmetry. It’s like everyone automatically knows what to do and what their role is without having to be asked. Phones come up like lightning. Contacts are dialed, doors opened, credentials flashed. I don’t ask how they get it. I don’t want to know. I only want her back.
We walk down the hospital corridor to the security room, where a wall of monitors watches everything. The screens showevery corner of the hospital—waiting rooms, elevators, hallways, the automatic doors opening and closing. The footage is grainy and black-and-white, full of small, quiet details. We lean forward and study it, looking for the one moment that will tell us what happened.
