Jayjay's POV
Thunder rolled like a distant drum. The rain started—first a whisper, then a steady batter—like the sky was trying to drown the night. It was 2 something in the morning .i thought ., cold, and the smell of wet metal clung to everything.
My head ached. When I opened my eyes the world tilted and tasted of cement and light. I was lying on a hard floor. My wrists stung where the rope had cut into skin; my hands were tied in front, not behind. That small mercy meant we could move, a little.
"Jay… Jayjay… wake up," Keagan's voice said, tight as wire.
I pushed up and squinted. Keagan and Keiren were beside me on the concrete. Keagan, jaw clenched — had a red mark beginning to bloom across his cheek. Keiren was curled inward and crying quiet, breaths like tiny sobs.
"Keiren?" I croaked.
He blinked, wiping at his face. "I'm here, Jay."
I forced my lips into a smile I didn't feel. "Shh… stop crying, okay? Don't make noise. Keifer will find us — he always does."
Keiren nodded, sniffing and trying to be brave. My chest felt raw at how small he looked.
The door groaned open. Two men in black coats came in, their collars up against the damp. Their faces were blank, hard like stones.
"Looks like Sleeping Beauty's awake," the taller one sneered.
The taller man crouched before me, close enough that I could see the scar under his eye. He leaned forward, voice low: "Where's it hidden? Where's the secret?"
I didn't answer. I didn't know what secret he wanted — and I would never give anything that could hurt My keifer or my friends.
The man smiled, then punched me in the stomach. Pain exploded and I gasped, curling inward so I wouldn't scream. The room swam and the world narrowed to hot, burning hurt.
Keagan sprang up like a coiled wire. "What kind of man are you? You hit a girl? Are you f*cking crazy?" His voice shook, but it was fierce. "You wait till my brother finds out — you will be dead meat!"
The man's laugh was dark; he stepped forward and slapped Keagan across the face so hard it stung. He stood and said, "Your brother, huh? I'm waiting." The two of them left, the door slamming behind them.
Keiren crawled close and put his hand on my arm. "Are you okay?" he whispered.
I swallowed down the hurt and managed, voice thin: "I'm okay. A little sore... but okay."
Minutes passed. My breath slowed enough to think. I turned to Keiren. "Do you still wear the watch Adrian gave you? The one that can send a location? the phone watch sorry"
He nodded, fingers fumbling. "Yes." His hands trembled.
"Tap it," I told him. "Turn on your location and send it to Adrian's phone. Quietly, okay?"
He did it with small, careful taps. His thumbs were clumsy; the screen flashed. He whispered, "Sent." His words came out a little messy, like his fingers were clumsy from the ropes.
I let out a breath that felt like a small victory. "Good job, baby. You did great."
Thunder answered outside, and the rain rose louder, a steady drum against the warehouse roof.
Keifer's POV
2:47 a.m. I'd stopped trusting the rhythm of clocks. Everything moved jagged and too fast.
My chest tightened until it felt like iron.
Adrian's voice was a small, focused thing when he asked, "What's Keiren's watch number?"
I told him. It felt stupid — a phone number was a tiny thing in the dark — but then Adrian plugged his phone into the laptop and the screen lit with a map.
A dot blinked on the map: a location far out past the city grid, in the empty gray outside where warehouses and abandoned mills lived. Ciel's eyes were on the feed like a hawk.
Then Ci-N pointed. "There's a file attached." His voice sounded like a small crack.
"Play it," I said before I thought. The entire room held its breath.
Edrix clicked. The video rattled into life — shaky, handheld, the picture dark and grainy. My stomach dropped the instant I saw her.
Jayjay was there on the screen, pale and weak, mouth dark with blood. She was slumped against Keagan, who had fresh bruises and a red welt across his face. Little Keiren crying quietly. Jayjay pressed her hand to her mouth in the clip, trying to stop the blood.
Then a short text popped up beside the clip — garbled, misspelled, typed with fingers that were bound. Keiren's message, broken and urgent:
"kuya, jayjay was punced in the stomc by bad man. they slpd kuya keagan. i tied up. sory for tipe. plz come"
The typos cut me like a slap. Keiren had typed that with his hands tied. He had sent his location and a video — raw proof — and my blood turned to ice.
"JAYJAY!!!" The shout was a single ripping sound. Everyone in the room — Adrian, David, Felix, Edrix, Ci-N, Calix, Yuri — burst at once. We were a single thing that didn't know where to put the noise.
Adrian was moving before sense returned to me. "We have to go. Now."
My hands curled until the knuckles hurt. I tasted metal, hot and bitter. Hurt didn't take the place of rage; it only sharpened it. Keagan's line — the hiss of warning that had come from the warehouse earlier — echoed in my ears: you will be dead meat.
"We go," I said, the words flat and controlled. "Valerie and Angelo aren't coming with us. They'll coordinate from here." My voice cut like a blade; I had no time for anything else. Angelo and Valerie would stay to manage intel and the backup link. They were needed behind us, not in the front of this fight.
Angela looked at me and simply said, "Bring them back."
I pulled on my jacket like armor and felt the engine of a hunt start. The van, the coordinates — everything narrowed into one line: Docking point, old textile mill area, the warehouse dot on the map. We moved like a machine made of people — fast, precise, unforgiving.
The rain hammered on the roof; the map glowed with Keiren's small bright dot. The video of Jayjay — her bloody mouth, her small body pressed against Keagan — was burned into my eyes.
That was the only permission I needed.