Kiefer (POV)
I was furious.
They took my Jay Jay.
I leave her alone for two hours, and somehow she disappears. She was seriously a magnet for trouble.
My phone kept vibrating in my pocket.
Kiegan.
Again.
I ignored it for the fifth time.
Cole noticed.
"Who?" he asked without looking at me.
"Kiegan," I said. "I have a meeting with the shareholders. I'm supposed to catch a flight. He's waiting for me at the airport."
"Then go," Cole said coldly as he walked toward the chairman's office. "I'll handle this."
I stopped walking.
"Are you serious?" I snapped. "Jay Jay is missing, and you want me to leave?"
Cole did not answer.
"I don't care about the meeting," I hissed. "I don't care about the shareholders. I don't care about anything right now except finding her."
I slammed my hand against the office door before pushing it open.
"Seriously, Kiefer," Cole muttered under his breath.
The second we stepped inside, Cole grabbed the hospital chairman by the neck and slammed him against the wall.
The old man let out a choked sound.
"Is this how you run your hospital?" Cole asked quietly.
That was the scary part.
He was not shouting.
He was calm.
Too calm.
"My family got hurt under your roof," he said. "Your hospital failed to protect them."
The chairman's face turned pale.
He clawed weakly at Cole's wrist, struggling to breathe.
For a second, I thought Cole was really going to kill him.
Then Cole finally let go.
The old man collapsed to the floor, coughing.
"I want every doctor, nurse, and staff member in this hospital gathered in one room within ten minutes," Cole said.
Then he pulled out his gun and pointed it at the old man.
"Or I won't hesitate to kill you."
The chairman's entire body shook.
"Sir… please…" he stammered. "Five minutes. I can gather everyone in five minutes."
Cole slowly lowered the gun.
"Good," he said. "Because if even one person is missing…"
He let the sentence hang in the air.
He did not need to finish it.
After 5 minutes, as he had exactly promised, the seminar was slowly filling with people. Everyone in the room already knew what would happen.
every doctor and nurse who had treated Jay Jay or stepped onto that floor.
No one dared speak.
No one even looked at each other.
They all stood there in silence while Cole sat in front of them.
Then he placed a gun on the table.
The sound alone was enough to make half the room flinch.
Cole leaned back in his chair.
His face was calm.
Too calm.
"I only have one question," he said quietly.
The room stayed silent.
"Why did you do it?"
No one answered.
His eyes slowly moved across the room.
"And who helped them?"
Some of the nurses were already crying.
A few of the doctors were shaking so badly they could barely stand.
Cole rested one hand on the gun.
"If you think I won't hurt you because you're a woman," he said coldly, "then you're wrong."
The entire room froze.
"You touched something that belonged to me."
His voice was quiet.
But somehow that made it worse.
"I'll give you five minutes," he said.
"Because if nobody talks…"
He slowly looked around the room.
"…then not a single person in here is walking out alive."
One of the nurses let out a terrified sob.
Cole did not even blink.
"And trust me," he said softly, "the people outside won't even know what happened to you."
Silence filled the room.
No one moved.
No one breathed.
Because for the first time, they realized Cole was not threatening them.
He was promising them.
COLE (POV)
No one said a word.
But I could see it.
Some of them were hesitating.
One of the doctors kept looking down.
His hands were shaking.
"Hey," I said coldly. "Come here."
The man flinched before slowly stepping forward.
"Y-Yes, sir…"
"You know something," I said. "Spit it out."
He looked around the room nervously before looking back at me.
"Sir… I don't know much," he said, his voice trembling. "This morning… some men came into our office. They had guns."
The room went silent.
"They took Mrs. Watson's reports. Then they told us to lie about her condition and say she needed emergency surgery."
My jaw tightened.
"They kidnapped our families," he whispered. "They said if we didn't listen, they would kill them."
He started crying.
"Sir, if you want to kill me, then kill me. But please… leave my family out of it."
I slowly lifted the gun and pointed it at his head.
The entire room froze.
Then suddenly, I heard her voice in my head.
"Promise me, Coco… you'll never kill someone who is already regretting their mistake and trying to protect their family."
My grip tightened around the gun.
"I don't want you to kill someone when you can see guilt in their eyes."
I closed my eyes for a second.
"She's really getting into my head," I muttered under my breath.
Then I lowered the gun.
"Get out before I change my mind," I said coldly.
The doctor almost collapsed from relief.
"But listen carefully," I added.
He froze.
"If anything happens to Jay Jay because you hid something from me…"
I looked him straight in the eyes.
"Then not even your family will be able to save you."
He nodded so fast it almost looked painful.
"I want every detail about Jay Jay's condition," I said. "Can she travel? Does she need any special medicine? Any equipment? Anything."
The doctor quickly nodded again.
"Kiefer," I called without looking away from him. "Take the list."
Kiefer stepped forward immediately.
I turned and walked out of the room.
Because if I stayed there any longer, I was going to lose control.
And right now, anger was the only thing holding me together.
"Why did you let him go?" Angelo asked as he walked beside me.
"I saw guilt in his eyes," I said without looking at him.
Angelo let out a quiet laugh.
"When did the monster start turning into a human? Don't tell you thought of her."
"Angelo," I said coldly, "I'm not in the mood for jokes."
His smile disappeared immediately.
For a few seconds, we just kept walking.
Then Angelo looked at me.
"You're thinking about something."
"Hm."
He nodded once.
Then a voice came from behind us.
"They want Jay Jay alive, right?"
We did not even need to turn around to know it was Kiefer.
I stopped walking.
"Yeah," I said quietly.
"Because if they wanted her dead…" I looked down at the blood on my hands.
"…they would have killed her in the hospital."
Angelo's jaw tightened.
"So this is not revenge," Kiefer said.
"No," I said.
"It's something worse."
"You're hiding something, Cole," Angelo said.
"Nothing," I replied coldly.
Angelo looked at me for a second.
"I know you," he said quietly. "You read that entire floor in five minutes. Don't tell me you found something and decided to keep it to yourself."
Before he could say anything else, I cut him off.
"Kiefer," I said. "Did you get anything? Drugs? Machines?"
Kiefer looked down at the papers in his hand.
"Yeah," he said. "The doctor wrote everything down."
He looked through the list.
"She still needs pain medication every few hours. They also wrote down antibiotics, IV fluids, and something to keep her sedated if she wakes up in pain."
"It's common for anyone we can't find with this. "My jaw tightened.
"What else?"
"She needs oxygen support if her breathing gets bad," Kiefer said. "And because she lost a lot of blood, they said she might need another transfusion."
Angelo cursed under his breath.
"There's more," Kiefer said quietly.
I looked at him.
"She can travel… but only if they move her carefully. They said she still needs a portable oxygen cylinder, heart monitor, IV stand, and emergency medication nearby in case something goes wrong."
For a few seconds, no one said anything.
Then I finally spoke.
"So they can't keep moving her around forever."
Kiefer looked at me.
"Yeah," he said quietly. "Sooner or later, they'll need to stop somewhere and keep her stable."
A slow smile appeared on my face.
"Good," I said.
"Because sick people leave traces."
Then suddenly the door opened.
Edrix and Rory walked in carrying laptops and equipment bags.
"We found something," Edrix said immediately.
Angelo frowned.
"Why are you two here?"
They both looked at me.
"I asked them to check something," I said. "They wanted to help."
Edrix placed his laptop on the table.
"As you asked, we checked the cameras outside the back entrance of the hospital," he said. "Most of the hospital cameras were either disabled or looped."
He pulled up the footage.
"But the cameras from the street behind the hospital still worked."
Everyone moved closer.
"A few suspicious vehicles were waiting near the back gate," Edrix said. "They stayed there for almost an hour like they were waiting for a signal."
He paused the footage.
"Whoever they were, they kept their faces covered."
Then Rory stepped forward.
"There's more," he said.
He looked at Kiefer for a second before continuing.
"We tracked a few calls made from burner phones near the hospital around the time Jay Jay was taken."
The room went silent.
"Where?" Kiefer asked.
Rory slowly looked at him.
"London."
Kiefer's entire face darkened.
I slammed my fist against the table.
"I knew it."
Everyone looked at me.
"What?" Angelo asked.
I looked around the room.
"Someone told them we weren't at the hospital," I said coldly. "Otherwise, they never would have touched Jay Jay."
No one said a word.
Because they all knew I was right.
If Angelo, Kiefer, and I had been there…
This never would have happened.
"They knew exactly when to move," I said quietly. "They knew when Jare was alone. They knew when Percy left. They knew we were not there."
Kiefer looked at me.
"So someone leaked it."
I slowly turned toward Angelo.
Angelo looked back at me.
We did not need to say anything.
Because we were both thinking the same name.
"Yuri," we said at the same time.
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