Chapter One Hundred Nineteen: The Lead
400 Words
-----Axton’s POV-----
The SUV’s tires hadn’t even cooled when they hit the dock.
Axton was out of the vehicle before the engine cut, fists clenched, eyes scanning the marina like a storm trying to pick a target. Rourke, Silas, and Price flanked him without needing instruction. They were past orders now—this was personal.
The moment Rourke had sent that message—girl in pink dress, possible confirmation—Axton had been ready to kill or die for a single second of clarity.
They stormed the docks like hellhounds.
“Hey!” Price barked at a boat crew unloading crates. “We’re looking for a little girl. Pink dress. Five years old. Saw her or didn’t—pick fast.”
The dockhand stuttered.
Silas stepped forward, leaned into the guy’s space. “Pick wrong, and I break your jaw.”
The man swallowed. “Y-Yeah… yeah. I saw her. She was with some guy. Ball cap. Glasses. Kind of twitchy.”
Axton stepped into view.
The man paled.
“She cryin’?” Axton asked, voice low.
The dockhand hesitated.
“She cryin’?!” Axton roared.
“Yes! Yeah. She was crying, and he shoved her into a black SUV. License was covered but it went west up the service road. Didn’t stop at the main gate.”
Price already had his laptop open, plugged into a signal booster. “I’m pulling traffic cams now.”
Rourke turned toward the gravel path, squatting to study tire tracks. “Tread pattern’s fresh. No more than an hour. They’re close.”
Axton’s pulse pounded in his ears.
“Was it her?” he asked. “Are you sure?”
The dockhand nodded slowly. “She had… dark brown hair. Pigtails. The dress had little flowers on it.”
Axton’s vision tunneled.
It was Emma.
“She’s alive,” he whispered.
Price glanced up. “Then so’s the man who took her. For now.”
Silas was already relaying orders to Morgan over comms. “We’ve got a direction. Pull heat maps, traffic lights, back alleys—anything that could help us track a black SUV within the last hour.”
Rourke stood up, wiping grit off his palms. “We’ve got a trail.”
Axton’s hands shook.
He hadn’t slept. He hadn’t eaten. He didn’t care.
She was close.
And he was going to bring her home.
Or burn the world trying.
- Writer
