RUTHLESS DEVOTION: THE EMPIRE BETWEEN US

THE BAIT

The heavy control room echoed with Annah's shattered sobs. Her mind was spiraling, where the hell was Amilah? How were they going to find her? Annah clutched her chest, a suffocating, breathless weight of restlessness crushing her lungs.

"Are you all just going to stand there and do absolutely nothing?!" she shrieked, her voice cracking with terror. "Go get Lowin right now!"

Tom shifted nervously, his face completely pale. "He has an hour left before the meeting ends, Miss Vance."

Annah abruptly got off the floor. "So you mean a corporate meeting is more important than Amilah's life?!"

"No, ma'am... absolutely not," Tom stammered. He turned a desperate gaze toward the shadow enforcers. "Mark... I think you need to breach the door and call the Boss out."

Mark's eyes flew wide open. He pointed a frantic finger directly at his own chest. "You are asking me to walk into that boardroom and say, 'Good afternoon, Boss, your pregnant wife is completely missing'? Are you out of your mind?! Logan should go."

"Hell no!" Logan snapped, his voice tight with panic. "He has my family under protection. Who the hell knows what he'll do to them now that I've completely failed? Not just that... we let them walk right out under our noses." Logan buried his face in his hands, letting out a string of violent curses against Amilah. She was the exact reason they were all going to die today.

"If none of you cowards go, I'll go myself!" Annah stood up abruptly, but Julian stepped straight into her path.

"I'll go," Julian said, his voice flat and heavy. He had already accepted his fate. He was entirely willing to walk into that den of wolves and face the devil himself; for the first time in his life, he had failed his boss, Debrin Salvatore.

Logan looked up through his fingers. "Good luck, man. You're going to need it."

"We all need it," Julian murmured.

He turned on his heel, striding down the long marble hallway toward the executive boardroom. He stood outside the massive mahogany doors for a second, letting out a shaky breath. He turned the heavy brass knob and walked inside.

Julian didn't look at the directors. He marched straight to Lowin Vance's side. Every single person around the long table looked up in shock as Lowin slowly lifted his left hand, signaling the board to pause.

Across the table, Debrin's sharp eyes tracked his right hand. He noticed how violently tense Julian looked, and his predatory instincts instantly flared. Something is up.

Julian leaned down close to Lowin's ear, his fist curling so tightly his knuckles turned white, terrified of the man's immediate reaction to the news. "Mr. Vance... I... I think you need to come with me right now. Something happened."

Lowin didn't move. His dark eyes remained fixed on the documents. "Get to the f*****g point, Julian."

"We can't find Ms. Miles," Julian whispered, his heart hammering. "She left the building. Without any security."

SNAP.

The expensive fountain pen in Lowin's hand snapped violently into two pieces, the dark ink spilling across the clean paper. The sudden, brutal sound startled everyone around the round table. The Salvatore brothers instantly stiffened, their expressions turning stone-cold. They knew a catastrophe had just broken.

Lowin stood up slowly, his face completely expressionless a terrifying, empty mask.

"Meeting adjourned," Lowin growled, his voice a low, vibrating warning. "I have urgent personal matters to attend to."

The board members sat completely speechless, frozen in their leather seats.

The Salvatore brothers rose in perfect unison, following him out of the room, bracing themselves for whatever bloodbath was coming. As they cleared the threshold, Debrin shot Julian a lethal, unyielding glare that made him involuntarily step back in fear.

They marched straight toward Lowin's executive office, where Mark, Logan, Tom, and Annah were waiting. The second Dane saw Annah's bloodshot eyes and the wet tracks on her face, a strange, protective ache pierced his chest. Before his mind could even process the movement, he was standing directly by her side.

"Hey," Dane murmured, his voice laced with concern as he reached out to grab her hands. "What's wrong? Did you cry?"

Annah couldn't explain the overwhelming wave of fear inside her, but the moment Dane's warm hands wrapped around hers, her tears opened like a broken tap. "Amilah and Lyla... they're completely missing."

Debrin's steps halted instantly. The world around him violently spun.

"What?!" Debrin roared, the veins on his forehead popping like thick cords as he lunged forward. "Julian, what the f**k is she saying?!"

Mark stepped between them, his hands raised. "Can we please get inside the office and brief you properly? We need to avoid drawing extra attention on this floor."

Lowin pushed the heavy glass door open, remaining completely silent and calm. It was a dead, suffocating stillness that was infinitely more terrifying than when he let his explosive anger show.

The rest followed him inside the suite. The second the door clicked shut, Debrin bypassed Mark entirely, violently grabbing Julian by his collar and slamming his heavy frame hard against the wall.

"Julian, where the f**k is Lyla?!" Debrin hissed through clenched teeth, his dark eyes wild with a homicidal fury.

"I don't know, sir..." Julian choked out, refusing to flinch. "Let Mark brief you first. Then we will figure it out."

"You lost my woman, and now you're giving me f*****g orders?!" Debrin screamed.

"I'm sorry, sir."

Debrin didn't hesitate. He smashed a brutal punch straight into Julian's face, the impact drawing thick, dark blood that immediately dripped from the corner of his lips.

Dane froze, his head snapping toward his brother. "Your woman?"

Damien crossed his arms, his voice a dangerous blade. "What the hell is actually going on right now?"

Mark quickly hit the control switch on the wall monitor, trying to diffuse the tension. "Ms. Miles and Ms. Daniels are missing. They successfully left the building at exactly 10:20 AM, disguised as janitors. We didn't realize they were gone until Miss Annah walked in just now."

Mark played the high-res CCTV footage on the large screen. The room went completely, deathly silent as the image of the trash carts filled the monitor.

Lowin didn't watch the screen. He pulled out his encrypted phone and dialed a direct line.

The call connected on the first ring. "Boss," Victor's voice crackled through.

"I am giving you exactly five minutes to find out where my wife is," Lowin growled into the receiver, his voice dangerously low, slow, and dead. "If the clock strikes 15:20 PM and you have nothing for me, you drill a hollow-point bullet straight through your own head. Because if you don't do it, I will gladly do it for you."

"Boss, hold on!" Victor panicked on the other end, the sound of a roaring engine in the background. "I'm currently at the ER.... I just brought in a woman I found crawling outside Justin's secured perimeter! Please, I need more details on what you want me to do."

Lowin's jaw tightened. "Send me a photo of her face. Right now."

Within a minute, Lowin's phone violently buzzed against his palm. He tapped the media file open. But because he had never personally met Amilah's assistant, his dark eyes scanned the bruised, bloody face blankly. He didn't recognize her.

Annah hurried to his side, wiping her tear-stained eyes as she leaned over his arm. "What did he find? Is it them?"

"It's not any of them," Lowin muttered, his chest heaving.

Annah snatched the phone out of his hand, gluing her eyes to the screen. A sudden, sharp gasp escaped her throat, her chest heaving. "This... this is..."

Debrin stepped into her space, his breathing ragged. "What?! Speak up, Annah!"

"This is Beryl!" Annah cried, looking up at Lowin. "It's Amilah's personal assistant from the boutique!"

Lowin's head snapped up from the monitor where the CCTV was looping. "What? Are you absolutely certain?"

"Yes! I've seen her a couple of times at the shop. It's definitely her."

Mark stepped forward, his eyes flashing. "Then that means the second she wakes up, she can lead us directly to the coordinates of where Ms. Miles is being held."

Damien leaned against the desk, his sharp gaze cutting toward Debrin. "I still have a fundamental question here. Who the f**k is Ms. Daniels?"

Debrin didn't even flinch. "Your sister-in-law, motherfucker."

Dane and Damien raised their dark brows in perfect, stunned unison, completely blindsided.

"Wait..." Dane muttered, a slow, dangerous grin spreading across his face. "You have a secret girlfriend? And you didn't even bother to let your own blood know?"

"That is not f*****g important right now!" Debrin roared, slamming his fist against the leather sofa. "What matters is finding them before that psycho hurts them!"

Lowin dialed Victor's line a second time. The call was answered instantly, Victor wasn't ready to die today.

"Where exactly did you find her?" Lowin demanded.

"A few hundred meters away from that abandoned old mansion Justin secured off the grid a few days ago," Victor reported.

Lowin's eyes turned pitch-black. "And you didn't bother to alert me about that property?"

"Boss, he took me completely off his operational loop. I still don't know why," Victor explained rapidly. "I was heading out there to discover what he was hiding when I stumbled across her body in the dirt."

"Send me the exact coordinates. ASAP."

"Right away, Boss... but I did erase that property from the public grid to keep it hidden from the feds."

Lowin's voice dropped into a terrifying pitch. "I don't give a single flying f**k what you did or didn't do, Victor. Just sort out the hospital intake, drop her security, and head straight back out there. We will be joining you at the perimeter."

"Roger that, Boss."

Lowin cut the line and violently threw his phone onto the mahogany desk. His mind spun into a dark, volatile abyss. What the hell am I going to do with my psychotic brother? Kill him? If he did, how could he look his mother in the eye again? She would never survive the grief of losing a son, even if that son was a monster. Lowin rubbed the bridge of his nose, the suffocating pressure of the silence in the room weighing down on him as everyone stared blankly at him.

His phone buzzed with the incoming coordinates.

Moving with a silent precision, Lowin reached into his top desk drawer, pulled out his heavy black pistol, and locked a round into the chamber with a loud, metallic clack.

He looked up at Debrin. "Are you coming?"

Debrin's lips curled into a savage, bloodthirsty smile as he adjusted his jacket. "With pleasure. And trust me, Vance... I don't give a damn if he carries your DNA. If you hesitate for even a second out there, I will put a bullet through his brain myself."

Annah took a step forward, her voice trembling. "But-"

"No buts, Annah. End of discussion," Debrin snapped, his tone unyielding.

Lowin turned to his assistant. "Tom, drive Annah straight back to the estate. Mark, get the full elite tactical detail armed and ready to move to these exact coordinates. Right now."

Mark snatched the digital map and rushed out of the suite, with Logan and a bleeding Julian charging right behind him.

"Yes, Boss," Tom nodded, stepping toward Annah.

Before they could move, Dane stepped into Tom's space, his massive frame completely towering over the assistant. His eyes were entirely lethal. "If a single scratch touches her while we are gone, you are a dead man, Mr. Assistant. Understand?"

Tom swallowed hard, but his jaw set. "Nothing will happen to her. I will keep her safe with my life."

"Excellent," Dane growled, patting his back hard with a dark grin. He turned on his heel, following his brothers out into the corridor, his body completely wired and ready for a total bloodbath.

They moved down the private elevator shaft, their heavy boots thudding against the metal floor.

Debrin adjusted his shoulder holster as the lift glided toward the garage. "Can you actually trust this Victor guy, Lowin? Or are we all walking straight into a trap?"

Lowin didn't look at him, his grip tight on his weapon. "He is completely clean."

"You better be right."

"I am, Debrin..." Lowin murmured, his voice cold as ice. "And I can assure you, Justin has absolutely zero idea that Victor has been on my private paycheck for twelve years."

Damien let out a low, dark chuckle from the back of the lift. "I have to admit... I absolutely love your methods, Mr. Vance."

Dane rolled his shoulders, a tight, frustrated edge to his voice. "I am still pissed off that I am heading into a desert to save a sister-in-law I haven't even had the pleasure of meeting yet. I feel completely betrayed by this family."

Debrin shot him a cold look over his shoulder. "You should focus entirely on getting over that little pathetic crush you have on Annah."

Lowin's head instantly snapped around, his dark eyes drilling into Dane for a split second before he resumed his rapid stride out into the garage. "Don't you even think about her, Dane. Else..."

"Else what, Mr. Vance?" Dane taunted with a wicked, fearless smirk as they cleared the lift doors. "Honestly, I've been thinking about how incredible it's going to be when I'm officially your brother-in-law. She is gorgeous, sexy as f**k, and she makes my heart race every time she looks at me."

Damien burst into a quiet, amused laugh, nudging his brother's shoulder. "He has a loaded gun in his hand, bro. Shut the f**k up."

Lowin didn't look back again, his voice dropping into a flat, lethal register. "Tell him to shut his mouth before the bullet does the speaking for me."

Dane merely lifted his hands in mock surrender, a cocky grin on his lips as they all slid into the waiting, blacked-out luxury SUVs in the underground parking lot. The tires screamed against the concrete as the convoy tore out of the garage, launching a bloodthirsty army into the desert.

Far away inside the decaying walls of the old library, the heavy silence was broken by the creak of the floorboards. Jacob walked inside, setting a tray of fresh food down on the table before moving forward to untie the coarse hemp ropes from Amilah and Lyla's wrists.

Justin stood by the frosted floor-to-ceiling windows, turning around with a slow, psychotic smile playing on his lips. "Enjoy yourselves, ladies. Make yourselves completely comfortable. After all... this is your official new home."

Amilah rubbed her chafed wrists, her eyes flashing with defiance as she let out a cold, mocking scoff.

"I am highly certain that by now," Amilah whispered, her voice steady despite the tears drying on her cheeks, "your brother is turning this entire city upside down to find me."

What her mind couldn't possibly know was that her alpha didn't have to turn the city upside down at all. He had expected this war to break sooner or later, and he was entirely prepared. Right now, Lowin Vance was already burning through the highway tearing through the dirt with an army of bloodthirsty men, coming to claim what belonged to him.