Time was a blade. Damien paced the hotel security room like a trapped animal, each step a silent question. Forty minutes had passed since Aiden had vanished into the garden, and in Damien's world, silence was never a good sign.
Sean burst into the room, his face pale and slick with sweat. "Sir, we caught it on the auxiliary CCTV—he was taken. But we couldn't get a fix on the vehicle's exit point."
"What do you mean you lost them?" Charles demanded, stepping forward.
"The cameras were tampered with. The footage cuts to static at the north car park," Sean said, dropping a remote onto the console with a frustrated click.
A thunderous crash echoed through the small room as Damien's fist collided with the heavy oak table. The sudden violence made the security guards jump.
"Check every camera outside the building now!" Damien barked, his voice dropping to a low, lethal frequency. "Every angle, every dashcam from the valet. If anyone missed a single frame, you'll be out of a job before sunrise."
Aiden woke with a scream caught in his throat. A sliver of light stabbed through a gap in the heavy curtains; his wrists were bound tightly to a cold metal frame. The scarf was gone, but his vision swam. He was in an private suite—lavish, draped in shadows, and smelling of stale cigarette smoke.
"You're awake," a voice said from the darkness.
Aiden's mouth was bone-dry. Panic surged, making his chest heave. "Where am I? Mike? What do you want?"
The man stepped into the sliver of light. He was still shirtless, the Japanese tattoo on his waist catching the dim glow. "You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, Aiden," the man said, his voice devoid of its previous warmth. "Nobody is coming for you."
Aiden thrashed against his bonds, his skin burning against the rope. The sound of a phone ringing interrupted the struggle. The man pulled a device from his pocket and swiped the screen, turning it toward Aiden.
Aiden's heart stopped. On the screen was Damien. He looked unraveled—his hair messy, his eyes wild with a fury Aiden had never seen.
"Don't you dare hurt him," Damien hissed into the line, his voice breaking with a raw, jagged edge.
the man laughed, a cruel, easy sound. "You can try to save him, Ice Prince. But he belongs to me now. You have twenty-four hours to meet the terms, or the boy is just… collateral."
He cut the call before Damien could speak again.
Back in the control room, the tension was at a breaking point. "Trace that number!" Damien screamed.
Charles pointed at a lanky, nervous-looking student standing by the back wall—Drake, a computer whiz from the university who had been working the tech for the party. "Drake can trace phone metadata. He's the best we've got right now."
Drake swallowed hard, thrust into the spotlight of Damien's terrifying gaze. "I… I can try, sir, but I need a direct link to the telco logs," he stammered.
"Get him whatever he needs," Damien ordered.
Drake's fingers moved in a blur across his laptop. Lines of code scrolled down the screen in a green cascade. "Give me a second… I'm looking for the tower handoff," he muttered.
Damien loomed over him, his jaw throbbing. "You have thirty seconds."
Aiden lay on the bed, every distant noise sounding like a thunderclap. He forced himself to breathe, mapping the path they'd taken in his mind.
Suddenly, Drake's terminal chirped. A single red dot lit up on a digital map of Tokyo. "There!" he announced. "The ping is weak, but it's heading toward the old port district. The phone handed off to a cell tower near a suite."
Damien didn't wait for the rest. "Gear up. We leave now," he said, already heading for the door. Charles and Sean trailed him, their expressions grim.
They were halfway to the elevator when Drake's screen flickered again. An inbound call. The unknown number. Drake stared at it, his fingers hovering over the keys.
"Pick it up," Damien commanded, his voice a low growl.
Drake swiped the 'accept' icon with trembling hands. On the other end, Mike's voice purred with sickening confidence.
"I told you, Ice Prince—he's mine. Catch me if you can."