He Pulled Out CH 28

“Liam?” Finn’s voice cuts through my spiral of self-destruction, hesitant and concerned in a way that tells me he’s bracing for bad news.

I turn to see him in the doorway, taking in the scene with growing horror. His eyes sweep over the abandoned belongings like he’s witnessing a crime scene, which honestly, he kind of is.

“She left everything,” he says quietly, voice barely above a whisper.

No shit, Sherlock. But I don’t say that because Finn looks like someone just told him Christmas was canceled permanently.

Asher follows close behind, moving with that tense deliberation he gets when he’s trying to keep his emotions from detonating and taking out half the building.

He approaches the conference table like it contains radioactive material or something that could shatter if he breathes wrong.

“No ID, no cards, no personal items,” Asher confirms, crouching to examine her bag like a forensic investigator. “Just what we gave her. She took nothing that would connect her to this place.”

“Her phone’s here too.” Finn picks up the device with hands that are definitely shaking. “Powered off. She doesn’t want to be found.”

The finality of it hits me like a brick to the face. This isn’t anger or hurt feelings or needing space to process the nuclear fallout. This is calculated erasure.

She systematically removed every trace of herself from our lives, leaving behind only our gifts like returned engagement rings after a wedding that never happened.

“Like hell she doesn’t want to be found,” I say, my voice rough with the kind of determination that comes from refusing to accept defeat. “She’s running scared, not running from us. There’s a fucking difference.”

Without hesitation, I pull out my phone and dial our legal team. They pick up on the first ring because when you pay retainers that could fund small countries, people answer your calls immediately.

“Marcus? It’s Liam. I need you to destroy someone for me,” I say, skipping pleasantries because pleasantries are for people who aren’t currently watching their entire world collapse. “That photographer who ambushed the press conference—I want you to hit them with every charge you can think of. Invasion of privacy, harassment, conspiracy, whatever the fuck sticks. I want their career dead by sunrise.”

“Consider it done,” comes the crisp reply that tells me Marcus is already mentally preparing his legal artillery. “What about the journalist who asked the question?”

“Find out who paid them. Then destroy them too.”

While I’m handling the nuclear legal option, Asher’s already got his laptop out and is typing with the kind of focused intensity he usually reserves for tracking down breakthrough artists or ruining people’s lives. Both skills are about to come in handy.

“She’s smart, but not that smart,” he mutters, pulling up what looks like our company’s administrative systems. “Her old work email is still linked to our IT infrastructure. If she used any online services recently…”

His fingers pause over the keys, then he lets out a sharp breath. “Got something. Third-party car rental booking, made about an hour ago. She accessed the site through her work email login.”

“What kind of car?” I demand, moving to look over his shoulder because patience is apparently not in my vocabulary today.

“Compact sedan, one-way rental. No return date specified.” Asher’s jaw tightens. “She used Leo’s name for the booking, but the credit card is hers. I have the plate number.”

The fact that she used her brother’s name tells me everything I need to know. Even in her panic, even while her world was imploding in real-time, she was still thinking about Leo’s safety first.

Still protecting the people she loves while assuming no one would do the same for her.

“Send me that plate number,” I order, urgency exploding into action. “Now.”

I storm out of the office toward the security department, Finn and Asher trailing behind me like we’re some kind of corporate SWAT team. The head of security looks up in surprise as we burst through the door like men on a mission, which we absolutely are.

“I need footage from every camera covering the employee parking area for the past two hours,” I demand. “Focus on the east exit—that’s where she would’ve gone to avoid the main lobby circus.”

“Sir, I’ll need authorization—”

“I’m giving you authorization,” I cut him off because bureaucracy can fuck right off when the woman you love is in free fall. “Pull it up now.”

The security team moves quickly, probably sensing that arguing with three men who look like they’re about to commit felonies is bad for their health.

Multiple camera angles come up on their wall of monitors, and we watch in tense silence as they scroll through footage.

“There,” Finn says suddenly, pointing at one of the screens. “That’s her.”

And there she is, moving fast across the employee lot, wrapped in her coat like armor, no bag, no phone, nothing to slow her down.

She looks small and fragile on the grainy security footage, but her movements are purposeful, determined. Even in her escape, she’s got more backbone than half the executives in this building.

“Freeze it,” I order as she approaches a gray sedan in the far corner of the lot. The tech team enhances the image, and I feel grim satisfaction as the license plate comes into focus. It matches Asher’s information exactly.

“She planned this,” Finn observes, his voice tight with a mixture of admiration and frustration. “Look at how she avoided the main cameras, stuck to the shadows. She knew exactly how to disappear.”

“She knew someone would try to follow her,” Asher adds. “This was about getting a clean break, vanishing completely.”

The thought of Jasmine feeling like she had to disappear from our lives—like we were something she needed to escape from rather than run to—makes rage and heartbreak war in my chest like they’re fighting for real estate.

“Well, she’s wrong,” I say, my jaw locking with the kind of determination that’s gotten me through hostile takeovers and industry wars. “We’re going to find her. I don’t care if I have to tear up every road outside the city, check every hotel, every gas station, every shitty motel she might’ve crawled into to hide. She thinks she’s alone in this, but she’s not.”

I turn to face my brothers, seeing my own resolve reflected in their faces. We’ve faced down record executives, hostile media, and corporate sharks.

One broken woman who thinks she has to carry the world alone should be manageable.

“She saved Leo’s life by getting involved with us,” I continued. “Now it’s our turn to save hers.”

“Where do we start?” Finn asks, and I can hear the steel in his voice that tells me he’s ready for war.

“With the rental car company,” I reply. “They’ll have GPS tracking on that vehicle. And when we find her…” I pause, thinking about the broken woman who fled that bathroom, the abandoned gifts on our conference table, the systematic way she tried to erase herself from our lives.

“When we find her,” I continue, “we’re going to remind her that she never has to face anything alone again. She’s ours, and we don’t abandon what’s ours.”

Asher cracks his knuckles with a dangerous smile. “Time to bring our girl home.”