His Red Carnation (Forbidden Blooms #1)

34. Callan

34

Callan

My ears rang from the crash, the chaos still spinning in my head as I tried to piece together what had just happened. The scent of burning rubber filled my lungs, but I forced myself to focus. Sloane.

My head spun, but my body moved on instinct. I glanced at the passenger seat—empty. Sloane was gone.

“Ana!” I whipped around, barely catching a glimpse of her struggling to push open the backseat door. She stumbled out, her hand pressed to her forehead, looking around, dazed and disoriented.

“What happened?” she mumbled, her voice shaky as she stared at the wreckage, still trying to piece it together.

I couldn’t focus on her right now—Sloane was missing. Panic consumed me as I staggered out of the SUV, my muscles screaming in pain, but the fear swallowed everything else.

“Sloane!” I yelled, my voice hoarse, searching the deserted road and the tree line. Ana wobbled beside me, her expression lost and confused. She kept muttering, “What happened? Where’s Sloane?”

The emptiness around us was suffocating, and the cold realization hit me hard—someone took her.

“Someone—someone fucking took Sloane, Ana. She was just here. She’s gone,” I stammered, my voice shaking, feeling like my heart was splitting in two.

Ana blinked, still trying to catch up, her face pale. “What? What do you mean? How…?”

What the fuck just happened? My mind raced, trying to piece it together. Then it hit me— those two cars we’d passed just a few miles back. Dark SUVs, just like mine. I hadn’t thought much of them at the time, but now it made sense. There was only one person who’d go to these lengths, someone who wanted to hurt not just Jake, but me, too.

“Sarah. It was fucking Sarah,” I growled, the realization burning through me as I rushed back to the SUV to search for my phone.

“What? No,” Ana muttered, disbelief creeping into her voice, as if she couldn’t accept that my psychotic ex would actually do this. But I knew her. I knew what she was capable of.

I tore through the car, my mind spinning with one thought: find Sloane. My hands shook as I shoved aside everything in my path, looking for my phone. This wasn’t just about getting help—this meant calling the fucking piece of shit who did this.

She wanted me to reach out, to panic. She fucking got what she wanted. But she wasn’t going to win. Not this time.

I found my phone, my heart pounding as I dialed the number. My fingers trembled, rage building in my chest.

“That didn’t take long,” Sarah answered with a devious laugh.

“What did you do?” I spit out. “What the fuck did you do? Where is she?”

Ana was already screaming into the phone next to me. “ ?Qué co?o has hecho? ?Maldita zorra!”

Sarah’s laugh echoed through the line, cold and taunting, as if she was savoring every second of our desperation.

“God, that woman drives me nuts!” Sarah spit out. “Tell her to shut the fuck up if she ever wants to see her daughter again.”

I was trembling with rage. “Shut the fuck up, Sarah. Where is she? What do you want?”

Ana was talking on her phone now, presumably to Jake or hopefully the fucking secret service.

Sarah’s laugh cut through the line again, sharper this time. “Oh, Callan, always trying to be the hero,” she sneered, her voice dripping with mockery. “It’s cute, really. Like you’ve got any control over this.”

She paused, letting her words sink in before continuing, her tone turning vicious. “What do I want? I want you to feel as powerless as I did. I want you to watch everything you care about crumble. And that sweet little thing you’re so desperate to save?” She chuckled. “She’s just the start. You think this is about Sloane? No, baby, this is about you. I want you to hurt as much as I did.”

I gripped the phone tighter, the urge to break something almost overwhelming. Ana was still speaking urgently into her phone, but my focus was locked on Sarah, every word of hers stoking the fire burning inside me.

I gripped the phone tighter. “You think you’ve won, Sarah?” My voice was low, steady, barely holding back the rage. “You’re nothing but desperate, clinging to whatever you can to feel powerful. But you’ve already fucking lost—long before you pulled this shit.”

There was silence on the other end for a moment before Sarah’s cold laugh returned, though I could tell my words had hit a nerve.

“Okay, Callan. Let’s see who’s really won after I tear your precious girl apart.” She hung up.

“Goddammit!” I shouted, nearly hurling my phone to the ground, but stopped short—this was my only connection to Sloane.

“Secret Service is en route,” Ana said, her voice steady with the phone still to her ear. “Did you catch anything we can use to track her?”

“Two black SUVs like mine. I—I don’t know which direction,” I stammered, my voice breaking as hopelessness swelled in my chest.

I stared down at my phone, my mind scrambling for answers. There had to be a way to get to Sarah. If all she wanted was me, I could use that. I began pacing, thoughts racing, a whirlwind of desperate ideas spinning through my head…