The MC President's Forsaken Wife (Zara and Knox) novel Chapter 463

Chapter 227-2

Where is he? scream, my voice cracking, echoing violently off the high ceilings. I step forward, slamming my palm against my father’s mud-stained chest rig. “Dad! Where is Locke? Why is nobody saying anything?”

“Zara… sweetheart, stop, listen to me,” Dad says quietly, his voice dangerously hoarse. He reaches out, grabbing my wrists gently, holding me back as I try to push past him toward the hallway. “You

need to calm down. You need to breathe.”

“Don’t tell me to stay calm!” I shriek, pulling wildly against his grip, my feet slipping on the slick floor. “Where is he? Why isn’t he with you? Why are you covered in blood?”

“Zara, please!” Dad doesn’t let go of my wrists, pulling me in close against his broad chest, burying his face in my hair as I fight against him like a wild animal. “Please, sweetheart. Think of the baby. You’re trembling. You’re going to hurt yourself.”

“I don’t care! Tell me where Locke is!” I thrash against his hold, beating my fists against his thick leather cut, “Is he dead? Tell me right now! Is he dead?”

“We don’t know!” Mayhem snaps suddenly, his voice rough. “Zara, shut up for a second, okay? We

don’t know.”

The words hang in the freezing air, heavy and sharp.

I freeze in my father’s arms, my chest heaving, my heart slamming against my ribs so hard it feels like my sternum is cracking. I pull back far enough to look my father straight in the eyes.

“You don’t know?” I whisper, my voice trembling violently. “What do you mean you don’t f*****g

know? Dad, where is he?”

Dad closes his eyes. He doesn’t say the words. He can’t.

It’s Stitch who steps forward, his voice flat, mechanical, and entirely stripped of emotion.

“The cut went sideways, Zara,” Stitch says softly, his gloved hands resting on his hips. “We took the

transport, we destroyed the lab equipment, but… we took heavy losses. Brick didn’t make it. Spoon… Spoon died on the road.”

A cold wind seems to pass straight through the room.

Brick. The backbone of the club, in so many ways.

Spoon. The sweet, nineteen-year-old kid who always brought Xena extra treats at the clubhouse.

Gone.

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“And Locke?” I whisper, my vision swimming with dark, erratic spots. “What happened to him?”

“He was down in the road with Spoon,” Stitch continues. “He was holding him. When the thermite blew, everything went up in flash and flame. The ridge took heavy fire, and by the time we pushed

down the slope to clear the pit… he was just gone.”

“Gone?” I breathe. “What do you mean gone?”

“He wasn’t there, Zara,” Mayhem says, his knuckles white where he clutches his belt. “His rifle was in the mud. Spoon was there. But Locke… he was just gone. No body, no trail. He was there one

second, and then he was gone.”

The room spins violently.

The floor beneath my feet seems to vanish, turning into a gaping, pitch-black void.

Locke is gone. Vanished into the smoke and dark, leaving nothing behind but his weapon in the

mud.

“No…” I whisper. “No, no, no…”

འག

“Zara, look at me,” Dad begs, his hands shifting up to cup my face, his thumb brushing against my wet cheeks. “We’re going to find him. I swear on my life, I swear on your mother’s grave, we are going to tear this city down brick by brick until we bring him home. But right now, I need you to stay

with me. You can’t break down.”

“He’s gone…” I sob, the realization tearing through my body like a jagged blade. “They took him, Dad… they took him…”

“We don’t know who took him or where he is,” Mayhem says. “But Locke is too tough to die in a ******g mud pit. He’s alive, and he’s fighting right now, do you hear me? He’s fighting to get back to you and that baby.”

My knees give out completely.

The strength simply leaves my legs, my body caving in under the crushing, unbearable weight of the terror. Dad catches me before I hit the floor, lifting me up into his arms as if I weigh nothing at all, carrying me toward the sofa like a broken doll.

“Stitch!” Dad barks, his voice trembling as he lays me down against the soft cushions. “Get over

here! Check her now!”

“I’m already on it,” Stitch says, dropping to his knees beside the sofa. “I got her.”

He instantly pulls a portable monitor and a blood pressure cuff from his trauma kit. His fingers are fast and precise, wrapping the black cuff around my upper arm while Jade runs to the kitchen to

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fetch a glass of water.

Willow kneels right beside my head, sliding her fingers into mine, her warm, calm hand anchoring me as my body enters full hyperventilation.

“Breathe, Zara,” Stitch orders sharply, pressing a small pulse oximeter onto my index finger. “Look

at me. Look at my eyes.”

I force myself to meet his gaze.

“You’re taking short, shallow breaths, and now your heart rate is at one hundred and forty-five. That’s way too high. You’re starving the baby of oxygen. Breathe in for four seconds, and hold it.

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