Two lines typed in black ink. Nothing special yet completely earth-shattering. $5 million to buy her back Followed by a twenty-six-digit number of some sort. That was it. No instructions or explanation. Just one demand and five lives that would never be the same. I’d seen Eason broken and shattered. I’d seen him bleeding and blanketed by fire. I’d seen him hollow and emotionally demolished. But as he fell to his knees, his hands shaking, the unimaginable setting in, the man I loved was obliterated. She was gone.
