Derek
Derek Blackwell had been awake for thirty‑five hours. He looked at his phone and groaned. Make that thirty‑six. Thirty‑six miserable waking hours where all he had accomplished was losing things. Things he lo—
Things that mattered deeply to him.
Well… some of them.
He was too frustrated and sleep‑deprived to let that particular thought fully form.
He stood in the centre of his home office, the lights off, the curtains drawn, the only light coming from the faint glow of the monitors with the footage of Josephine that his team had pulled, now paused. The room felt like a tomb — cold, airless, suffocating — and Derek stood in the middle of it like a man carved out of stone.
His jaw was locked so tightly it ached, but he welcomed the pain. His hands were clenched at his sides,
