Chapter 67

It was just past midnight when they finally returned to the apartment. The hour sat heavy on the city—too late for the bustling hum of life, too early for the slow crawl of morning. The streets outside had gone quiet, the elevator ride up had been hushed and slow, and every step Beth took left a trail of pain stitched down her spine. Her body ached in places she hadn't even known could ache. Her shoulder was immobilized, cradled in a hospital sling that pressed tightly against her ribs. She could still feel the ghost of the ER fluorescent lights on her skin, the antiseptic clinging to her like a second, unwanted layer.

She was exhausted. Raw. Disoriented. But the moment they stepped into the hallway, something pierced the haze.

A silence that didn't feel like rest.

It was the kind of quiet that clung too tight. The kind that knew something you didn't. Sterile light buzzed above them, flickering slightly, casting long, clinical shadows across the polished floor. The hallway was exactly as they had left it. Nothing seemed out of place.

Except the door.

Beth's feet froze mid-step. Her pulse slammed against her ribs.

The front door of their apartment wasn't closed.

Not all the way.

It sat ajar—barely an inch. A thin sliver of shadow between door and frame. Not enough to stand out to anyone else. Not enough to trip the hallway motion sensors or catch a neighbor's eye. But Beth knew that door like she knew the rhythm of her daughter's laugh. She knew the exact amount of pressure it took to make the lock catch, the sound it made when it clicked shut, the way it resisted just slightly when the latch engaged.

She had locked that door.

She always locked that door.

Her breath caught in her throat, sharp and sudden.

The moment stretched. Her heart stuttered once and then began to pound, hard and uneven, her body lurching from exhausted fog to battle readiness in the space between heartbeats. Her vision tunneled. Her scalp prickled. The air around her thinned to a pressure vacuum. Every instinct screamed at her.

Something's wrong. Something's very, very wrong.

She reached out blindly, her fingers brushing Changbin's forearm as she whispered, "Changbin."

The single word fractured in her throat.

He had been right beside her, every step, his hand a steady anchor on the small of her back, careful not to jostle the sling or the fragile, throbbing mess of her right shoulder. He'd been steady all night—through the fall, through the ER, through the panicked aftermath. A tether. A shield. A breath of safety in a world that had started to tilt. But the second he heard her voice—that voice, sharp-edged and clipped, low with warning and old muscle memory from a time when danger meant orders, not guesses—he stilled.

He didn't ask her to repeat herself. He didn't question it.

He simply followed her gaze.

And then he saw the door.

Beth didn't wait for confirmation. Her body reacted before her mind could form words. She surged forward, every nerve in her body detonating as adrenaline poured into her bloodstream like gasoline catching a match. Her shoulder screamed. Her ribs shrieked. Her whole side lit up in agony. But she didn't stop. She couldn't. The pain was a background hum now, swallowed by the cold, animal fear that took over when you were a mother and something wasn't right.

Her legs moved like they had in combat—muscle and instinct, speed over form. She reached the door in three wild, uneven strides. Her breath choked in her chest. Her heart pounded so loud it drowned out everything else.

She slapped her palm against the wood and shoved hard.

The door creaked open with a soft, almost reluctant groan.

The sound was too gentle.

Too normal.

Too wrong.

What met her wasn't light, or warmth, or the faint murmur of bedtime cartoons playing softly in the background. It was darkness. Heavy and absolute. A darkness that didn't sleep—it watched. The kind of dark that pressed in at the edges and whispered you're too late.

There was no glow from the kitchen. No spill of lamplight from Cassie's room. No hum from the fridge. No rustle of sheets. Just silence—thick and unnatural, like the apartment had swallowed its own heartbeat.

Beth's throat locked.

"Cassie?" she called, voice breaking in the middle of the word.

No answer.

Her pulse jackknifed into panic. She shoved the door wider with her good hand and staggered forward, barely aware of Changbin's steps behind her, the soft creak of the floor under his weight sounding miles away.

"Hana?" he called, sharp now. Alert. His voice cut through the dark, not with fear—but with readiness. A man trained to fight, bracing for what he couldn't yet see. "Cassie—where's—"

He stopped mid-sentence.

Just stopped.

Beth's eyes snapped toward where his gaze had landed—and the world tilted out from beneath her feet.

Hana was on the floor.

Crushed awkwardly into the side of the rug near the sofa, one arm thrown out at an unnatural angle, palm up like she'd reached for something that never came. Her face was turned sideways, half-shadowed by the couch. Her cheek was slick with blood. A dark smear trailed from her temple to the floor, vivid against the pale hardwood. Her mouth was slightly open. Her eyes were closed. Her chest—

Wasn't moving.

For one heartbeat, Beth forgot how to breathe.

"HANA!" she screamed, the sound shattering the quiet like a grenade.

She dropped before Changbin could catch her, landing hard on her knees. Pain exploded up her legs. Her injured shoulder jolted forward, a blinding pulse of fire ripping through the joint and up her spine—but it didn't matter. She didn't even register the scream that tore out of her throat. Her whole body moved on autopilot. She collapsed forward onto her good hand, her breath ragged, one hand reaching for Hana's wrist.

It was slick. Warm. Wet.

Beth fumbled, her fingers shaking violently, pressing into the skin below the thumb. Searching.

Please. Please. Please don't be cold.

There.

A pulse.

Faint. Thready. Uneven.

But there.

"She's breathing," Beth gasped, her voice hoarse and shaking. "Changbin—she's alive—she's—"

But her words caught mid-sentence.

Because the rest of the apartment was still dark.

And Cassie was nowhere to be seen.

Beth's head whipped toward the couch. Empty. No small body wrapped in a fuzzy blanket. No sign of Gomi the turtle clutched in tiny hands. The stingray plushie was on the coffee table. The blue Crocs were still by the door.

Cassie was gone.

Beth's chest seized. Her stomach dropped. Her mind emptied.

Gone.

"CASSIE!" Beth screamed, the name ripping from her throat like it had claws. Her legs moved before her mind could think, bolting forward in a wild stumble that didn't feel like her own body at all. She crashed through the hallway door, using her hip to shove it open, pain lancing through her side as her shoulder jostled inside the sling, but she didn't stop. She couldn't. Her heart was a sledgehammer. Her vision blurred from panic and the residual sting of tears as she lunged toward the bedrooms.

Light flared in quick bursts as she hit each switch with shaking hands. She flung open doors with such force they banged off the walls. Closet—empty. Bathroom—silent. Guest room—dark and cold and wrong. She dropped to her knees and scanned under the bed, breathing in shallow, ragged bursts as dust clung to her throat and bile climbed up the back of her mouth.

"CASSIE, BABY—IT'S MOMMY!" she cried, voice cracking open at the seams. "PLEASE—ANSWER ME—SAY SOMETHING—WHERE ARE YOU?!"

No small footsteps. No sleepy murmur. No reply.

Just silence.

Changbin's voice echoed behind her, sharp now, no longer steady—his panic starting to match hers. She heard his footsteps pound through the kitchen, the sound of doors opening, drawers slamming, a rising tension in every motion.

"Cassie! Hana!" he called, breathless. "Cassie, baby, where are you?!"

Still nothing.

Then—his voice again.

Lower. Dreadful.

"Beth."

She turned sharply, stumbling back toward the living room. She shook her head before he could speak, before she even saw his face, because her body already knew what her heart refused to accept.

"No," she said, her voice cracking. "No. No, no, no—she was here. She had to be here. She was here. Hana wouldn't have—she wouldn't—she was with her—"

"She's not here," Changbin said, his voice barely above a whisper. "And Hana didn't fall. Someone did this to her."

Beth's knees gave out. She caught herself with one hand on the hallway wall, fingers splayed and shaking so hard they scraped against the paint. Her stomach was turning inside out, and her ears rang with the kind of roaring silence that only came when terror had no place to go.

"Call the police," she said, or maybe begged. "Please. We—we need to find her."

Changbin was already on it.

His fingers trembled against the screen, but his voice snapped like a whip through the air—precise, rapid-fire Korean, clean and urgent: home invasion, unconscious adult, missing child. He gave the address like a soldier reporting coordinates. Requested immediate dispatch.

Beth barely heard it.

She stumbled back into the living room, heart in her throat, her eyes darting like searchlights. The couch was empty. The small corner where Cassie kept her blanket fort—undisturbed. No plushies on the floor. The TV was off. The room was frozen in place, like a photo taken seconds after something terrible.

But no Cassie.

The silence was louder now. Deafening. And in it—

A low groan.

Beth dropped to her knees instantly, scrambling toward Hana's body, her good hand cradling the younger woman's head. Hana's face was pale and damp, her breathing shallow, blood dried into her hairline in a dark, ugly crust.

"Hana," Beth gasped, her hands trembling. "Hana—it's me, it's Beth, you're safe. Just—don't move, okay? Just breathe."

Hana stirred, eyes fluttering open—unfocused. Confused. Pain clouded every blink.

"She..." Her voice was so faint it barely made it past her lips. "She was here. I gave her a snack. She wanted the pink gummies."

Beth's chest constricted.

"What happened?" she asked, panic bubbling again.

"I don't know." Hana's eyes slipped half-shut. "There was a knock. The doorbell rang. I thought it was a delivery—a package maybe. I opened the door, and he was there. A man. Foreign accent. Said he had flowers for you."

Beth's stomach turned to ice.

"I—I think he hit me," Hana whispered, tears mixing with rain and blood on her cheek. "I don't remember after that. I'm sorry—I don't remember—"

"Did he take her?" Beth asked, voice cracking in desperation. "Hana—did you see him take her?"

Hana winced, eyes squeezing shut. "I don't—know. I don't remember. I didn't see—"

Changbin dropped beside them, one arm gently brushing Beth's uninjured side. "Police are coming," he said quickly. "We need to keep her still until they get here."

Beth nodded numbly, but her body was already slipping into motion again. Her mind was racing, screaming behind her eyes. She was a thousand steps ahead and five seconds behind all at once.

The door hadn't been broken. There were no signs of a struggle. No overturned furniture. No shattered glass. No screaming. No sound of resistance or escape.

Just quiet.

Just stillness.

Just gone.

Cassie was gone.

Beth's mind couldn't hold it. Couldn't fit the shape of that reality into anything that made sense. Her baby—her small, sweet, fiercely curious little girl who collected sea creature stickers and whispered facts about whale sharks in her sleep. Her daughter who fell asleep to documentaries and drew smiling octopuses on Post-its and stuck them to the fridge so she wouldn't forget to be brave.

Gone.

Her lungs seized. Her breath stuck fast behind her ribs, and for a second she thought she might vomit. Then a memory slid into place like a blade through bone—the message.

The warning.

The countdown.

"Henry," she whispered, her voice breaking on the syllable. "He said two days. He told me—he told me he'd be here. It's been twenty-four hours."

The realization hit her like a gunshot to the chest.

Beth shot to her feet, a scream barely choked back behind clenched teeth. The room spun hard left, a swirl of pain and panic. Her shoulder flared so violently it felt like fire under her skin, but she ignored it. She ran—moved like she wasn't broken, like her body was still under her command, propelled by sheer maternal fury.

She slammed into the hallway closet and yanked the door open. Her hand dove into the filing cabinet before the drawers had even settled. She flung back the top one with so much force that folders spilled sideways and half a stack of receipts flew into the air. Her fingers were clumsy with tremors as she clawed into the back of the drawer, tearing open the space where she kept the most important things—the passports. The court documents. The emergency cash envelope. A second flash drive with custody paperwork scanned and sealed.

Empty.

The entire compartment had been gutted.

"No," Beth gasped, voice hoarse.

She spun, dropped to her knees, and dug into the next drawer down—yanking out Cassie's purple folder, flinging aside the preschool drawings and gold star report cards. She reached for her own file box, the one with her green-card documentation and visa paperwork, the one Cassie had stuffed with animal stickers and labeled with glitter pen: Mommy's Important Stuff.

The folder was there.

But her passport was not whole.

It had been sliced through, deliberately and savagely. Pages were torn. The photo page was bent in half and slit straight through the middle. Her visa had been clipped. The back cover peeled and torn open like someone had tried to make it invalid. Not just hidden—destroyed. Dismantled with intent.

Beth stared.

Then the floor dropped out from under her.

She crumpled to her knees, the ruined passport falling from her hand like dead weight.

"Her passport is gone," she said. Her voice didn't sound like her own. It was empty. Hollow. A body without air. "Mine's been destroyed."

From across the apartment, Changbin's voice cut through the rising static in her ears. "What?"

Beth swallowed, hard and sharp. "He took it. He planned this. He waited until we were gone. Waited until you were both with me—until Hana was alone. He came and took her. He had someone do this. He has her passport."

Changbin swore—loud, raw, a vicious string of Korean as he scrubbed a hand down his face, the wet strands of his hair sticking to his forehead. He looked ready to tear through walls, eyes dark with rage and helplessness.

A low moan came from the living room. Hana.

Beth scrambled back across the hardwood, pain shooting through her every joint, but she forced it aside. She pressed a towel to Hana's forehead with shaking hands, the cloth soaked quickly with blood and rainwater and sweat. Her vision blurred again—tears this time, clouding the edges of the world.

"You didn't do anything wrong," she whispered, brushing damp hair from Hana's face. "You didn't fail her. This isn't your fault. I swear to you."

Hana's lips trembled. Her voice barely carried. "I let her go."

"No." Beth shook her head, fiercely now, because she had to believe it—because Hana couldn't carry this weight. "You were attacked. You didn't let her go. He took her."

Sirens began to rise in the distance—long, climbing, insistent.

Changbin moved toward the door without hesitation, his voice already raised in command. He waved the police up the hallway, barked into his phone, coordinated like he'd been born to it—calm on the surface but vibrating underneath with barely leashed violence.

Seconds later, two uniformed officers and a plainclothes investigator burst through the door, already mid-radio. Their boots tracked rain across the hardwood, the cold air from the hallway cutting through the apartment like a knife. Beth forced herself to rise. Her whole body protested. Her legs trembled from adrenaline. Her injured arm throbbed beneath the sling with every heartbeat. But she stood anyway—straight-backed, fists clenched, breath shaking but controlled. Like boot camp. Like combat. Like she was walking into fire.

"You need to issue an international missing child alert," she said, her voice sharp and crisp, riding the edge of fury. "Her name is Cassidy Anders. She's five years old. American citizen, born in Texas. We have permanent residence visas. Her passport is missing."

The plainclothes officer stepped forward with a notepad, flipping it open, pen already in hand. Beth didn't give him time to ask questions.

"Her father is Henry Anders. He's American. White male. Six foot two. Mid-thirties. Brown hair, blue eyes. He flew into Korea within the last week—I don't know what flight, but I know he's here. He isn't supposed to have contact with her. The court ruling barred him from visitation. He filed an appeal, it was denied, and then he threatened me. He said he was coming. He said two days."

She sucked in a breath, but it hitched, caught behind the pressure in her throat.

"It's been twenty-four hours."

Her voice cracked—split right down the middle with grief and rage—but she didn't stop.

"He has her passport," she ground out. "You have to assume he's taking her out of the country. And you have to stop him right now."

One of the officers blinked, startled by the force of her words. Another already had his radio pressed to his mouth, calling for airport surveillance, immigration alerts, exit monitoring. The investigator began cross-checking details with Changbin, who was rattling off times and names in sharp, rapid Korean.

The room around her blurred. Police were everywhere. They were photographing the entryway, dusting the doorknobs, swabbing for fingerprints. Someone had lifted Hana onto the couch and was gently bandaging her head. Another officer was scrolling through camera logs from the building's hallway security feed. A younger woman approached Beth with a tablet in one hand, asking if she had a photo of her daughter for the alert.

Beth shoved her phone into the woman's hands, her thumb already unlocking the gallery.

"Take it," she said, voice tight. "Take everything. Just find her."

She didn't wait to hear the reply. She turned—snapped, really—toward Changbin, who hadn't moved more than three steps away since they'd found the blood on the floor. His eyes hadn't left her. They were wide and stricken, and under it all, blazing with the same helpless rage that was devouring her.

"Drive me to the airport."

He blinked. "What?"

"Incheon," she said. "Now. If he's taking her out of the country, he's flying through there. I'm not waiting for an update. I'm not standing here while they process forms and download footage. He's not taking my daughter and getting on a plane."

"Beth..." He stepped forward, hands slightly raised like he might try to calm her, reason with her. "The police already contacted immigration. They're locking down terminals. They'll catch him—"

"What if they don't?" Her voice broke, full of breathless fury. "What if he slips past them? What if they're too slow? What if he's already boarding while we're still standing here?"

She was trembling. Not from fear anymore—but from rage. From fire. From a depth of maternal fury that didn't know how to wait.

"If he's there," she said, "I want to be the one to stop him."

Changbin didn't say another word.

He didn't argue. Didn't hesitate.

He just nodded. Once. Sharp. "Get your coat."

Beth didn't change. She didn't check her appearance or repack her purse. She didn't even switch shoes. She grabbed the first jacket she could reach—thin, too cold for the weather, shoulder aching under the sling—and followed Changbin to the elevator, eyes dark with fury, pulse pounding in her throat.

They didn't speak as they ran through the parking garage. The rain had thinned to mist now, turning the concrete slick and the night air sharp in her lungs. Their footsteps echoed like gunfire against the walls. Beth slid into the passenger seat of the black SUV Changbin had driven to the ER earlier. The leather was still damp. The scent of antiseptic clung to her from the hospital, mixing now with rainwater, engine heat, and the metallic tang of panic.

Changbin slammed the driver's door shut and started the engine. The moment the headlights flicked on, he threw the car into reverse and peeled out of the parking space, tires screeching slightly against the concrete.

The city blurred past in streaks of wet neon and headlights. Stoplights bled red into the windshield. Streetlamps smeared into white arcs across the dash. The roads were slick with runoff, but Changbin drove like he didn't care—like the only thing that mattered was getting there in time. One hand gripped the wheel in a white-knuckled vice. The other hovered near the gearshift, twitching every time she shifted in her seat.

Beth sat forward, braced against the door, her sling digging into her ribs, heart in her throat.

She wasn't praying.

She was preparing.

Because if he was there—if he was really there, if Henry had the audacity to stand in an airport with her child in his arms and a fucking boarding pass in his hand—Beth wasn't going to beg.

She was going to tear him to pieces.