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“That was a teddy bear his dad bought him after his mum left. His dad loved him, but he wasn’t present. He worked a lot. Xander did everything he could to make his mother love him, but it was never enough for her. She… abused him. The teddy was green. He was obsessed with it. Just like the colour. It was his one source of comfort throughout those days of hell in his foster house.” He swallows. “One day, his foster parent destroyed it completely. He shut down after that. He wasn’t himself. For years I tried to help him find a way to cope. Slowly, he started blocking out that part of his life. That colour. It helped. And then you showed up.”

“But I don’t understand what I have to do with it.”

“You were wearing green, Cam. Your eyes are green. He found his comfort in human form.”

A tear rolls down my cheek at all the information I needed confirmation on.

“But why green?”

He shrugs. “He had a misdiagnosis as a child. They said it was ADHD. It wasn’t. Xander… He obsesses; he doesn’t fixate. I guess that’s what his brain chose when he was young. Until he had to start blocking it out and started obsessing over”—he opens his arms, showcasing the house—“this. Drugs. Dealing. He started getting tattoos to cope with the pain of losing the only parent figure that loved him. It was an extra distraction.”

Everything in my body fills with sadness and realisation.

Xander thinks he doesn’t know how to love, so he loves in the only way he knows how. He did everything he could to keep me to himself. He was scared I was going to leave him.

“But what might’ve started as a trigger clearly evolved into… love.” He smiles at me.

It feels like there’s a tonne of bricks weighing down on my throat. If only he had told me about this sooner. If only he had opened up sooner.

None of this would’ve happened.

“I just didn’t know he would get this bad when we sent him away. I’ll regret that for the rest of my life,” he sighs, his blue eyes fixed on the fire.

“Sir, we found him.”

We both stand, and I knock my glass of wine over on the plush, white carpet in the process.

But none of that matters right now.

“Stay here,” Jacques says as he throws on a leather jacket.

“What? No way. I’m coming.”

“It’s not safe. We don’t know who could be tracking him. We don’t even know what’s happened to him.”

“I don’t care, Jacques! I’m coming with you.” My voice is all determination.

He sighs. “Fine, let’s go.”

Chapter 48

Camila

We pull up to an alleyway, a single red light shining down on an open door in the depleted area.

We step out of the car, guards following closely behind us. I don’t feel the frigid air; my body is running on the hope that we’ve finally found Xander.

“This is where he is?” I ask, unsure.

We speed-walk over to the door and step into a dark corridor. Ezra feels around the walls for a light switch, but there isn’t one. Pulling out his phone, Jacques turns on a flashlight, revealing old, dirty carpets and graffiti.

We continue throughout the corridors, my heart pounding out of my chest with every second we don’t see him.

“This is some sort of drug house,” Jacques grimaces.

I swallow away the unwanted memories. But they don’t resurface like they usually do.

My stomach plummets as there’s no sight of Xander anywhere here. I realise that the floor is saturated with fresh, sticky blood. And it’s covering the entire building as we meander through it.