He stalks forward, and I spin around and bolt, laughter echoing. Footsteps thunder behind me as firelight flickers along the staircase. His arm hooks around my waist halfway up the stairs, drawing me against a torso that feels carved from stone. We’re both breathless, laughing like teenagers in love.
The master suite doors close behind us. My last thought before lace and ribbon tangle with lips and hands is two simple words: I’m happy.
Trulyhappy.
It’s the first Christmas morning since my parent’s plane crash that isn’t shadowed by grief. Even the weird little nausea blips can’t deny it.
Whatever danger waits outside this snow-globe day can wait a few more hours, because right now I’m busy being the best present my dark prince ever unwraps.
CHAPTER 23
TERESA
A few days later…
I’m supposed to be finishing Vlad’s Amsterdam deck, but my screen is hijacked by a dozen browser tabs, all of them variations of finding missing people.
Where the hell is Jack? And what the hell happened that night at the gala when he’d run offagain?
I’ve tried old college friends, fake-Facebook aliases, even an ancient LiveJournal handle. Nothing. Jack has managed what some people only dream of—a perfect digital blackout.
I nibble the end of a pen. The office is half-empty as holiday vacations have thinned the staff. Outside the window, the East River carries slabs of gray ice.
My phone pings—unsecure e-mail notification.I click. Subject line—WINTERFOX UPDATE. That’s my PI’s code name for Jack. The message is short:
Found him. Crestline Inn, Room 26.
104 Frelinghuysen Ave, Newark, NJ.
Photos attached.
—Baines
I open the first photo. Jack is standing outside a two-story strip motel the color of cigarette ash, bare bulbs flickering over the walkway. He looks thinner than I remember, hair tucked under a beanie, cigarette hanging from his lips.He looks older, brittle, but like still my brother.
The second photo shows the neon sign with the info from the email. Crestline Inn—Weekly Rates—Free HBO. The kind of place you go when you don’t want to be found.
I feel an ache in the center of my chest. We should be having Sunday dinners, sharing sibling group texts, parents bragging on Facebook. Instead, I’m in a skyscraper fortress while he’s in a roadside purgatory.
I tap open the transit app. Newark Penn Station is an easy ride on NJ Transit, maybe forty minutes tops. From there it’s a short rideshare to Frelinghuysen Avenue. My thumb hovers over the itinerary button. Vlad and Dmitri are both in Midtown. If I tell them, they’ll lock the situation down, probably with guns first and questions never. Jack might bolt, or worse.
He’s still my brother. I have to try.
Decision clicks into place. I shove the laptop into my tote and grab my wool wrap from the back of the chair. The office lights feel accusingly bright as I head for the elevator.
Downstairs, the lobby guard offers a polite “Happy New Year, Ms. Winslow,” and I muster a smile that probably looks like indigestion. Outside, the air is knife-sharp. My breath ghosts as Izip the wrap tight and hurry toward the Fulton subway entrance. Ice crystals sparkle on the pavement like glitter.
I glance at the curb and see my guard detail in a black sedan. The two of them are chatting in the front seat, one of them pointing at something across the street. With their attention diverted, I turn and quickly walk in the opposite direction, hoping they didn’t notice me.
The train station smells of hot pretzels and brake dust. I swipe through the turnstile, snag a timetable, and board a Jersey-bound train. The car is mostly commuters wearing that late-December fatigue, everyone ready for a calendar reset.
I claim a window seat, press my forehead to the glass, and watch Manhattan slide away, the skyline turning to warehouses, warehouses giving way to marshland patched with dirty snow.
I open the photos again. Jack’s shoulders are hunched and he looks nervous. A calendar reminder interrupts.Draft to Vlad by 5 p.m.Not happening.
Another flare of nausea. Third time today.Just nerves, I decide, and focus on the frost blooming across the window as the train barrels toward everything I hope to fix and everything I’m afraid I’ll break.
The rideshare drops me in a cratered parking lot behind Newark’s freight yards—nothing but cracked asphalt and half-frozen puddles reflecting a flickering neon sign. Wind carries the faint reek of diesel and fryer grease in from the highway ramps. Room 26 sits at the far end of the balcony. A plastic wreath droops on the door, red ribbon half shredded from the wind.
