My breath stutters. The warmth drains from my chest first, then my hands. The phone feels heavier than it should, slick against my palm. My grip tightens until the tendons stand out white beneath the skin.
Cast steps closer, boots creaking on the boards. “Vincent?” His voice sounds far away, like it’s coming through water.
“What?”
“This is why you all have a fucking chip,” he mutters, voice cracking with fury.
My head jerks up. “What?”
He’s already moving—storming toward the hallway that leads downstairs. “Don’t act surprised, Beaumont,” he snaps. “You think I let my family wander around untraceable? After what’s happened before?”
“You chipped us?” I follow him, pulse pounding in disbelief. “Without telling me?”
He spins halfway, eyes wild, breath fogging in the cold that still leaks through the house. “You think I trust the world enoughnotto? You think I trust you enough?”
“You had no right,” I bite out.
“I had every fucking right,” he snaps back, grabbing a flashlight from the shelf and yanking open the basement door. “I’m the one who has to clean up when things like this happen. I’m the one who has every other mafia in the fucking country trying to kill me at any given time.”
Cast yanks the switch on the wall. The bulb sputters once, twice, before flooding the stairwell in a jaundiced glow. Shadows ripple down the concrete, long and thin like reaching hands.The light doesn’t touch the bottom—it just fades into the dark, a warning instead of a welcome.
“The FBI follows Willow’s car, Vincent. They probably monitor your activities too, and I am the only one who can keep us all safe.” Cast continues as he starts down the stairs. “I have every fucking right. I have the only right. Remember that.”
I stop at the threshold. The storm hums faintly behind us, muffled by the thick walls. The air down here feels alive, dense, holding its breath. Shelves line both sides of the stairwell—wood warped with age, crowded with boxes and half-forgotten tools. The scent of old oil seeps from them, sharp enough to sting.
Cast moves fast, boots hammering against the steps, his outline swallowed by the dark. “Get down here,” he calls, voice bouncing off stone. “The tracker’s still live. We can ping it before it goes dark.”
My fingers brush the wall as I follow. Cold grit flakes beneath my palm. The steps creak in protest, dust rising with every footfall. At the bottom, the space opens into a narrow room—a bunker cut into the earth.
Light splashes across a metal table littered with tools. A blade glints. A pair of cuffs. The edge of a chain looped over a hook in the wall.
Cast calls thisstorage.Everyone else knows better.
He crouches beside a dented steel case on the worktable, throws the lid open hard enough to make the hinges scream. Screens flare to life, painting his face in shifting blue light. The hum of the machinery joins the pulse of the storm above—electric, restless.
Lines crawl across the monitors: maps, coordinates, static. Cast’s fingers move fast, tapping, swiping, muttering under his breath. His breath fogs the air in front of him. The screen blinks, then steadies on a single pulsing red dot.
He freezes. The color drains from his face. “Got her.” His voice roughens, the rage stripped out of it, leaving something hollow. “North ridge. Near the riverbed.”
I step closer, the air humming with electricity and dread. “How far?”
He glances up, the light cutting hard across his face. “Too far if we keep arguing,” he says. “Grab your coat.”
15
WILLOW
The gun restson Justin’s knee, angled toward the floor. His finger hovers beside the trigger—close enough to matter. The safety is off. Metal glints beneath the yellow light.
“Straighten your wrist,” he says. “You keep turning it.”
The easel stands a few feet away. My left wrist is tied behind the chair; my right hand is free. The rope is damp and grinds my skin raw when I move. The air reeks of turpentine, oil, and rust from the drain in the center of the floor. It’s cold enough that the paint has begun to stiffen on the palette.
“Start again,” he says. “You’re not seeing me right.”
I dip the brush in red. The color is thick; the first stroke drags unevenly across the canvas. My shoulder throbs.
“Better,” he murmurs. “Now the face.”
