Another pause, heavy and incredulous.
“What? Shut the fuck up. Where are they?” Adam demanded.
Noah frowned. “I don’t know. I’m sure in Matty’s room?”
“Which is where?” Adam asked, voice dropping that half-octave that made the hairs on Noah’s neck rise.
He knew that tone, Adam was up to something.
“I have no idea,” Noah admitted. “Why?”
There was a sharp crackle, and then the primary comms channel came alive, Adam’s voice echoing through every headset across the estate. “Okay, listen up, hunters. Side mission: somewhere in the mansion, two Spideys are getting busy. If you find them and get proof, I’ll give the first person to bring me evidence ten grand.”
The response was instant chaos, laughter, cursing, the sound of boots pounding on tile as hunters changed course.
“Wait,” Aiden said over the comms, his voice half-shocked, half-delighted. “Wasn’t my brother dressed as Spider-Man?”
“Wait,” Arsen said. “Wasn’t our Lake also dressed like Spider-Man?”
“Holy shit,” Avi said. “Do you think they exchanged names or is it an anonymous hookup?”
“Oh, God,” Asa added. “If they don’t exchange names, let’s all vow never to tell them who the other person was. We’ll just wait for the awkward reveal at the Christmas party.”
“Are you telling me that my brother is somewhere in the house hooking up with Lake?” Aiden asked again, his tone teetering between scandalized and impressed.
Noah, switched to the private channel. “Adam,” Noah hissed, pinching the bridge of his nose. His pulse spiked with equal parts exasperation and reluctant amusement. “We’re in the middle of a mission.”
He switched to public comms, tone firm. “Guys, can we all focus on the task at hand?”
The laughter lingered like static, white noise under the rising tension. The hunt wasn’t over, but for one strange heartbeat, the Mulvaneys were exactly what they always were: a dysfunctional, ridiculous, unstoppable family.
“Hunting down some old lady isn’t a mission, it’s charity work,” Adam said over the open channel, his tone annoyingly casual. “I’m just trying to make things a bit more exciting. I’m sure Matty’s in the family wing. You don’t think Thomas would’ve stuffed him in the children’s wing, do you? Aiden, where’s your brother’s room?”
“Hey, Adam. Fuck you,” Aiden said flatly.
“Damn, it wasn’t bad enough you fucked our dad, now you want me too? You’re the reason our family tree is starting to resemble a Christmas wreath,” Adam taunted, a pure wicked grin in his voice.
“Okay, screw that old lady,” Aiden shot back. “The first person to bring me my brother’s head gets ten grand.”
“Wait, there’s a cash prize?” Nico asked immediately, interest piqued.
“Can we allfocus, please?” Noah begged.
“Yeah, yeah,” Adam grumbled, not even pretending to sound sorry.
Noah rolled his eyes and inhaled deeply through his nose. “Comms check,” he said, voice firm as he forced himself to refocus. The edge of the metal console was cool beneath his palms, grounding him as the war room buzzed around him, a heartbeat made of static and tech. The monitors painted his face in ghost-light blues and reds, flickering across his skin like lightning through deep water. The hum of three laptops filled the silence like background music.
Lola did a quick perimeter report, her tone crisp. “Perimeter secure. All exits monitored.”
“Children’s wing?” Noah asked.
“Locked down,” Calliope confirmed, pulling up the feed. The screen flickered to reveal Ever sitting cross-legged on the floor, reading to a cluster of pajama’d kids, his expressive hands slicing through the air with the kind of commitment usually reserved for Broadway. Arlo and Shiloh flanked him, solemn as priests, as if the fate of the world rested on the ending ofThe Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
Cricket and Charlie handed out coloring books like tiny enforcers keeping order, while Sadie and Dexter sprawled among the children pretending—badly—to be furniture. Noah’s two newest dachshunds slept curled beneath the massive Halloween tree, matching hot-dog costumes snug around their little bellies, paws twitching as they chased ghosts in their dreams.
“They’re fine. Blissfully unaware,” Calliope said softly, and for just a second her voice cracked through the armor.
Noah allowed himself exactly one second—just one—to breathe. Then the moment was gone. “Hunters?” he said, shifting back into command.
