There was no need to say it. A dead man was a dead man. The final act was up to Sam Jarrow.
I looked around the table at these men—my brothers, all of them now, blood or not—and felt something I hadn't felt in years. Not since before Dad disappeared and the world went cold.
Safe.
Not just me, but Hazel. The inn. This fragile, impossible thing we were building together.
"Thank you," I said, the words inadequate but all I had.
Ethan's big hand landed on my shoulder, steady and sure. "Family protects family," he said simply. "Always has. Always will."
Lucas raised his mug. "Welcome to the Dane takeover, little brother. We're loud, we're obnoxious, and we don't leave our people hanging."
I clinked my mug against his, then Ethan's, then Elias's. Through the ceiling, I could hear the soft creak of floorboards—Hazel moving around upstairs, probably actually trying to rest now.
And for the first time in longer than I could remember, I wasn't thinking about ghosts or missions or all the ways the world could go wrong.
I was thinking about the future.
Our future.
And it looked pretty damn good.
24
HAZEL
The rest of the day came in pieces.
When I thought about it later, it was like flipping through a stack of Polaroids someone had shaken but never quite let dry.
Maude shooing me back to bed with strict instructions and a plate of something I barely remembered eating. Gideon’s hand heavy and warm on my hip while I slept for what felt like five minutes and turned out to be hours. Waking up to the low rumble of male voices downstairs and the smell of coffee and sawdust and Maude’s cleaning spray.
I drifted in and out of the kitchen in the afternoon, half participant, half ghost. The brothers took turns making me sit while they argued with each other and Maude about where cameras should go and how much wiring an old house could handle before it started complaining.
Lucas teased Ethan about the porch repairs. Ethan pretended not to care and then spent fifteen minutes running his hand over the new railing, testing its give. Elias tapped things into his phone, the lines around his eyes deepening. Gideonnever got more than a few feet away from me, his hand brushing my back or elbow so often it started to feel like punctuation.
Dinner was chaotic and loud and exactly what my nervous system didn’t know it needed. Maude made shrimp and grits and something green she swore would keep us from scurvy. Lucas tried to steal from Ethan’s plate and nearly lost a finger. Someone told a story about Caleb falling off a yacht that made them all laugh so hard I worried about the structural integrity of the chairs.
For a while, Sam Jarrow existed only on the edges of my mind, like a bad dream you remembered in flashes but could almost convince yourself was just a movie.
By the time the house went quiet, my bones felt hollowed out and heavy at the same time. Exhaustion wove through my muscles like lead wire. Gideon insisted on walking me upstairs even though I could have made it on my own. He checked the locks twice, even though I’d already checked them once. He kissed me slow and sweet and careful at the bedroom door, like I was something he’d waited his whole life to have.
“I’ll be downstairs,” he said. “Don’t worry about anything. If you need me?—”
“I know,” I cut in gently. “Say your name and you’ll materialize like a very attractive ghost.”
His mouth twitched. “Something like that.”
Sleep came fast and hard. No drifting, no tossing. Just a sharp drop into nothingness, like I’d stepped off a ledge and trusted the dark to catch me.
I didn’t dream. Or if I did, my mind was merciful enough not to let me remember.
The shouting ripped me back up.
Not a little noise, not the kind of raised voices you get when a pan boils over or someone loses a game. This was raw, raggedsound—men yelling with their whole bodies. It punched through the house and straight into my chest.
I sat up so fast the room tilled. For a second, I didn’t know what time it was or where I was or why my heart was already sprinting, but the next shout nailed everything in place.
