Relief cut through her like ice. He’d thought of everything.
Room 114. The key waited above the visor of a rusted sedan. Inside, the room smelled of smoke and disinfectant. She bolted the door and pressed her back to it. The adrenaline drained, leaving her hollow.
A backpack sat on the bed—clothes, protein bars, cash. Everything practical. Nothing personal.
She emptied her pockets: stolen cash, SUV key.
Then, the old burner.
One bar of signal. Her thumb hovered. Part of her wanted to call him, to hear if any of it had been real.
She powered it off, pried it apart, removed the SIM, and flushed it. As the plastic cracked under her hands, the finality of them resonated.
The bedsprings groaned under her weight. Silence settled, broken only by a dripping faucet.
This wasn’t freedom. It was a quieter kind of cage. The walls no longer held his lies; now they held her choices.
The running was over.
Now came the part no one prepares you for—what comes after you escape.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
He stood in the doorway long after her taillights vanished into the trees. The hardline phone hung uselessly at his side. The silence she left behind knocked the air from his lungs.
The door clicked shut.
Something inside him snapped with it.
His hands shook—unthinkable. Tonio Valachi didn’t shake.
He hadn’t left her.
She left him.
And the betrayal in her eyes was on him.
The silence pressed in, heavy with regret. He braced a hand against the wall, dragging in a breath that tasted like failure.Idiot.He should’ve told her. Now she was in the wind, unprotected, and the last thing she’d seen was his own fury.
A surge of instinct hit him hard—go. Hot-wire a car. Hunt her down. Bring her back.
He was at the door, his hand on the knob, before he froze.
If he chased her now, he’d become exactly what she feared—her jailer. He’d corner her, scare her, prove she had every reason to run. She’d see a predator, not a man trying to protect her.
He dropped the knob like it burned.
The Senator was still out there. If Tonio followed her, he’d lead the threat straight to her. Distance meant divided risk. And she clearly hadn’t disappeared alone—her exit was too fast, too clean.
Wraith.
Tonio swallowed the impulse to chase. The only way to protect her now wasn’t force—it was strategy.
He needed allies. Firepower. He needed his brother.
His phone buzzed. A blocked number. Luc. Always a step ahead.
He answered, his voice gravelly. “What?”
