“She’s fine.” Henry shifts his weight. “But… she’s worried about someone.”
That softens us even more.
Shay worrying is like the sun blinking—it doesn’t happen unless something is seriously wrong.
Henry exhales, bracing himself. “An old school friend reached out. Someone Shay knew years ago.”
“This friend… she’s in trouble?” Tank asks.
“Yes,” Henry says. “But she’s proud. Too proud to accept help directly, too smart to say what’s actually going on. All we know is she needs a place to lie low for a while.”
He looks at me as if he’s weighing my soul.
It puts something cold and familiar in my gut.
Then he says, “Shay wants her safe. And I’ll do anything for my wife.”
Tank mutters, “Whipped.”
Henry glares. Tank shuts up.
Something stirs in my chest.
Not sympathy. Something older. Sharper. A tug in scar tissue that remembers what it’s like to be too late.
I cross my arms. “And you’re telling me this because…?”
Henry steps closer. “Shay asked me to talk to you specifically.”
My stomach drops. “Henry?—”
“You understand what it feels like to lose someone because you couldn’t get there in time.”
My breath stops halfway through my lungs.
The memory hits hard—the call I didn’t answer in time, the name I heard too late, the truth that I was halfway around the world while she died alone.
Henry lowers his voice. “I know you carry that.”
My jaw tightens. I look away because the alternative is letting him see everything I keep locked down.
“And I know,” he adds, “you won’t ever let it happen to someone else if you can help it.”
There it is. The truth I never say out loud.
I swallow hard. “What do you need?”
Henry doesn’t smile, but his eyes ease. “There’s an auction tomorrow night.”
Tank winces. “Oh, no.”
Tex groans. “Here we go.”
Henry continues, “Shay put her friend in touch with Marlie’s Angels. She wants out of her life, and this is her only way to do it without drawing attention.”
Another cold tug in my chest. I don’t know her, but something in me reacts anyway.
“She needs someone trustworthy to bid on her. Someone safe.”
