Her voice cracks with grief. “Dad was barely conscious. Gray. Sweating. Confused. I’ve worked enough with vets to know when organs are shutting down. And he was shutting down.”
Her eyebrows pinch. “Then, he grabbed my wrist. Hard.” Her fingers curl as if she’s remembering the pressure. “He made me lean close and whispered numbers. Long strings of numbers. Told me to memorize them. Told me not to write them down. I didn’t understand. I didn’t want to understand. But I memorized them.”
My fists curl before I can stop them. A dying man shouldn’t have to spend his last breath protecting his kid from his own household.
Sadie glances at me, reading how tightly I’m holding myself. I force my hands open. She needs to know I’m listening, that I’m here for her.
“When I left the room, Clarissa was waiting in the hall,” Sadie continues. “She asked what my father said. Not how he was doing. Not if he was in pain. Just what he said.”
“I told her he needed real medical help. Specialists. Something was wrong. Clarissa smiled and said grief was making me imagine things. I realized then how alone I was. How much power Clarissa must have already claimed. How fast.”
“That night, something felt wrong.” She draws her knees up and rubs her palms on her leggings. “I kept replaying my father’s symptoms. The new staff. The way Clarissa looked at me. Like she was already calculating how to remove me.”
My jaw hardens. If Clarissa poisoned him—and I’m already betting she did—I’ll make damn sure she never gets close to Sadie again.
“I tried to sleep, but I couldn’t.” She shakes her head. “I kept thinking about the numbers he made me memorize. I didn’t want them. I didn’t want any of it.”
She swallows, the movement tight and painful. “And then my phone buzzed.”
She lifts her gaze to mine, and for the first time since she started talking, fear cracks through her composure. “Unknown number. No greeting. Just a message. ‘Your father is dead. She’s sending men to get the numbers from you. Get out now.’”
Cold sweeps through my body.
“I didn’t believe it at first,” Sadie continues quietly. “I thought it was a prank. Or a threat. But then another message came. ‘She won’t ask nicely. She won’t stop.’”
I force air into my lungs. “Jesus, Sadie…”
“And the final message. ‘Keys in the black town car. Cash in the trunk. They’re coming. GO!’ I didn’t know who sent them,”she whispers. “Still don’t. Someone inside that house, I think. Someone who was trying to help me.”
She wraps her arms around her knees as if holding in the memory. “I opened my door to leave, but two guards were already coming down the hallway with guns. And behind them…” Her breath catches. “Clarissa. Smiling. Like she’d already won.”
Every muscle in my body tenses.
“They didn’t see me,” Sadie says. “I slammed the door, locked it, and ran for the balcony. Climbed down the trellis.” She lets out a breathless, humorless laugh. “Vet school should offer a course on adrenaline-assisted stupidity.”
She looks up then, right at me, like she’s stepping out onto ice that might crack under her weight. “And I ran,” she whispers. “I ran from state to state. Shelter to shelter. Job to job. I tried to vanish on my own. Changed names, burned phones. I never stayed more than a few days. Not until I got to Montana. But Clarissa knows I have those numbers. If she finds me…”
Sadie’s shoulders lift like she’s trying to hold in her whole life. The fire paints warm color across her cheeks, but she looks pale beneath it. She curls inward, as if making herself smaller might make the memory quieter.
“I thought about going to the Feds,” she says, voice low. “Tip lines. Anonymous hotlines. I even emailed an agent listed on a public corruption task force. No one replied.”
She shakes her head. “And if they did trace anything back to me… I was terrified Clarissa would know before they did.”
That tracks. Criminal organizations have reach. Bureaucracies have backlogs.
“I couldn’t risk walking into a field office,” she continues. “If I was wrong, if they were compromised, or if someone recognized me, I wouldn’t make it out. They’d hand me right back to her, Wyatt.”
Her eyes lift to mine. Wide. Clear. Exhausted.
“And what would I say?” she whispers. “‘Hi, I’m the estranged daughter of a man who built half his life on bribes and offshore accounts, and here are some numbers I memorized while he was dying in front of me’? They’d think I was unhinged. Or involved.”
She’s not wrong.
“I didn’t want to be arrested,” she murmurs. “Not when I’ve spent my whole life trying to be nothing like them. I just… wanted to disappear clean. Let whatever storm Clarissa stirred up crash without me in the middle of it.”
Her gaze drops to her hands.
“And then,” she says softly, “I saw Shay’s wedding photo in an old newspaper in a library. It felt like…” She searches for a word. “…providence.”
