Then, the man with the black mask lifts a hand, slow and deliberate.
“Six million,” he says. Bored. Unmoved. This has been the plan all along.
The bald man folds.
“Sold,” the auctioneer calls, voice smug with finality. “Six million.”
The room holds its breath. I don’t. I watch the man rise, smooth as silk, and make his way toward the stage. He doesn’t look at McKenzie at first; he looks at the bald man. Smirks. Salutes him.
He knew. He planned this. As he passes, his gaze brushes mine. Just for a second.
Malachi shifts beside me, his spine straightening, hand instinctively reaching to my lower back again. He senses it too,the change in me. The way my breath catches. The way my body tenses under a phantom touch. It slams into me like a gut punch.
Something tightens in my chest. A flicker of familiarity I can’t place. A memory with no name. A heartbeat out of sync. Déjà vu twisted with warning.
I don’t know who he is. But part of me whispers that I do.
We don’t linger. The moment the auction ends and the room starts to shift, we scatter, quiet, calculated. The masks stay on, always on. Anonymity is the currency here, and no one breaks the rules, not unless they want to disappear for real.
Malachi and I move toward one of the side exits, slipping through the corridors with Nash and East following at a distance. Knox and Sloane blend into another group of buyers, their movements smooth and deliberate, already playing their part.
Every hallway is a new opportunity to listen, to watch, to see if any familiar voice or slip of a name cracks open the door we’ve been pushing against for too long.
We don’t talk. Talking now would draw attention. And besides, my head’s still reeling. That man. His voice. That look.
Something about him carved its way under my skin, dragging a shadow behind it I can’t shake. I feel Malachi’s presence beside me, armor at my back. He’s scanning every person we pass, every doorframe, every shadowed corner. Not just for Alice. For his brother. For his sister.
We’ve been chasing Alice Brighton for months, but she’s no longer the only reason we’re here. If Savannah is her kingdom, then it might also be the prison that holds the answers Malachi’s been bleeding to find. The siblings he lost. The night Cornelius tried to save them.
Now we’re here. On their turf. On the edge of a secret empire. We’re not just hunting Alice anymore. We’re hunting ghosts. Something tells me they’ve been waiting for us.
We round the corner into one of the long gallery wings of the estate, where the crowd has started to thin. That’s when I see him. The man from the auction. Still in his mask. Still dangerous. But this time, he’s not alone.
He’s walking with McKenzie. Her silver hair is down, her hand tucked gently in his. There’s something in the way he moves beside her, not possessive. Protective. Like she’s breakable and he’s the only thing holding her together.
She’s speaking softly to him, but I can’t make out the words. They don’t notice us. But I notice them. And I can’t stop watching.
Even as they head for a private exit, even as they disappear into the dark like ghosts slipping through the cracks of the world, I can’t look away.
Because something in my chest tightens painfully. That man? That man is important. And I have no idea why.
Chapter 57
Malachi
Wedon’tfindher.Not Alice. Or my sister. Not my brother. Not even a whisper.
The auction is over; the crowd scattered to the wind, and all we’ve got is the echo of footsteps and a bitter taste in our mouths. Hours of digging through shadows and half-truths, fake smiles and locked doors, all of it leading nowhere.
Now we’re back outside, standing beneath the Spanish moss and flickering gas lamps of Savannah’s historic streets. River Street’s alive with tourists and locals, couples laughing, buskers playing blues on corners, the sweet bite of pralines and beer clinging to the air.
But inside, I’m wrecked. Rage roils low in my gut, coiled and thrumming with the charge of a live wire beneath my skin. Every laugh we pass feels like a slap, every streetlamp another ghost. I taste copper in the back of my throat, metallic and bitter. The grief is quiet, but it seeps into everything, aching in my muscles,pressing behind my eyes, stretching through me with a weight I can’t shake.
Candace stands next to me, her hand brushing mine in search of something real. The warmth of her skin against mine grounds me more than I want to admit. She hasn’t said much since we left. Her shoulders are stiff, eyes sharp and distant. I know that feeling. It’s the same one I carry scar-deep. That numb alertness. That quiet storm. Grief hiding beneath grit.
Knox and Sloane walk a few feet ahead, their body language tight but steady. East and Nash trail just behind us, the four of them giving me space they know I won’t ask for. None of us found anything worth holding onto tonight. Yet none of us are ready to stop.
We make it to the riverfront, the scent of salt and old stone thick in my lungs. It’s loud here. People laugh, glasses clink, neon signs buzz over open doors, but all of it feels far away. I feel trapped behind glass, watching the world go on without us.
