Maybe hope.
I flagged it, coded it, shoved it into the “pursue immediately” file.
Goblin nudged my thigh, sensing the shift. “Yeah, buddy,” I murmured. “I know. It’s something.”
My phone buzzed on the desk.
Lunchbox
Fish ready in 20. Grace wants you to taste-test the garlic butter because she says yours is better than mine. Lying, obviously, but come eat anyway.
Despite everything, I snorted. I didn’t cook, something Gracie knew well, and the closest I came to making garlic butter was just stirring up Lunchbox’s.
Then another message came in.
Grace
AB? Come out when you can? No rush. Just… want to see you.
My heart hit the brakes. That was the thing with her—she didn’t ask repeatedly. Didn’t demand. Didn’t push.
But she was getting so much better about asking for what she needed and wanted, when she needed or wanted it. She’d also held to our promise to each other to always say the truth.
And all I could think about was how the hell I was supposed to tell her?—
That her going back to work was dangerous. That it risked everything we’d built. That even with all our preparation, all our training, all my surveillance and contingency plans—it still felt like walking her straight into a sniper scope.
I leaned back in my chair, staring at the screens—at every lead I’d chased for her sister, every dead end, every open thread.
At all the ways the world could hurt her again.
Goblin nudged me once more, harder. Like he was telling me to get my ass moving.
“Yeah,” I muttered. “Alright.”
I shut down nothing—left every search running—locked the screens with a command, and reached down to scratch behind Goblin’s ears before pushing to my feet.
Chapter
Thirty
GRACE
Two more months passed, and somehow life had settled into something that felt dangerously close tonormal.
Not the kind of normal I used to have—bright lights, cameras, runway chaos, schedules planned down to the minute.
This was a different kind.
A better kind.
The deck was finished—broad and warm under bare feet, with a view that stole my breath every sunrise. The garden boxes were planted—herbs, tomatoes, peppers, strawberries—all things the guys pretended they didn’t care about but absolutely fussed over when they thought I wasn’t watching.
As for our French doors… God, they were beautiful.
Walnut frames, glass panels so clear it looked like the mountains were stepping straight inside. When the morning light hit just right, the whole suite glowed like some kind of daydream.
This place didn’t just feel like home. Itwashome.
