Life was good. Really, really good.
The guys had taken two missions in the last couple of months—short ones, clean ones. The first was a forty-eight-hour in-and-out that only needed Bones, Legend, and Voodoo. The second required all of them—and me.
I still didn’t know how to fully articulate what it meant to be included. Not just tolerated. Not protected into uselessness.
Included.
It reminded me that I wasn’t broken. That I could still be capable. That I could want my life back, and while I did, I also valued the life I hadnow.
I’d slowly, carefully reached out to a handful of contacts—people I trusted, or trusted enough with boundaries and encrypted channels. Rachel Manning was one of them.
She was loud, brilliant, sarcastic, and had an uncanny ability to read between every line of every silence.
Which made it all the more alarming when my phone buzzed one late evening with her name lighting up an encrypted app we used because it made the guys happier and me safer while also protecting Rachel too.
We were out on the deck, roasting s’mores over the fire pit. The night air smelled like pine and toasted sugar. I was tucked between Voodoo’s legs in one of the oversized deck chairs, Bones and Legend were arguing about the structural integrity of marshmallows, and AB was sprawled on a blanket with Goblin curled at his side.
My phone buzzed again.
I glanced down.
Rachel (Secure Line)
You awake? Need to talk?
My heart slipped a beat.
Rachel didn’t do careful punctuation or even more careful questions. Or at least she hadn’t since we’d reconnected after AB cleared her as “safe.”
I sat up straighter.
“Gracie?” Legend asked immediately.
“I’m fine,” I said automatically—too fast for it to sound believable.
The guys went still. Not grabbing, not crowding—just… ready. Every one of them.
I swiped to accept the call and brought the phone to my ear.
“Rach? What’s going on?”
A breath, then a familiar voice, husky, low, and tight. “Okay, so, full disclosure? I debatednotpassing this on.”
My stomach dropped. “Why?”
“Because it’s weird,” she said. “It felt… I don’t know. Loaded? I’ve been sitting on it for a couple days, trying to decide if I should even tell you.” A pause. “But then I asked myself what I’d want done if the situation were reversed.”
Behind me, Voodoo’s hands tightened on my hips. Bones stood up like a shadow congealing into a man. AB was suddenly sitting upright, eyes already on my phone. Legend froze mid-reach for a graham cracker.
Swapping us to speaker, I swallowed. “Rachel… what message?”
She exhaled like she’d been holding it the whole time.
“A man showed up at the studio three days ago,” Rachel said. “Polite, soft-spoken, Latino, mid-thirties maybe. Said he was looking for you.”
Every hair on my body rose.
“He indicated that he knew I knew you,” she continued. “He didn’t push, didn’t pry, didn’t ask where you were. Didn’t even threaten or try to intimidate. If anything he was—absurdly polite. But… you know how you just get that feeling about some people. It’s unnerving, but you’re pretty sure they aren’t a serial killer sizing you up for a skin suit?”
