“Want the number?” she asked gently.
The guys drew closer around me like a shield.
AB nodded once and I said, “yes please.”
Rachel read the number. He typed it instantly, cross-checking, pulling it apart.
“This could be total bullshit,” she said. “Some crazy fan. Or it could be nothing. But it could also be… something.”
“If it’s something,” Bones growled, voice low and lethal. “We’ll handle it.”
Rachel hesitated. “Grace… are you safe?”
“Yes,” I whispered, eyes burning. “I’m safe.”
“Good.” A shaky exhale. “Love you, girl. Call me after you talk to him?”
“If we talk to him,” Legend corrected sharply.
“After whatever happens,” she said. “I’m here.”
The call disconnected. The world felt too big and too small all at once. I stared at the phone in my hand.
Afriendnamed Matias. A number. Information about Am.
It seemed like such precious little information and yet… it was so much at the same time.
It was like the universe had ripped open and handed me a live grenade. I turned slowly toward the guys.
Their faces were a wall of determination, fury, fear, and something so fierce it hurt to look at.
AB spoke first.
“We call only after I verify everything,” he said. “We do this smart. We do this together.”
Bones nodded. “You’re not talking to anyone alone, Dollface.”
Legend stepped closer, voice steady. “We move carefully. Deliberately. But wefind out.”
Voodoo pressed his forehead to the back of my head, the loop of his arms around me so damn strong. “Firecracker… breathe for me.”
I let out a shaking breath, a half sob, half exhale. Fear, hope, confusion, shock tangled beneath it all. For the first time in a very, very long time…possibilities opened up again.
“Okay,” I whispered, throat tight and heart pounding. “Let’s find out what he knows.”
All four of them answered at once—voices low, sure, unbreakable: “Together.”
The next weekblurred into something sharp-edged and breathless.
The vetting process we put “Matías” through was slow, brutal, and methodical—exactly the way the guys needed it to be. AB tore apart every piece of available data he could pull together. Legend cross-checked every document. Bones hunted every possible tail or connection. Voodoo ran the in-person assessments.
And the strangest thing?
Matías didn’t resist. Didn’t protest. Didn’t push.
Running the name against the organizations we’d already dealt with gave us a couple of possibilities but we were loath to push too hard. Still, AB sent Rachel the photos and she identified one of them as the man who came to her studio.
She confirmed it without hesitation.
