At work, when they wanted to find someone who didn’t want to be found, they followed the money—ATM withdrawals, money transfers, debit and credit card charges. As a college student living off financial aidand work-study programs, Emily used her campus account rather than plastic, and Ethan had taken care of the rest.
“Fucking hell,” he muttered.
Before leaving, one last sweep caught a framed photo on the ladder bookcase in the living room. He crouched to retrieve it from the bottom shelf. In the picture, he and Ethan, with Emily wedged in between them, grinned at their graduation from “the U.”
“Dammit, Ethan,” he told his friend’s smiling face.
That smile hadn’t come as easily in the past two years. When his parents’ deaths had been ruled accidental due to “faulty brakes past due for maintenance,” Ethan hadn’t bought it. Eric Peterson wasn’t a man to be lax with the vehicles his wife and daughter drove. But there was no evidence of tampering or other clues to indicate otherwise, and the case had been closed no matter how hard his friend had pushed the powers that be to keep digging.
Determined to uncover the truth, Ethan continued to investigate on his own and took the heat when the higher-ups found out he was nosing around where he shouldn’t be. It wasn’t until he was threatened with a suspension that he stood down, or so they thought.
If he’d known Ethan was still digging, he would’ve been there. Then, maybe, the outcome would have been different. But Ethan hadn’t been forthcoming with his thoughts or his plans, just like his sister.
He stared at Emily in the photo. Head thrown back, beaming, her beautiful brown eyes fixed on him. So young, so trusting. The promise Ethan had asked of him a few months ago, to be there for her if he couldn’t, should have been a clue that his brother in all except blood was in over his head. He’d given his word, of course. With her taking off for parts unknown, after making it clear she didn’t want to be found, the promise he’d made to Ethan sat heavy on his shoulders. He didn’t know yet how to reconcile the two—but he would.
When he left the house, he still thought of as home, he tucked the photo into his pocket—not for nostalgia but as proof. Proof that she’d once looked at him like he was her whole world. That she’d left it behind stung. It was as though she’d slammed the door not only on him but on their past. Except she was fooling herself if she thought she’d run out on him so easily.
Losing another close family member, especially in a brutal, violent way, would make anyone irrational. But he needed to make two thingsclear to her. First, even if the others were gone, they were still bound—by blood spilled, by promises made. And second, she needed to understand he wasn’t her big brother anymore.
They belonged together. In his mind, she already was his—and when he found her, after holding her tight and shaking some sense into her, he intended to claim her properly.
Chapter 3
Eight years later…
Emily wove between crowded banquet tables, collecting dessert plates, offering coffee refills, and topping off champagne flutes before guests even realized they were dipping low. The ballroom was packed to the rafters, the air thick with perfume, cologne, and the lingering scent of catered seafood.
Tonight’s awards banquet was already shaping up to be a marathon—endless introductions, donor acknowledgments, and heartfelt speeches from people who loved the sound of their own voices. And they still hadn’t reached the man of the hour. Rather, theHumanitarian of the Year. Soon he’d take the stage, accept his oversized crystal plaque, and deliver the predictable “giving back to the community” speech she’d heard at least a hundred times.
She could practically recite it from memory.
When the lights dimmed and the giant screens flickered with the opening frames of the honoree’s video montage, every head in the ballroom turned toward the stage. Perfect cue.
Emily caught her serving partner’s eye across table nine, tapped her wrist in the universal signal fortaking five, and waited for the answering nod before slipping into the service hallway.
The shift to the back-of-house—chaos vanishing into sudden quiet—was almost dizzying but welcome.
She pushed through the metal door and stepped onto the loading dock. It was a lousy place for a break. The only seating was an upside-down milk crate against an unyielding brick wall, and the dumpster reeked of rotting food. But after hours on her feet,anychance to sit, no matter how grim the surroundings, was a blessing.
Miami still steamed long after dark and thunder rumbled somewhere in the distance—threatening rain, though whether it came down or not hardly mattered. Her sweat-dampened shirt already clung like a second skin; a downpour might actually be refreshing.
She closed her eyes and tried to block out the city noise—the distant wail of a car alarm, a plane roaring overhead, honking that never quite became white noise. Her day had started at four a.m. at her first job—the breakfastshift at the Waffle House. Two midday classes had consumed the afternoon, followed by a frantic dash across town to set up the banquet. Exhaustion wasn’t just in her bones; it was a living, breathing thing inside her.
She couldn’t keep up this pace forever. Even with the increase in tipped wages, it did not equal a future. She only hung on to her morning job for the benefits—health, dental, paid sick time—because she was one root canal or appendectomy away from losing her parents’ house and whatever else was left.
If she hadn’t walked away from everything eight years ago—home, school, and especially Alec—maybe things would be different. Maybe she wouldn’t be sitting on a milk crate behind a fancy ballroom, too tired to remember the last time life hadn’t been survival.
“Peterson!”
Her boss’s voice sliced through the heavy air. Emily straightened and forced a polite smile as the catering owner filled the service door: sculpted hair, precise makeup, oozing with stern authority. Regina Richmond ruled her kitchen and staff the way a general ruled a battlefield—constantly strategizing, eyes trained for trouble, a sharp order on the tip of her tongue.
What a crappy turn Emily’s life had taken. At twenty-seven, she should have been an experienced chef calling the shots in her own kitchen by now, not at someone else’s beck and call.
“Have you quit?” Regina snapped.
“I’m on break with two minutes to go,” she dared to respond.
Smarting off to the two-star Michelin chef who had graced the cover of every culinary publication in print over the past two decades and made Gordon Ramsey seem like a choirboy, was risky. She gobbled up sous chefs and spat them out for insolence and was far less forgiving of her wait staff. But she knew the labor laws; they’d covered them in class. If an employee worked six hours, they earned a meal break. All she’d wanted was a few minutes of peace and to pee.
