He chuckled, breath hot against her ear.
“For now, I want your cooperation, and that means you’re going to tell the military-looking man who’s been lurking close by—the one with the shaggy hair—to use the bathroom. Or get lost in the crowd. I don’t care. And then you’re gonna tell that boyfriend of yours that we’re going to walk to my car and he’s going to let us get in it, and drive away.” The gun pressed harder. “And sweetheart… if you even breathe wrong, Trent’s mother, that sweet, lovely old woman, she’ll be the first to die. Don’t try me, because we’ve already got her, and I won’t hesitate. And if you and Buddy still don’t want to play by my rules, then I’ve got a dozen teenage girls I can drop at his doorstep—dead.”
Fallon’s heart stopped.
The crowd swallowed them whole.
And she knew—she was in the jaws of the trap. Quincy—or EJ Vance—or whatever his name was, might think he had the upper hand—and well, he did have a gun shoved in her side. However, she could call an audible just as easily as he could.
Time to change the play.
Hopefully, it wouldn’t get her, or anyone else, killed.
Chapter Nineteen
Buddy stood with Sterling at the remembrance board, not seeing a single face on it. His eyes were locked on Fallon’s back as she drifted farther from the raffle booth with the man she’d claimed knew her father. She moved like someone trying to look unbothered—steady steps, shoulders squared—but something in the rhythm was off. Too controlled. Too careful.
Then the text hit Buddy’s phone like someone had pressed a gun to his spine.
Fallon: Stand down. Let me leave with him. Parking lot. His car. If you don’t, Trent’s mom dies. More girls die. I die.
The words weren’t Fallon’s, not even close, but they were written with enough intent that he could feel the barrel pushing into her ribs as she typed them. He didn’t stop walking—he didn’t dare—but the world tunneled into a narrow corridor of motion where only one thing mattered. Her silhouette weaved through the thinning edge of the crowd as the bastard at her side steered her toward the parking lot.
He angled his body just enough to keep her in sight between sun-bleached tents and the heavy knot of people queuing for fried shrimp. The heat pulsed in from every direction, thick and sticky, amplifying voices, twisting laughter into something warped, making the air itself feel as if it were vibrating with wrongness. Sterling shifted half a step closer, but neither of them drew attention—just two men skirting the periphery of a fundraiser that had suddenly become a hunting ground.
“I need all eyes on Fallon,” Buddy said, barely moving his lips, “we’re live. Fallon’s under direct threat. Parking lot trajectory.”
Sterling nodded, jaw tight, eyes scanning for secondaries.
Buddy’s phone buzzed again—not Fallon this time.
“Buddy! Buddy!” Trent’s voice cracked through the noise before he collided into Buddy’s shoulder, breath ragged, color wrong, the hospital pallor still clinging to him like frost. He grabbed Buddy’s arm with shaking fingers, the bandage on his side pulling as he bent forward.
“I can’t find my mom,” Trent choked out. “I left her right there—right there by the picnic tables. I went to the bathroom, came back, and she was gone. She’s not picking up. Her phone’s off. I tried to call. Text. Track. She’s just gone and that’s not like my mother.”
Buddy caught him by the elbows, steadying him before he tore something open. “Slow down.” He waited until Trent’s eyes locked on his. “You can’t run around like this. You’re injured.”
“I don’t care,” Trent snapped, voice climbing. “She’s all I have, and she’s dying. What if…”
Buddy exhaled sharply and lowered his voice. “Listen to me.” He held up his phone just long enough for Trent to see Fallon’s text. “This is connected.”
Trent’s breath hitched. “Motherfucker. I’m gonna?—”
“You can’t do shit if you pull open those stitches. You need to rest, and I need to get back to making sure nothing happens to Fallon or your mom,” Buddy said. “I promise to keep you in the loop.”
“I’m not going to sit back and do nothing. That’s my mother,” Trent bit out, panic and anger wrestling in every syllable.
“You want your mom safe? Then you listen to me.”
It landed. Not gracefully, not easily—but it landed. Trent swallowed and stepped back, chest heaving, fury and fear vibrating off him in waves. He wasn’t okay with this. He never would be. But he stayed put.
Buddy hit comms. “Dawson, we’ve got a problem—Trent’s mom is compromised. Fallon is being forced into compliance. She’s being walked to the parking lot. I’ve still got a visual, but I’m gonna lose that soon.”
Dawson’s voice came through tight. “Copy. Chloe—redirect the crowd near the boardwalk to keep them from bottlenecking. Jasper and Grayson start looking for Mrs. Mallor.”
Buddy kept moving, weaving between families and clusters of volunteers with the deliberate calm of a man on the verge of losing his mind. Fallon’s pace hadn’t changed, but her posture had—her shoulders were drawn slightly inward, her head angled just off the natural line of conversation. Anyone else would miss it.
Not him.
