Click.The line goes dead.
Broody bastard.
∞∞∞
The “safe house”sits in a wooded patch of nowhere, about forty minutes outside the city. This far out, the roads dissolve into gravel, then dirt. Streetlights vanish. Trees swallow the horizon.
The place isn’t marked. No sign, no mailbox. Just a big, dull-gray house swallowed by nature and silence. The kind of house you forget even existed. It doesn’t look like much… until you look closer. Blackout curtains. Reinforced doors. High-mounted cameras with tilt-pivot motion tracking. There’s a signal jammer mounted on the roof, disguised as a vent.
This isn’t a shelter. It’s a cage.
I park a half mile out and hike the rest, picking my way through underbrush and mud. My old instincts kick in. Quiet steps, measured breath, no light. I move like a ghost and perch up in the trees with a clear line of sight.
I watch.
Three cameras cover the perimeter. The back door is padlocked. Side windows are sealed tight. No noise. No music. Not even birdsong. Inside, shadows pass behind the curtains. Figures moving in that slow, weighted way that says they’ve forgotten how to run.
Then, I see her. A girl, maybe sixteen, appears in the upstairs window. She barely gets two seconds before a hand yanks the curtain back in place.
My blood ices. I know what this is. This isn’t a safe house,it’s a holding pen.
I stay for hours observing the comings and goings. A delivery van drops off unmarked boxes. A man in khakis and a clipboard takes inventory. Another guy, tall and cocky, flashes gold chains and a pistol tucked into his waistband. But it’s the last man who makes my skin crawl.
He shows up just before dusk in a black car with no plates. Steps out in a sharp gray suit, his posture too relaxed, too in control. He’s older, maybe mid-fifties.
Everyone reacts to his appearance. The tension in the air thickens like fog. I can’t hear what he says, but I don’t need to. That’s the man in charge. He doesn’t knock. Just walks in like he owns the place.
Is thisJoe?
The name’s haunted the Underground for years. The kind of name only spoken in whispers. I’ve never had a face to match it, but something in my gut says:That’s him.
He stays fifteen minutes, tops. Then he leaves, unbothered. Like nothing in that house has weight.
As night falls and silence returns, I slip away, unseen and unheard. No confrontation. Not yet. Not until I know more and have a plan. I hike back to my car with mud on my boots and blood humming under my skin. I should feel scared, but I don’t. I feelready. My heart pounds and fury simmers. Now, I see the shape of the thing we’re fighting.
This isn’t just about Joe. It’s not even just Rutledge. It’s a whole machine. One that turns girls into ghosts, and monsters into kings… and I’m going to tear it apart. Bolt by bolt. Brick by brick.
When I’m done, they’ll wish I’d just called my father instead.
Chapter 19
Lina—5 years ago…
I think I’m making a mistake of epic proportions.
I’m back in Tennessee, which already feels like self-inflicted torture. More specifically, I’m staked out on the University of Tennessee campus, a baseball cap shoved low over my curls, sitting at a bench along one of the main walkways, watching for two men who might not even be here.
Four hours and counting. Every face that passes that isn’t theirs sends a new wave of disappointment through me.
Axel and Nik planned to come here, but that was three years ago. I have no idea if they actually made it or if they’re even still in Tennessee. For all I know, they could’ve moved to the other side of the country. But I’ve got nothing but time now, and something in me needed to try.
I’m a college dropout. Fired from my job as of last week. Floating through life with no direction. Criminal justice? A degree? A future? All on indefinite hold, because I know the truth now: Joe will never stop hunting me. There is no safe place. Only temporary illusions.
At least I have money. Savings and the inheritance from Mom I’ve barely touched over the years. I told myself it was for the future, but now... I don’t even know if I’ll have one. When I look in the mirror, I don’t recognize the girl staring back. She looks tired. Faded. Defeated. Which is exactly how I feel.
I tried to talk myself out of coming here, but in the end? I needed to see them. To see if they’re happy without me so maybe, justmaybe, I can finally move on. Or maybe there’s a tiny, traitorous part of me that hopes they’ve missed me too.
My butt is numb from this unforgiving bench, but I'm not a quitter. Except when it came to school, apparently. Leaving UGA last fall gutted me, but what choice did I have? One appearance from Joe on that campus and everything would’ve unraveled. I had to disappear again.
