We’re not figuring shit out.
Not until I know exactly what Bellamy’s doing back in Hollow Beach. Not until I understand why seeing her again felt less like a surprise and more like the ground shifting under my feet—slow, inevitable, impossible to stop once it starts.
I stay there long after the garage empties, pulse still thudding too high, too fast.
Because something old is awake again.
And I don’t know if I’m ready for what it’s about to cost me.
8
BELLAMY
By the timeI pull up outside the Callaway house, my hands are damp on the steering wheel.
The place looks the same and completely different. The stucco’s been repainted, the landscaping’s more manicured, the gate looks newer, sturdier. But the shape of it—the bones of it—is exactly the same. Same low wall around the front yard. Same big palm leaning in like it wants to eavesdrop. Same view of the street dipping down toward the glittering line of ocean in the distance.
I park at the curb and kill the engine. For a second, I just sit there, listening to it tick as it cools. The night hums around me. Crickets, distant traffic, music drifting from somewhere farther down the block.
My phone sits in the cupholder, screen dark. I tap it awake anyway, just to confirm what I already know.
Location shared with Lola.
A text from her.
If you’re not home by ten, I’m burning this town down.
Below it, a calendar alert set for nine p.m.If I’m dead, call Marty.
She’d rolled her eyes when I programmed it. I laughed. Neither one of us really thought it was funny.
Beckett’s out tonight. Lola too. I made sure of it. If something goes sideways, at least they won’t be here to get caught in the blast radius. They know where everything is—the stashes, the storage units, even the half-empty one in the Midwest that exists more out of paranoia than practicality.
If someone has to answer for that yacht job, it’s going to be me. Not them.
I inhale once, slow and deep. Okay.
Rationally, I know if Coco wanted me dead, she wouldn’t lure me here with roast and dessert. She’d just… send someone. I’m familiar enough with how that world works.
Still, my heart is beating too fast for something as simple as Sunday dinner.
I climb out of the car and smooth my hands down the front of my dress—a soft sundress in a color Lola insisted “made my eyes feral.” I told her that wasn’t a thing. She told me to shut up and hold still while she did my mascara.
The closer I get to the gate, the louder the sounds become: clinking dishes, distant music, Coco’s laugh drifting on the warm night air. The smell of garlic and rosemary and something rich and slow-cooking wraps around me, settling heavy in my chest.
There’s a shape leaning against the brick pillar by the gate.
For a split second, my stupid, traitor heart gives itself away—a hitch, a flutter. Broad shoulders. Relaxed stance. Head tippeddown. And my brain does the easy thing, the reckless thing. It fills in the blanks and calls him Gage.
Then he straightens and pushes off the wall, and the details sharpen. He’s taller, leaner in a sharper way. A darker cast to his eyes even in the fading light.
It’s not Gage—it’s Rafe.
He flicks something into the little trash can by the walkway, then hooks his thumb into his pocket, looking at me like he’s weighing what version of me just walked up his driveway.
“Had to see if the rumor was true,” he says, voice rough velvet.
I stop just inside the gate, fingers curling around the metal. “Rumor?”
