"She was upstairs in her room. Didn't hear anything. Didn't see anything."
Shiver nods, then looks at me for a long moment. "Thank you. For helping. For keeping her secret. For..." He trails off.
"She's gonna need someone," I say. "When you're gone. When Phantom exiles you for this."
His jaw tightens. "Yeah. I know. That's why..." He takes a breath. "Watch over her.Please. She's gonna need someone she can trust. And I have a feeling Dad's not gonna let me stick around long enough to be that person."
He's probably right.
Shiver killed the VP.
And when Phantom gets angry, people pay.
"I'll watch over her," I promise. "I swear it."
"And the secret?"
"Dies with me," I repeat. "No one will ever know what really happened tonight. That's my word, brother."
Shiver nods, some of the tension leaving his shoulders.
Then he does something unexpected—he pulls me into a brief, hard hug.
"Thank you," he says quietly. "For being the kind of man who keeps his word."
Then he steps back, squaring his shoulders, preparing for Phantom's arrival.
I head to the back office, settling in like I've been there all night.
Working on invoices.
Not involved in the drama unfolding in the main room.
But my mind is upstairs.
With Grace.
Eighteen years old. Shattered. Alone.
And I'm making a promise to myself, one I'll never speak out loud:
I'll protect her. I'll watch over her. I'll keep this secret until the day I die.
I'll give her time to heal. Time to grow. Time to become the woman she's meant to be.
But someday—maybe not soon, maybe not for years—someday I'm going to step out of the shadows I've been hiding in.
Someday I'm going to claim what's been mine since the moment I promised to keep her safe.
She just doesn't know it yet.
Outside, engines roar through the rain. Phantom and the boys returning.
I hear Shiver's voice, steady and strong, delivering our story.
And I sit in the back office, hands steady, mind clear, already planning how to protect Grace from the fallout of tonight.
I've always been good at keeping secrets.
