I freeze the feed. For a long second, I just stare at the screen.
So this is what she’s been doing with the freedom I gave her.
Heat sears through me, followed by something colder underneath it. It isn’t shock, but calculation. Betrayal. But who was I to think I deserved anything else from her?
I replay it again, slower this time, committing every movement to memory.
I cross the hall and pull back the corner of the mattress.
Photographs slide into view. Old. Black and white. Bent at the edges like they’ve been handled more than once.
I flip through them without expression until I see Vin.
He’s seated across from someone in a dim corner of what looks like a bar or back room. The image is grainy, but his posture is unmistakable. Alert. Controlled. Working.
That part makes sense.
The next photo does not. The birthmark is unmistakable. It’s the fucking man who slit my father’s throat.
My grip tightens until the paper creases. The memoryslams into me fully formed. The blade, the blood, the sound my father made when he tried to breathe through it.
Anger surges violently through me, hot enough to blur my vision.
This man should have suffered longer.
I force the thought back down. He was a hired hand, a weapon. Laurent Boudreaux is the one who ordered it. Now, Laurent is the one who matters.
I scan the rest of the photos, trying to understand why my father kept them. Why Coco was interested in them and, more importantly, why she hid them.
Seeing Vin there raises no doubt. His loyalty is not a question. He was raised alongside us, trained by my father, shaped by the same rules. If he was near this man, it was because my father put him there for a reason.
That certainty holds.
What doesn’t is Coco, and why these photographs are important to me or her.
Every quiet moment from last night replays differently now. Every look. Every touch. I trusted proximity when I should have trusted instinct.
The phone vibrates on the floor, the sound cutting sharply through the room. I grab it without taking my eyes off the photos to see it’s a text from Vin.
Got word from Laurent. His man got back to me late last night. He agreed to the meeting. I still think it’s a risk, but if you want it, it’s set for tomorrow evening. Call when you see this, and we’ll go over details.
I exhale slowly, forcing the anger into something usable.
This is it.
The meeting I’ve been pushing toward. The first real turn of the screw.
I type a single message to Clara before I can overthink it.
I will be offline all day tomorrow. Don’t put anything else on my calendar unless it’s critical.
Her reply comes back almost immediately.
Will do.
Whatever game Coco thinks she’s playing just made the stakes clearer, not messier. I got my priorities out of whack. I let my dick convince me this was something more than what it is.
She’s part of the equation. Nothing more.
