This can’t just be about stolen mornings and soft touches.Not yet.Not while Dorian Thoreou still hovers over everything like a storm we can’t ignore.
I tighten my arm around Barret and glance back at Eddie, memorizing the rare ease on his face.Because I know soon—too soon—we’ll have to face everything that’s coming.
And I can only hope this is strong enough to hold when that storm breaks.
ChapterThirty-Nine
Eddie
I carry the wireless phone out of my office, fingers curled so tightly around it that my knuckles ache.Arthur could call at any moment.Every time I glance at the small screen, I imagine it lighting up, his name appearing, his voice finally bringing news.
The house is empty.The wilder brothers went hiking—poor Arlo went along.Kit, Dex, and Alec are in the studio with Barret.My man is obsessed about getting just the right song for ...who the fuck knows.
Right now, all eyes are on Thoreau.They’re watching, waiting, following him with the patience of hunters who know their prey will eventually stumble.He’s reckless enough—too arrogant to cover his tracks properly.He’s already left a trail of mistakes wide enough to bury him a hundred times over.There are at least three agencies breathing down his neck, closing in, tightening the circle around him.It should only be a matter of time before he’s taken.
Still, time has a way of stretching when you need it to move fast.Each minute without word from Arthur feels like an eternity, the silence in the room pressing in until I can hardly breathe.I tell myself to wait.To trust.To remember that this isn’t in my hands.It isn’t in the Bradleys’ hands either.We’ve set things in motion, but the rest is up to people who don’t answer to us.
What I want—what I crave in the deepest, darkest part of me—is for Thoreau to be stopped for good.For someone, somewhere, to end him before he can sink his claws any deeper.Before he tries to look again for Cleo.But I don’t get to make that call.Wishing doesn’t change the rules.Still, the thought simmers beneath my skin, refusing to fade.
The Bradleys believe jail will take care of him.They’re convinced that if Thoreau winds up behind bars, his own people will handle the rest.That he won’t even have time to whisper a name to his lawyer before someone shuts him up permanently.It wouldn’t be unusual—not in that world.A man like him doesn’t survive long once he’s caged.A slip on the stairs.A shiv in the yard.An accident no one questions.
But that won’t be on us.We won’t orchestrate it.We won’t pull the strings or give the order.That line has already been drawn, and I keep telling myself not to cross it, not to imagine what it would feel like if I could.
And yet I can’t stop.My pulse hammers with every possibility.Every outcome.Every image of him silenced.After what he did to Cleo, there’s a part of me that aches for vengeance so raw it frightens me.I’ve watched those videos until they crawl under my skin—him small and calculated, twisting her words into shame, the way he laughed when she flinched.
Cameras that were meant for protection turned into evidence of how cruel he is.I replay the angles, the little breaths between his sentences, the way her hand trembles before she covers her face.The sound of her trying to hold herself together is a noise I can’t forget.
We brought her to therapy.She’s meeting with someone who knows how to hold the pieces without pretending they’re whole.She works through the tremors in her voice, lists the days like they’re items to be checked off: Monday, Tuesday, the time he cornered her by the sink.
Watching her learn to name what happened is both a mercy and a wound.It should make me breathe easier—that she has someone to help her—but knowing she carried that alone for as long as she did turns the ache in my chest into something worse.Loving her means the hurt is mine too, seeping into my bones until I’m only a collection of hot, dangerous thoughts.
I don’t want to be the one who crosses the line.I tell myself I won’t.But the image of him, smug and sure he can break people and walk away, makes me want blood like an animal wants to tear.It’s an ugly, filthy wish that scares me because it feels honest.I picture him on his knees, mouth open, pleading—and something inside me snarls.I swallow the fantasy hard enough to taste iron.I refuse to be the author of his end, even as a private, vindictive ghost writes scenes in my head where justice looks like violence.
The phone rings in my hand, the sudden shrill cutting through the silence like a blade.For a second, I don’t breathe.Arthur’s name flashes across my mind even before I lift it to my ear.My voice comes out rough, urgent, before his even fills the line.
“Tell me.”
“They got him,” Arthur says, clipped and efficient, like he knows I’ve been holding my breath for hours.“Tried to leave the country this morning.Fake passport.They flagged him at the gate.”
My knees almost give out, and I grip the edge of the desk to keep from sliding to the floor.Relief and fury collide inside me, a storm that doesn’t know which way to turn.“After yesterday?”
Arthur exhales.“Yeah.Interrogation didn’t go well for him.He has no alibi.Obviously, he panicked.The fucker thought he could run.”
The handset creaks under the force of my grip.I see him in my mind—Thoreau at the airport, moving too quickly, sweat soaking through his shirt, trying to blend into the crowd while knowing the walls are closing in.For once, fear had him by the throat.For once, he wasn’t in control.
And then the realization cuts through me: we almost lost him.
“What if he’d used a private jet?”The question slips out before I can stop it, raw, jagged.“What if he already has an escape route?”
Arthur’s reply is a growl, rough with offense, like I’ve just questioned his competence.“You paid for efficiency, Reznor.Of course he tried.But there’s no jet available—we made sure of that.The DEA grounded his plane the minute the drug rumor hit.After this stunt, customs flagged every passport.Interpol’s got his aliases, and Border Patrol is on alert.There’s nowhere he can fly, sail, or crawl without someone waiting.”
I press my teeth together, the edge of his reassurance slicing into me.
Arthur lowers his tone, almost reluctant to say the next part.“The truth?If he does slip through, he won’t get far.Not with three agencies watching.And if by some miracle he makes it past them ...Eddie, men like him don’t survive freedom when their own associates think he might talk.If he walks out, it’ll probably be in a bag.”
And it almost feels like justice.Almost.
Arthur’s words hang in the air long after he stops speaking.If he walks out, it’ll probably be in a bag.
