“We’re mobile. Both packages secure. ETA forty minutes, depending on traffic.” A pause. “Copy. Tell Longo to meet us there.”
She hangs up.
Chris. He’ll be there too.
I glance at Wyatt. The bruises on his throat have faded to that sickly yellow-green stage, but they’re still visible above his collar. He catches me looking and awareness flickers across his face, tinged with guilt.
“You okay?” he asks quietly.
“I don’t know yet.”
He nods like that’s a fair answer. We ride the rest of the way in silence, the Pacific Coast Highway unspooling outside the tinted windows. My mind keeps circling back to Adán’s face in those last moments before Darius burst in. The way his voice cracked when he talked about his father. The weight of a secret carried for years, finally spoken aloud to a stranger.
He’s Vicente’s son.
And now that I know, I can’t unsee it. The height, the powerful build, the refined way he held himself even under pressure. That calculating gaze—though Adán’s had something softer underneath. Less jaded. Like he hadn’t yet learned to wall off the parts of himself that could still be hurt.
I should tell Wyatt. He deserves to know what I learned before Darius burst in. What changes everything about the threat we thought we were facing.
But Wyatt’s staring out the window, jaw tight, and I don’t know how to start that conversation. Not here, in the back of an Agency SUV with Lucia in the front seat. Not when Chris is waiting at the end of this drive, and I don’t know what state any of us will be in when we get there.
I close my eyes and try to breathe.
The SUV pulls into a gated driveway, and Lucia is out before the engine stops, scanning the perimeter.
The safe house is a sleek modern thing perched on a cliff overlooking the Pacific. All glass and clean angles. Probably seized from some convicted financier, I think. Or maybe a drug lord with an eye for real estate.
I follow her along a walkway of travertine slabs, Wyatt close behind me. There’s so much glass I can see clear through to the ocean from the back of the house, and I wonder if this is really the most secure place we could hide. It’s in an exclusive, gated part of Malibu, but gates and guards won’t stop someone with enough skill and determination—or incentive.
Lucia punches a code into the keypad and pushes the door open.
Chris is coming down the stairs from the second floor, weapon drawn as if he’s sweeping for threats. He lowers it when he sees us.
He looks like he’s been in a fight. Face bruised, one eye swollen, knuckles split and scabbed. That’s new. That happened in the days he was missing. His gaze sweeps over me first, checking for damage, then locks onto Wyatt.
“What the fuck happened?”
Wyatt’s shoulders tighten. “He took Darius down and was out the door before I could get there. Had a motorcycle waiting.”
“So we’ve got nothing.” Chris’s voice is hard. “He’s in the wind, Darius got his ass handed to him, and we still don’t know what the fuck he wanted with her.”
“He didn’t hurt her.” Wyatt steps past me into the house, squaring up like he’s bracing for a fight. “He had the training to take Darius down—he could have done a lot worse. He just ran.”
“That’s supposed to make me feel better?”
They’re standing in the middle of a sprawling open-plan living area now, squared off like they’re about to throw punches. The space is huge: white walls, dark wood floors, an expansive living area with sectionals flanking a wide gas fireplace. The kitchen stretches beyond a long marble island. Floor-to-ceiling windows frame the view behind them: a landscaped yard bordered by a lap pool, its rippling infinity edge bleeding into the roiling Pacific beyond. All that intimidating power of nature completely ignored.
And seeing them together—Chris’s battered face, Wyatt’s fading bruises—hits differently than seeing them one at a time. The whole ugly picture, finally in frame.
“Are you okay?” Chris asks. “Did he hurt you?”
“I’m fine. He didn’t—he wasn’t trying to hurt me.”
Behind me, I hear Lucia coordinating with someone, securing the perimeter, checking entry points. The professional machinery of protection humming along while we stand frozen in the wreckage of our personal lives.
“Kitchen’s stocked,” Lucia announces, returning to the living room. “Security system is state-of-the-art. Panic buttons in every room. Someone will check in every six hours, but otherwise you’re dark until we neutralize the threat.”
“He wasn’t a threat,” I say. “I told you—he wasn’t trying to hurt me.”
