The longest second of her life ticked by before Tex shook his head helplessly. “I don’t know.”
His words offered no comfort. No hope. Just a different flavor of horror.
All along, Gaby thought Keene was playing good cop in this scenario, but he slammed his fist on the table. “Don’t lie,” he snapped. “You expect us to believe you know all the details except that one?”
Tex cracked, words tumbling out in a panicked rush. “I ain’t talked to nobody but Viktor since we arranged the sale! The girl was meant for Álvarez. That’s all I know!” He suddenly crumpled, dropping his head on his cuffed hands, shoulders shaking. “My God, what have I done? I’m no better than them.”
“Accurate,” Price said coldly as he tossed a notepad and pen in front of him. “Start writing. Names. Dates. Locations. Eye color of anyone who so much as parked a damn car at one of those events.” He headed for the door. “I need air. The stench in here is getting to me.”
As soon as the agents cleared the room, Tex’s attorney exhaled slowly, pinching the bridge of his nose.“Jesus Christ, Raymond.” His voice fell to a whisper stretched thin. “You didn’t tell me you were this deep in it.”
Tex sniffed, blotchy and miserable.
The attorney straightened, his tone flat and unforgiving, “They’re right about one thing. You’re not getting out of this clean.”He gathered his files and closed his briefcase with a decisive click.“And for the record?” He slanted a disgusted look at Tex. “You don’t pay me enough for this shit.”
When his attorney left, too, Tex collapsed into loud, wet, pathetic sobs. Fear and self-pity poured out of him, but Gaby saw no true remorse. Not for the girl he tried to buy. Only for himself, for getting caught. He deserved and received not a speck of her sympathy.
She stared through the glass, trying to process everything she’d just learned. It wasn’t the confirmation she’d hoped for, that Natalie was alive, but deep down, Gaby believed it.
Rhys stayed close, his gaze locked on the live feed monitor, preserving every word in unforgiving detail. His touch was reassuring, but, like her, his tension was palpable.
“It may not feel like it now,” he murmured, solid as bedrock, “but this is good news. We have a name now, and a place to start.”
Chapter 7
Gaby barely slept in the week after Big Tex broke.
Sleep required her mind to shut down. It refused to. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw her sister: pale, frightened, trapped on a remote island ringed with rock and armed guards. Unreachable.
So she did the one thing she could. She worked.
Other than a name and a profession, Tex hadn’t given them nearly enough. As she dug into what little of Sebastián Álvarez’s life was public, one thing became clear: the man valued his privacy like oxygen. Press mentions had been scrubbed, interviews were rare, and he appeared before cameras only when his presence demanded it.
She brought Callan in as soon as she hit her first wall.
He did what he did best—found patterns buried in repetition and uncovered a decade-long trail of money flowing through shell buyers and discreet sales. And always, the trail circled back to the same thing.
Not young women. Not commodities to be flipped. Art. High-end acquisitions that vanished from public view the moment they entered Álvarez’s possession. As far as she could tell, none were ever resold. Just like the women who vanished behind the locked doors of his private island estate.
Gaby sat cross-legged on her office floor, back against the couch. Notes, press releases from galleries and auction houses,and crumpled papers from a host of dead ends were scattered everywhere. Her shoes were off, and her laptop hugged the edge of the chair she’d dragged over as a makeshift table, its screen flickering and buffering under the weight of too many open tabs.
Wincing at the ache in her lower back, she stretched. Her foot caught the corner of her desk, sending a picture frame toppling. It clattered facedown on the floor.
She reached for it, fingers running over the glass, which luckily hadn’t shattered. The photo inside was one she’d carried from apartment to apartment: her and Natalie at twelve and four, pressed close together, both smiling in that loose, unguarded way kids do. Their mother stood behind them, dark ringlets spilling over her shoulders. The same curls Gaby fought with every morning. And beside her was Aunt May: sun-streaked blonde hair, layered beads, a flowy cotton blouse, and the kind of soft, open smile that made strangers tell her their life stories. Natalie had inherited her gentle features and her easy warmth.
The picture had been taken not long before everything changed. Before the diagnosis. Before the hospital. Before the funeral.
Aunt May packed up her life without hesitation and moved into their small house, filling it with essential-oil diffusers, herbal teas, mismatched quilts, and a kind of fierce, unconventional love that held them together when nothing else could.
When Natalie disappeared, Gaby had texted her updates. At first, every day. Then every few days. Then weekly, when there was nothing left to say except,I’m still looking.
Her aunt always tried to remain calm and encouraging, but Gaby could hear the tremor beneath her voice. The fear she was trying so hard to hide. The unspoken plea threaded through every message:Please find her. I can’t lose another one.
Seeing the photo now made Gaby’s throat tighten. Aunt May had already lost a sister. She didn’t deserve to lose a niece, too.
Movement in the hallway snapped her out of her thoughts. She blinked, wiping her eyes before the tears fell, and set the frame back on her desk.
She turned just as Rhys appeared in the doorway. Jacket off, sleeves rolled to his elbows, forearms dusted with dark blond hair, he leaned casually against the doorframe. In one sweep, he took in the floor, the papers, her posture.
