“God, Haizley, I wish I were there with you. Right now.” My foot tapped a controlled rhythm on the floor as I sat on the small sofa in the room, trying to forget this morning ever happened. My throat felt too tight for words, but I pressed on, clinging to some sense of normalcy, as if it could hold me steady.
Haizley’s fingers picked at a loose thread on her sleeve, her nails bitten raw. She glanced up, then immediately looked down again, her voice barely more than a tremor. “Nah, Mellie, you don’t wanna be here, trust me.” Her words tumbled out fast and soft, her voice thickening when she got nervous. “It’s—it’s gone sideways, like really bad. There are bikers everywhere, not just ours. Patches I don’t recognize; voices I don’t—Gunner doesn’t want me near the clubhouse anymore.” She swallowed, her voice hitching. “Not after... after what happened.”
The room shrank around me. “What—Haiz, what happened?” My voice cracked. My mind spun with flashes—sirens, blood, someone I knew on the ground. “Somebody’s hurt? Who? Please tell me—” I bit off the rest, breath stuttering, hands gripping the sofa cushion so hard my knuckles blanched. My whole body hummed with dread, part of me wanting to slam the computer shut, the other desperate for her answer, no matter how awful.
Haizley’s gaze darted away from the camera, words catching on the edge of her breath. “Grace and Karlyn... they—they were kidnapped.” She scrubbed at her cheeks, swallowing hard, her voice dropping to a ragged whisper. “Mellie, it was bad. Realbad.” Her shoulders shook. The static flicker of the screen unable to blur the pain etched across her face.
My mind blanked. Words dissolved on my tongue. I sat frozen, the hum of the computer swallowed by the pounding in my ears. Grace and Karlyn. Kidnapped. My world tilted, blurry and unreal, like I’d fallen underwater and forgotten how to breathe. I knew Grace. She was my friend, and Karlyn was so shy, so timid. She was supposed to fly out with us on Sinclair’s plane, but she declined. I refused to think about what that decision cost her.
I swallowed, my voice a rasp against the static hush. “Haizley... how’s Grace? Really?” My fingers twisted in the hem of my hoodie, and I tried not to imagine what Karlyn must be facing now, or what had already happened.
Haizley’s screen flickered, her eyes darting sideways as she drew a breath. “Oh, Grace? She’s still talking big, trying to act all bulletproof. That’s classic, right? She’d mouth off to the Devil if she thought it’d keep her from falling apart.” Her sentences stumbled, patched with nervous laughter that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “But, Mellie, you know—she’s just... hiding behind all that tough talk.”
My throat tightened. I pictured Grace’s bravado—her swagger, the way she’d mock whatever scared her—dissolving the moment no one watched. “Yeah,” I whispered, the room closing in around me. “On the inside, she’s screaming.” My mind spun images of bloodied knuckles, stifled sobs.
Haizley sniffed, a brittle sound. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, voice rough but rushing as if the words themselves would escape if not caught. “King’s not making it any easier, let me tell you. That man—he’s glued to Grace’s side, won’t let her out of his sight for a second. I get it, Mellie, I do—he blames himself; thinks if he can just hold on to her, she won’t slip away. But he’s wound so tight, with this war, witheveryone breathing down his neck twenty-four seven. If he’s not careful, he’s gonna drive her further into herself, where none of us can reach. And after what those monsters did...” She sucked in a shaky breath, breaking off with her favorite phrase—one she only used when her heart couldn’t take anymore. “Swear to God, Mellie—she looks like a ghost. Sam and Aspen are doing what they can, but... I barely recognized her after the guys got her back. No amount of tough talk is patching her up right now.”
I dug my nails into my palm, desperate for a way to help, when Haizley asked, “Tell me what’s going on with you. Give me some good news. Something I can tell the girls.” Her request felt like a lifeline thrown across the static, a plea for something—anything—normal.
I let out a dry huff, forcing myself to focus on the present. “Well,” I started, exhaling slowly, “as expected, Sinclair flew us out to the middle of nowhere. Ghost is so tense—he’s always checking his phone or sneaking off to talk with one of the brothers. He won’t tell me anything, and honestly, I feel terrible for making him stay with me.” The words tumbled out, my frustration and guilt tangling together. “Dante and Danika don’t seem bothered by any of it; they’re just rolling with whatever comes. Sinclair? He vanished shortly after we got here, and the man he brought with him is, honestly, a pain in the ass.”
“What man?” Haizley’s voice cut in, curiosity threading through her exhaustion.
I rolled my eyes, unable to hide my annoyance. “Rowen Shay, Sinclair’s right-hand man,” I replied with a scoff. “That man really thinks he can tell me how to parent my own daughter. How was I supposed to know she’d overheard me and Ghost talking? I thought she was asleep. Fuck, Haizley. He practically accused me of failing as a mother, tearing into me as if I’d committed some cardinal sin. For a second, I swear, I thought he wanted to march right over and spank me.” The memory stillstung, heat rushing to my cheeks. “Thank God Ghost showed up when he did, because I was about ready to kick his ass myself.”
Haizley’s eyebrows shot up, her tone tinged with incredulity. “Wait—are we talking about Professor Rowen Shay? The guy who heads up History and Psych at NYU?”
I nodded, still bristling from my rant. “Yeah, that’s the one. Sinclair’s golden poster child.”
Haizley leaned closer to the screen, her lips pursed in that you’re-seriously-messing-with-me way. “Mellie, you do realize Professor Shay is Dr. Gideon Scott’s brother, right?TheGideon Scott?”
I went cold, the couch suddenly too small beneath me. My heart stuttered, as if the name itself had teeth.Dr. Scott? No, it can’t be—I remembered the first time I’d read his book in child psych, the way his case studies left me stunned and his methods set the bar for every therapist I’d ever met. I’d even attended one of his masterclasses at NYU, scribbling furious notes while he broke down childhood trauma with surgical precision. Even after he retired, his teachings clung to my textbooks like dog-eared ghosts. The air in the room thickened, heavy with memory and disbelief. “You’re serious?” I croaked, my hands trembling against the desk. “Dr. Scott practically wrote the rules for my entire field.”
Haizley tapped her phone with a smirk, her words tumbling out fast. “Swear on my last cup of coffee. Professor Shay’s been at NYU for ten years. He runs lectures on radical government stuff in third-world countries, but get this—he also does seminars on how war messes with kids’ brains. Literally, his bio is like a greatest-hits list for people who never sleep.”
The room faded around me—the light humming, the faint smell of dust and saltwater pressing in. I squeezed my eyes shut, and I was back in that overcrowded lecture hall, hanging on Dr. Scott’s every word, never realizing the man’s family treehad roots in my present chaos. “Oh God,” I breathed, pulse drumming in my ears. “I saw him speak once—he was so intense, it felt like he could see straight through me.”
How had I missed this? The connection suddenly felt like a thread yanked tight around my ribs. If Rowen Shay was Dr. Scott’s brother, did he know the things Dr. Scott taught? Did he judge me by those impossible standards?
“He’s got that vibe, huh? Intimidating doesn’t even start to cover it,” Haizley muttered, her fingers flying over her keyboard. “It’s weird, though—he’s a total ghost online. No Facebook, no Insta, not even a sad LinkedIn. Just this dry university admin page.”
I leaned back on the sofa, dizzy with the collision of past and present. Professor Shay wasn’t just some overbearing stranger—he was tied to the foundation of everything I knew about helping children heal. And now, he was scrutinizing me as if I were a pop quiz he expected to fail.
Chapter Seven
Rowen
Dante tapped away, barely glancing up. “Rowen, you’re overreacting. She’s not nearly as bad as you make her out to be. Seriously, if you bothered to even look, you’d see that the two of you are more alike than you think.” He shrugged, eyes glued to the code scrolling on his screen.
“She’s impossible.” My fists clenched under the desk, frustration simmering beneath my words, as I watched Dante’s calm demeanor.
Dante shot me a sideways smirk. “Only when she’s dialed in.”
“Just get it done, Dante. I don’t care how.” My voice was clipped, my glare sharp as I tried to keep the irritation out of my shaking hands. I needed to know what Sinclair had on me.
He leaned back, exhaling, fingers drumming against the armrest. “Not happening. I’m locked out.”
“What?”
