"Yeah. I do."
"And him."
"Yeah."
She looks down at her hands. They're folded in her lap, still shaking, the nails bitten to the quick.
"I wanted to fix it," she says quietly. "I thought—I thought if I could talk to the right people, make a deal, buy more time?—"
Something cold moves through my chest. "What do you mean, talk to the right people?"
"I just—I made some calls. I was trying to negotiate. To get them to back off, give us more time to?—"
"Who did you call, Angelica?"
She doesn't answer. But the look on her face—the sudden, sick realization that she's said too much, tells me everything I need to know.
"What did you tell them?" My voice has changed. It's the voice I use in the ER when a patient is crashing and there's no time for softness. "Angelica.Whatdid you tell them?"
"I just—Coin's schedule. When he's home, when he's not. I told them about the woman who stays with the girls—I didn't use your name, I just—" Her voice is climbing, desperate, the words tumbling out like she can stop the avalanche by running faster than it. "I was trying to help. I was trying to make it stop. I thought if I gave them something, they'd give us more time?—"
"You gave them Coin's schedule. You told them when the girls are alone."
"Not alone—you're there, or the club is there, I just?—"
"You told them about me. That I stay with the girls."
"I didn't mean?—"
"You handed them a damn blueprint, Angelica."
My hands are shaking now. Not from fear. From rage.
The deep, bone-level fury of a woman who just promised a thirteen-year-old girl she wouldn't leave and is now standing in a motel room finding out that the girl's own mother may have just put a target on all of them.
"You told violent men exactly when Coin isn't home and exactly who is with his children. Do you understand what you've done?"
She's crying now.
Real tears—ugly, terrified, the kind that come from a place beyond her own manipulation.
She knows. She can see it on my face. She can see the magnitude of what she's done, and it's too big for tears, too big for apologies, too big for the flimsy excuse ofI was trying to help.
"I'm sorry," she whispers. "I'm sorry, I didn't think?—"
"You never think. Coin said that to you in his kitchen and he was right. You never,everthink."
I pull out my phone. My hands are shaking so hard it takes me two tries to unlock it.
"What are you doing?" she asks.
"Calling Coin. And you're going to sit right there and you're going to tell him exactly what you told them. Every word. Every detail. Because the safety of his daughters depends on it, and if you lie about a single thing, I swear to God?—"
I don't finish the sentence. I don't need to. She can see it in my eyes. The Mercer in me. The part that doesn't break, doesn't bend, doesn't bluff.
Coin answers on the first ring. He always does now.
"Leah?"
