I clench my jaw because he's right. "I would've made sure she never made it to the station."
"You're a loose screw, man!"
The rage spikes white through my veins. I pick up the empty beer bottle from the table. I want to throw it; instead, I set it back down… carefully.
I say, "That girl probably knows exactly how sick her little boyfriend is, and yet—" I crack my neck. "She still goes to the hospital every day to play the devoted girlfriend."
Silas makes a contemplative noise from the couch. "What if she doesn't know?"
Beckett glances at him. I keep my stare on Beckett.
"What if he kept her around as a cover?" Silas continues, infuriatingly reasonable about it.
My eyes move to Silas. "And my sister was…what?"
Beckett and Silas exchange a look while I grab the nearest fucking thing to occupy my mind. A broom. Perfect. I grab the broom and start sweeping the floor.
"Theo." Beckett's voice sharpens. "Are you in?"
I dump the dustpan’s trash into the trash without answering.
Silas says, "We get the laptop back before she finds someone to crack it open."
I set the broom against the wall and shake my head slowly. "I have a better idea."
Beckett reads me immediately. "We're not doing that. Not yet." He rubs his jaw. "Laptop first. Then whatever's in your head."
"You think you know what I was going to say?"
He almost grins. "I know exactly what you were going to say."
"Then you know it works."
"Laptop first," he repeats.
Seventy-four minutes to Adela’s house. I count every one of them, fingers drumming against my thigh while Silas drives and Beckett rides in back. The streets thin out as we leave the citybehind, replaced by sprawling properties behind iron gates and long driveways.
Rich people and their fortresses.
We park half a mile out. We’re all dressed in black — jeans, hoodies, gloves, masks.
"Cameras on the north and east entrances," Beckett mutters, checking his phone before pocketing it. "Security is top-tier."
"Then we go in through the back," I say.
We circle the perimeter low and quiet. My heart beats steadily. That disconnection again — body moving, mind watching from somewhere above it all.
Silas tries the first door. Locked. Beckett tries the second. Locked. I try a side entrance near what looks like a sunroom, and the handle turns under my palm.
"Stupid rich fucks," I murmur, and ease it open.
Inside is exactly what I expected. Marble floors, framed art, furniture no one actually sits on. Everything pristine. Museum energy.
I fucking hate museums.
We move slowly through the first floor, listening. The house breathes with the occasional creak of settling wood, nothing more. It’s just past two in the morning. Everyone's asleep.
The staircase curves wide and grand up to the second floor. We take it one careful step at a time, Beckett first, then Silas, then me.
