I could text Sloane right now. Tell her everything. Watch what that does to her. The instinct hits loud: tell her now, warn her, get ahead of the blow. But another voice, colder and smarter, cuts through. If her father's tied into this circle, she's about to break in a way I can't fix on the fly. Not until I know what we'redealing with. Not until I can control the variables before the first blow lands.
I shove the phone back in my pocket. Tonight is about Candace's world collapsing, not Sloane's.
Nash hears the silence. "You know this isn't staying contained to Candace."
I look at him. "I know."
"Good. Because you're not the only one with a past that doesn't like the light."
East lingers, eyes on the closed door. "I'm going to check on Darla," he says finally. "If the world's going to burn, I want her with me where I can keep an eye on her."
"Yeah. Makes sense."
East heads out. Nash stays where he is, arms crossed, watching me like he's waiting for a play call.
The muffled sound of Chuck breathing filters through the door, the sound of a man who doesn't know he's run out of road. I push off the wall, turn toward the war room, and start walking. Because that's the one thing I can do right now that doesn't involve dragging my wife into a nightmare she's already lived once. Not yet.
Nash falls into step beside me without a word. "I'm going to start digging," I say. "If Brighton's alive, she left a paper trail somewhere. Nobody at that level stays completely dark."
"Sure you want to dive into that alone?"
"If I need backup breaking into county servers, I'll holler. Right now I just… need to do something that isn't standing here picturing every girl we know on an auction block."
Nash's jaw works once. "Yeah. I get that more than you think."
I grab my laptop from the war room and carry it back out to the main floor, settling at the long table facing the bottom of the staircase. The one spot where I can catch her face the second shewalks down—before she masks it, before she remembers how to hide. Nash clocks the move but doesn't comment.
I flip open the laptop. Systems boot up. My focus narrows to numbers, names, and hidden money. Brighton, Graves, Moreland, Castiel. The same name I pulled out of Whitcomb's server two years ago in Chicago, tied to a Mississippi fraud fund that reeked of laundered money. I flagged him then as a financial threat. Turns out the money was always just the skeleton. The flesh was girls. Each name another thread in the web these bastards wove, stretching wider every time I pull.
Beneath every thread I trace, every shell company I peel back, one thought loops steady and vicious. Mercer. Her maiden name. A name I've never touched. Never searched. Never typed because I meant it when I said I wouldn't take what she wasn't willing to give.
But now? Now, with fathers selling daughters and men hiding behind polite smiles? I hover over the keyboard. For the first time, I consider it. If this circle touches Sloane's father…
I will tear the whole machine apart until nothing is left. And hope she is still there when it's over.
Chapter 21
Sloane
Thegunshotcracksthroughthe warehouse, ricochets down the cinderblock hallway, and lands right in the center of my chest. I don't flinch. I've heard worse, closer. But my hand still finds the wall, palm flat against cool concrete.
Candace doesn't flinch either. She stands a few feet ahead, shoulders straight, chin high, staring at the shut door as though she can see through it. Ruby's just off her left shoulder. Frankie on her right, arms folded, tattoos stark against pale skin. East is a few steps behind us, entire body angled toward the open side room where Darla sits on a battered couch with a blanket over her legs. Nash is a silent post by the exit. James and Maggiehover at the far end, the quiet gravity of grown-ups who've seen too many endings.
Knox is at my back. I can feel him without turning. Heat. Leather. The steady weight of his gaze tracking every breath I take.
The quiet after the shot stretches. One second. Two. Three. The door opens. Malachi steps out. He looks… still. Too still.
I take in the holstered gun, bruised knuckles, and eyes gone flat in a way that scares me more than if he'd come out snarling. Violence hums around him like static, but his hands hang loose at his sides, controlled.
He doesn't look at any of us. Just Candace. Her back lifts a fraction, bracing for the hit she already knows is coming.
"You shouldn't have to carry that," he says, voice low and rough, like the words scraped their way up.
Candace's chin tips up. Her eyes shine, not with tears, because those dried up a long time ago, but with something harsher, sharper. "Thank you." It's small and simple, but it lands like a vow.
He just killed her father. Pulled the trigger so she wouldn't have to carry it. She's looking at him like he's still hers. Malachi knew what Chuck tried to do. Knew Candace came from that world. And he chose her anyway.
But Candace fought back. She ran the second she knew what was happening. I didn't. I was there when Anna was sold. My father shook hands with men like Trent Moreland. And I didn't run until it was my turn.
