Liam leans forward, measured, cutting through the chaos. “Phone lines aren’t secure, youknowthat. Especially if you’re on Salvatore’s estate.”
My pulse stutters.Fuck.Of course.
Except—I wasn’t on their turf this morning.
The thought hits hard, sharp enough to steal my breath. If they’d known that, would Owen have told me sooner? Would I have had time to pull Lily with me instead of leaving her exposed, alone? The what ifs stab deep, cruel in their timing.
“Carlo would have tapped everything. Every line, every room. Calling you could have tipped them off, Matt.”
I freeze, my throat tightening at Aidan's clipped words.
Flashes crowd my mind, everything he might already know. Lily’s streams. My call with Jonathan. The things I said when I thought I’d cleared the room. If Carlo heard any of that…
Fuck.
Owen’s eyes meet mine, grim, and controlled. “Exactly. We had to make sure, Matt. We couldn’t risk tipping them off.”
A bitter laugh tears out of me, jagged and short. “So all this time, I’ve been walking blind… thinking I was playing mole, while you’ve been untangling it piece by piece behind my back.”
Owen doesn’t flinch. “Not behind your back, just working a different angle and hoping we were wrong.”
My pulse thunders in my ears. My mind fractures into jagged shards—routes, exits, blood-soaked contingencies—as I swear, right there and then, that nothing will touch her. Not now. Not ever.
“You know what this means,” I manage, my voice rough as I meet his stare and see my own fear reflected back.
“It means Lily was never guilty,” Owen fills in, sympathy flashing across his face. “It means Antonio isn’t just adjacent to the trafficking, he’s waist-deep. And it means—”
“It means Lily needs to come home.”
Cora’s voice slices clean through the room, cutting her husband off. She sounds calm, too calm. The kind of calm that comes right before a storm tears something apart. She’s standing in the doorway, arms crossed, chin lifted like she’s bracing against the world itself. But her eyes… her eyes are molten. Furious, terrified, and determined all at once.
The air shifts, thick enough to taste.
My chest tightens until it aches.
Cora steps further inside, gaze locked on the map spread across the table.
“Now.”
One word yet it’s sharp as a blade.
The silence that follows isn’t quiet, it’s electric, loaded, impossible to ignore. My chest hammers, every muscle coiled,every nerve on fire. She doesn’t need to say more. I already know.
This isn’t a theory, paranoia, or half-formed suspicion.
Lily is in immediate danger.
Not someday, not maybe.
Now.
And we’re already five steps behind, scrambling in the dark while whatever is coming for her moves fast, close enough to feel like a shadow brushing the back of my neck.
I swallow, forcing air into my lungs, but it does nothing to calm my racing thoughts. The fear only drags deeper, compressing my chest, making every breath tight, wrong.
There’s no room for hesitation anymore.
No luxury to be wrong.
