Adelaide’s mouth parts.
“He wanted her out, still alive, and gone so completely that no one could tie it back to him.” My jaw tightens. “That meant we couldn’t openly rescue her. We had to make it look like a hit.”
The room goes very still.
“We wore the masks because, by then, the Gravesend Brothers had become a story people already believed. We needed witnesses to see exactly what they expected to see. Three masked men, a violent grab. Something that pointed the policeand her boss toward mercenaries who worked on their own.” I lean forward. “We staged her disappearance, planted enough evidence for law enforcement to write it up as a murder they’ll never solve. We moved her out of the islands, and now she has a new name, new life, and no trail back.”
Adelaide’s whole face lights up slightly. “She’s alive?” she asks.
“Yeah, and very happy. And because I’m breaking every agreement we made to keep that hidden, you and Clio need to take it to the grave with you. The chief doesn’t know where she ended up. None of The Breakers do. We tell no one, because the less anyone knows, the safer she stays.”
“Where is she now?” Adelaide whispers.
I glance once at Ace, and he’s already standing. Luca clears his throat, and when I stare his way, he nods.
“Whispering Grove,” I answer.
She freezes. “My—” Her voice catches hard. “My hometown?”
“Yes.”
Ace steps in closer. “She goes by Mia now, and I was coming back from checking on her when I met you in Seattle. I told you I was on a layover from New York because I didn’t want questions.”
Adelaide pinches her lips to the side. For a second, I think she’s going to stop breathing altogether. Then she glances up, eyes huge and wrecked and shining. “Can I ask my brother back in Whispering Grove to confirm that?”
All three of us go still.
“He’s a bounty hunter,” she says, words tumbling now, urgent and shaking. “He knows how to be discreet. I just… I need to know that she’s really there and that this is real.”
“Of course,” I reply immediately.
Clio is already pulling her phone out. “Let me call him. I know it’s late there, but he’ll answer.” Her mouth wobbles once. “Been ages since I bugged him, honestly.”
“Please,” Adelaide whispers.
Ace is already moving, thumbing through his phone. “I’ve got the address.” He crosses to Clio and lowers his voice, giving it to her piece by piece. Clio nods. “Got it. I’ll do it now.”
She squeezes Adelaide’s shoulder, then slips out of the room with the phone already to her ear, the door shutting softly behind her.
And then it’s just us. Adelaide on the bed, trying not to fall apart from her heat, from everything she just learned. Ace, Luca, and I stand there with every buried thing finally dragged into the light and nowhere left to hide.
Adelaide lifts her chin, though her whole body is shaking now, heat and heartbreak and exhaustion all tearing through her at once. “No more keeping things from me. Not the small stuff, not the big stuff. If there’s another secret door in your house, I want to know which photograph opens it. If there’s an alarm code, I want to know what it does. If there’s a boat, I want its name, its history, and where you keep the key. I hate secrets. Clear?”
“Crystal,” Ace says.
“Completely,” Luca adds.
“Yes,” I say. “No secrets, we give you our word.”
She swallows, wipes roughly at her face, her pillow falling aside, then presses both hands to her stomach. A soft, involuntary moan breaks out of her, and her scent rolls through the room all over again, sweeter now, sharper, hot enough to make my jaw lock. My cock hardens just at the smell. Ace drags in a breath as if it hurts, while Luca braces one hand against the wall and bows his head for a second.
“And you should have told me,” she says, voice trembling. “Before I had to find out like that.”
“We fucked up,” I say immediately.
She stares at all three of us, tears bright in her eyes. “I get why you didn’t. I do. I understand it better now than I want to. The fear that someone hears the worst thing about you and walks, I get it.” Her mouth twists, and another tear slips free. “But it still hurt like hell.”
That burns me. Ace is already moving. Luca, too, approaching her.
