“Are you going to tell me it’s wrong?” My voice came out raw. “That your family isn’t dangerous?”
Luke’s gaze held mine. Something darker moved behind it before he locked it down. “No, just that we don’t ignore it.”
“Then what do we do?”
“We take it as data. We verify. We trace the alias. We match names to timelines. And we also stop pretending my last name isn’t part of this.”
He didn’t say my father. But I heard it anyway.
“Marcus is still digging. I’ll fill you in when he finds anything.”
“Okay.” Filing that piece of information away, I turned the page in the notebook, but there was nothing there—just torn paper stuck in the metal binding, indicating whatever else had been written had been removed.
Slowly, I closed the notebook. My hands shook as I lowered it back into the hidden place in the dresser, covering our tracks.
His eyes were already on me. Storm-dark. No mask. No distance. Just raw, intense focus—emotion that edged into dangerous territory.
And something told me that whatever came next, nothing between us would stay the same.
We drove to school, and I refused to think the entire way. I didn’t want to process what Darren had written. Had he told Mom more? Or had he died before he could? And those pages that were torn out—what had she done with them?
Luke parked his SUV near the far end of the lot, pointed toward the entrance. As I drew near, he’d already gotten out and was leaning against the driver’s side door, arms folded loosely, head slightly bowed as if he’d been running through scenarios. When I parked, he pushed off the metal. By the time I stepped out, he was in front of me.
His hands came to my waist, drawing me in. The hug wasn’t tentative. It was firm, grounding, his chin brushing my temple before his mouth found mine in a too-quick, drugging kiss. His hand stayed at my waist a second longer before he stepped back slightly.
“You okay?” he asked.
“No,” I answered. “But I will be.”
That earned the faintest shift in his expression. “Good,” he replied. “We’re in this. Whatever it turns out to be.”
The reason Mom and I had left Blackwood—Darren lying behind King Enterprises, eyes sightless, blood pooling around him—haunted me. I held on to Luke. “Darren knew he was in danger. He should’ve left or, I don’t know, done something to stay safe.”
“Yes.”
I looked up at him. “What if we’re wrong about all of it?”
“Then we adjust,” he answered without hesitation. “We don’t guess. We get proof about who’s behind his death, and what, if anything, he had on the people or companies involved.”
I studied his face. What he left out was anything Darren had specifically on King Enterprises.
“I’m not keeping you in the dark,” he continued. “Not about this. Not about anything.”
That meant more than us finding the notebook.
But it wasn’t enough. If Darren had been scared enough to write that—then whatever we were walking into? We were already behind.
CHAPTER NINE
LUKE
The rink was already at capacity when we stepped out for warm-ups.
Crestwood had traveled in force. Their student section filled the far bleachers in coordinated navy and white, loud and unified. Ours answered in silver and black. The air carried the layered noise of rivalry—cowbells, shouted names, the scrape of skates during warm-ups.
I circled the blue line, shifting weight through my edges to feel the glide. The first cut was controlled. The second forced more speed through the turn. I snapped a puck top corner and heard it catch mesh.
Across center ice, Crestwood’s captain, Mason, moved differently than the rest of his team. He didn’t wait for lanes to open. He created them. His hands stayed tight to his body, pulling the puck across defenders with almost no windup. He cut inside at the last second instead of following a typical pattern like Coach would’ve drawn on a board.
