But when they did, it was like no time had passed at all.
Becca hovered her thumb over her contact.
What if she sounded stupid? Paranoid? What if this was nothing and she dragged Inez into her mess for no reason?
She exhaled slowly.
Across town, in a place Becca couldn’t see, Silas watched her through a wall of data and quiet observation.
The camera angles were clean. The audio feed steady.
He saw the way she paced. The way she touched the note without realizing it. The way her fingers trembled just slightly when she picked up her phone.
He heard the silence in the room.
He already knew about the email. The offer. Jenna’s name attached to it like a threat.
He’d known before Becca finished reading it.
When her phone finally rang out into the quiet, Silas leaned forward, eyes narrowing—not with concern, but focus.
Inez answered on the second ring.
“Becca?” Her voice carried surprise, then warmth. “Is that you?”
Becca closed her eyes.
“Yeah,” she said softly. “It’s me.”
Just like that, the dam cracked.
Silas listened as Becca spoke—about the shop, about Izzy showing up, about the girl he cheated with standing in her space like she owned it. He listened to the pauses. The breaths she tried to steady. The way her voice faltered when she mentioned the offer to buy her out.
Hecataloged every detail.
And when Becca finally said, “I don’t know who to trust anymore,” Silas felt something dark and resolute settle in his chest.
She didn’t know it yet.
But she didn’t have to trust anyone else.
He was already there.
Watching.
Listening.
Protecting.
And soon—very soon—someone was going to make a move that proved just how necessary thatprotection was.
3
Becca woke up with the feeling that something had already happened.
Not a dream.
Not a memory.
