Voices moved around me in low, clipped bursts. Cal’s was calm in the way men sounded when calm was the only thing holding a building upright. Regan’s voice had a sharper edge to it, the kind that said she had cried already and was furiouswith herself for wasting the time. JD’s voice was gravel and gunpowder.
“They showed up at the clubhouse with search warrants,” Cal said quietly. “We got Cal’s copy before they started tearing through everything, but I just biked back in time to see half the yard ready to go nuclear.”
JD growled. “People are pissed. Really pissed. They’re angry, and they’re going for the jugular, just like I expected them to.”
A chair scraped. Someone paced.
I knew that sound. Men with too much power trapped in a room too small for their rage.
“But this is where my old family money connections come in,” JD continued. “It’s gonna be hot for a while. Eventually, I can get it to cool down. We’ll start pressing the plate back piece by piece, but right now?”
He stopped.
The silence made my chest tighten.
“You gotta get her out of here,” he said.
My fingers almost twitched against the blanket.
Skye made a small sound. “JD?—”
“They’re gonna want to question her,” JD cut in. “They’re already lining it up. But they can’t question her if she’s out of the country on vacation.”
My heart kicked.
Out of the country?
“They can’t send cops down there and sit on her forever,” JD said. “Not if she’s with people. Not if she’s recovering. She stays long enough that the bruises turn yellow and get covered by makeup. We buy time. We control the story.”
“She has a passport?” Cal asked.
“I don’t know.” JD cursed under his breath. “Private charter boat. No passport. Hell, I don’t care how we do it, but we figure it out. It’s getting hot. She’s gotta be gone by sunrise.”
Gone by sunrise.
The words slipped through me like cold water.
Gone.
Again.
Only this time it wouldn’t be running from monsters. It would be running from consequences. From questions. From a room full of people who loved me enough to set themselves on fire trying to protect me.
“The drugs are out of her system,” another voice muttered.
The doctor.
Regan exhaled like she had been holding her breath for hours.
“She needs rest,” the doctor added. “Actual rest. No shouting, no interrogations, no stress.”
That would have been funny if I had remembered how to laugh.
No stress.
Sure.
I would just file that beside no trauma, no betrayal, no dead mother, no powerful enemies, no bloody hands, and no reason for half the state to want my name dragged through the mud by breakfast.
