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Too many MacAllens. Too many cages. Too many perfect accidents arranged around the same bloodline and the same bastard’s shadow.

Bernie lifted both hands, her voice turning disciplined and direct. “This proves my father’s organization had a connection to the rig. It does not prove he ordered what Keevandrie did to you.”

9

“My death hadn’t been an accident. It had been an operation.” Knox said it like a man dropping a body in the middle of the kitchen floor and daring the rest of us to pretend we couldn’t smell it.

For three full seconds, nobody moved.

Not Guy, who stood so still beside Bernie that he looked carved out of bad memories and barely leashed violence.

Not Bernie, whose bright emerald eyes sharpened until I was pretty sure she could’ve dissected the air with them.

Not Carrick’s communication spell, which hovered above Guy’s kitchen table in a soft glow and crackled just enough to remind us there was a very old, very powerful Dragon Guard Elder listening on the other end.

And definitely not Knox.

He stood across from me with his shoulders squared, his jaw locked, and his scarred forearm resting near the edge of the table like the Hellmark burning beneath his skin was just another piece of evidence. Like it didn’t belong to him. Like the last hundred years of torment could be organized into a neat little case file if he used the right tone of voice and kept his hands steady.

My chest hurt looking at him. Naturally, I ignored that. Feelings were rude. They showed up uninvited, tracked mud through the house, and then had the nerve to ask for snacks.

So, I did what any emotionally responsible adult would do. I looked away from the gorgeous, traumatized Dragon Man and watched the room.

That was bartender training, right there. People thought pouring drinks was the job. It wasn’t. The real work was reading the room the second after the truth landed. We in the ‘profession’ had to know: (A)Who grabbed anger. (B)Who grabbed denial. (C)Who laughed when nothing was funny. And (D)Who looked for the closest exit.

Guy looked pissed.

No surprise there. The man had just found out his brother’s century in Hell hadn’t been some tragic supernatural accident. It had been arranged.

But underneath the fury, something else flickered across his face. Recognition. Not surprise. Not disbelief.

Recognition.

And that little flash scratched at my brain like a raccoon trying to break into a cooler full of barbecue. Because Guy MacAllen had been deliberately removed from the world, too.

Not killed. Not blown apart in an explosion. Not buried in a family graveyard while everyone told tragic stories and drank themselves stupid.

Put somewhere. Hidden somewhere. Locked somewhere.

My artist and musician’s brain, my bartender brain, and the tiny, reckless goblin who apparently ran quality control in my head all looked at one another and said, “Oh, hell no!”

“Okay,” I said slowly. “Stupid question.”

Bernie’s gaze shifted to me. “Those are generally the useful ones.”

“Good, because this one feels extra stupid.” I pointed between Knox and Guy. “Why are both of you still alive?”

Silence dropped so hard I half expected it to crack the tile.

Guy blinked. “What?”

I kept my finger aimed between the two of them. “Fogarty hated your family. Keevandrie had Knox dead to rights. If getting rid of MacAllens was the point, both of you should be corpses.”

Knox opened his mouth. “Technically…”

I stabbed a finger in his direction. “Do not make the standing joke again.”

His mouth shut with an audible click.