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My attention drifts back to the blueprint spread across the table, tracing the path from the greenhouse to my father's study. Memories flood back, the scent of expensive leather and cigars filling my nose. How fitting that the room where he plotted so much destruction would become the stage for our rescue.

“Vesper?” Oz's voice pulls me from my thoughts. “Are you with us?”

I blink, refocusing on the present. “Yes. Sorry.”

“As I was saying, Talon will be your driver. Zaire and I will already be there in the tunnels by the time you arrive,” Oz repeats again.

I nod, studying the rough sketch of the tunnel system again. “How will you get there ahead of us without being seen?”

“We'll go in separately, hours before your scheduled arrival,” Z explains, tracing the route with his finger. “There's a maintenance access point half a mile from the property line, hidden in what appears to be an abandoned groundskeeper's shed.”

“Alex discovered it during his initial research,” Oz says quietly. “He mapped the entire system before...” He doesn't finish the sentence; he doesn't need to.

I force myself to focus on the blueprint, not the absence that seems to grow more profound with each passing hour.

“What if he moves Luca?” I ask, voicing the fear that's been gnawing at me since we saw the video. “What if he's not even in the house?”

“That’s the problem. He may not even have Luca with him. It could be like the pickup at Martha’s Vineyard. The house may be the initial contact point with a secondary location for the meeting. We can’t plan for what we don’t know, but the tracker in your arm will tell us where you are. We can follow you.”

“Alex designed it to work even in areas with signal-jamming technology,” Talon explains, his voice softening at the mention of Alex's name. “It piggybacks on multiple frequencies, including some military bands. Unless The Collector takes you deep underground or into the middle of the ocean, we'll find you.”

I try to take comfort in that, but doubt still gnaws at me. What if he's anticipated this too? The memories of my time there flood back into my mind, taking me back to the place of my nightmares again. The walls are closing in around me.

“I need a minute.”

I don't wait for their response before heading down the hallway. My feet carry me automatically toward Alex's room, the door still firmly closed since we returned to the apartment. No one has entered it. It's become a shrine of sorts, a testament to the hole his absence has carved in our lives.

My hand hesitates on the doorknob, trembling slightly. Taking a deep breath, I push it open and step inside.

The room is exactly as he left it—bed neatly made with military precision, laptop closed on the desk, a half-empty mug of coffee still sitting beside it. Time has frozen here, preserving everything in a painful stasis. I can almost imagine him walking through the door, eyebrow raised in that questioning way of his, asking what I'm doing in his space.

I move to his closet and slide the door open, revealing a meticulous row of shirts and suits—each one spaced evenly, like everything in his life: controlled, calculated. My fingers drift across the fabrics until they pause on a gray Henley—the one he wore at the beach house after they first pulled me from hell. I slip it off the hanger, press it to my face, and inhale. His scent still lingers, warm and familiar, and it punches the air from my lungs, tightening my throat with a grief I can’t swallow down.

“Tell me I’m not making a mistake. That the meeting tomorrow will not cost me everything.”

The silence that greets my plea feels like another loss. I clutch his shirt tighter.

“It should have been me. It should have been me on that boat.”

A soft knock at the open door makes me turn. Talon leans against the doorframe, his injured arm cradled against his chest.

“He wouldn't agree with that sentiment,” he says quietly.

I don't bother wiping away the tears tracking down my cheeks. “He's not here to argue, is he?”

Talon steps into the room, his presence gentle despite his size. “No. But I am.”

“You nearly died too,” I remind him, fingers still wrapped in Alex's shirt. “Because of me.”

“Because of The Collector,” he corrects, moving closer. “Don't give yourself credit for his evil, Vesper.”

I shake my head, looking around the pristine room that still feels inhabited by Alex's presence.

Alex knew, you know. He knew something would go wrong. That night before you left, he told me if it came down to a choice between you coming back or him, he'd make sure it was you.”

Talon's expression tightens with pain. “He never told me that.”

"Of course not. That wasn't how Alex operated. He just did what he thought was best for us all. He sacrificed himself, Talon, and for what? I am meeting the very person responsible for taking him away from all of us tomorrow.”