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But there was still one gaping hole in the story.

Alex leaned forward, his voice turning colder. “And the bomb?”

Melanie blinked. “What?”

“The bomb in Ruth’s car,” Alex pressed. “Who planted it?”

Melanie’s face twisted in confusion. “That wasn’t me. It wasn’t Luke. And it wasn’t Maxim.”

Noah’s stomach turned.If Fairchild didn’t plant the bomb, then who the hell did?

Luke met Noah’s gaze, his voice sarcastic. “Then you’ve got another player in this game.”

Noah stepped forward, his voice like steel. “Yeah,” he said darkly. “And we need to find out who the hell they are before they strike again. But we have enough on the two of you, so if you string us along…”

Luke protested, “What do you have on me? I just protect the man.”

Alex got up, opened the front door and waved in four agents who’d flown in from the FBI’s DC office. Melanie began to sob, and Luke grew stoic as they were handcuffed and walked out to waiting vehicles.

Alex and Noah went through the apartment. Finding nothing, they headed out to prepare for the raid on the Fairchild estate.

Thirty-Nine

Ruth sat stiffly in the oversized chair, the soft fabric pressing against her back. The air smelled faintly of antiseptic, coffee, and something warm, like home, like comfort, but it did nothing to ease the nerves knotting inside her.

Her mother sat beside her, holding her hand, while Sophie hovered close, a quiet but steady presence. Across from her, Tristan, James, and Paul sat. Something was wrong. She could feel it in the way they hesitated, in the way no one had spoken yet.

Finally, Tristan exhaled. “Ruth, we want to go over your test results.”

She swallowed hard, gripping her mother’s hand tighter. “Okay.”

Tristan kept his voice gentle but firm. “Your bloodwork shows you’re seriously anemic. Your blood counts are very low.”

Ruth’s stomach dropped.

“We’re going to give you a couple units of blood and start you on high-dose vitamins,” he continued. “The good news is your CT scan didn’t show any obvious bleeds.”

Ruth exhaled, relief flickering in her chest until he kept talking. “We’re going to watch your numbers. If they hold steady, great. If not, we’ll need to do further testing to rule out underlying conditions, issues with absorption, a slow leak, bone marrow function, or any other medical cause.”

Ruth nodded slowly, trying to process everything. “So… the blood transfusion should help?”

Tristan gave her a reassuring squeeze on the knee. “Yes. You should start feeling a little stronger once your levels stabilize.”

She let that sink in. The constant exhaustion, the weakness that never seemed to leave her bones, maybe it wasn’t just from the injury. Maybe fixing this could help.

But there was still one question clawing at her. Her voice came out smaller than she intended. “And my brain?”

A heavy silence filled the room before James reached across the space, taking her other hand gently in his. “Ruth,” he said carefully, his voice the kind of soft that warned her she wasn’t going to like what came next. “Your CT is negative. No new bleeds, and there’s evidence of your major trauma healing. The swelling is now minimal.”

Something about the way he said it made her breath catch. Her pulse pounded in her ears. “What does that mean?”

James hesitated. Then, he explained, “It means we’re looking at a psychosomatic reaction.”

Ruth’s body stiffened. “No.” She shook her head immediately, her pulse speeding up. “No. That doesn’t make sense. There has to be something wrong. You just haven’t found it yet.”

Paul, ever the pragmatist, spoke up, his tone eerily similar to Noah’s when he was trying to get her to accept something she didn’t want to hear. “Ruth, listen to me.”

She turned toward the sound of his voice, gripping James’s hand like a lifeline.