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The one restraining the messenger wrestled him down into the sand, knee on his back, arms twisted behind him as the guy cursed and sputtered.
My knees gave a little. I felt the blood drain from my face.
“He—he said Noah?—”
I looked down at the page again, the corners catching the breeze. Noah’s face. Daddy’s.
It looked so official.
I bent to pick it up again, but the man stopped me with a hand on my shoulder.
I stared at him, breath shallow, thoughts spinning too fast to hold. My eyes flicked to the man still pinned in the sand, squirming now like he knew his part in this was over.
I didn’t know what was true.
Noah had held me through my worst day. Could he have been the one who caused it?
18
NOAH
Iwas halfway through a bottle of bourbon, sprawled in Dominion Hall’s library, when my phone buzzed hard against the oak table.
The room was dark, heavy with old books and the faint stink of cigar smoke from Ryker’s last visit.
I’d been trying to drown the noise in my head—the paper from Holstein’s place, Hallie Mae’s grief, the way Department 77 had looped me into her dad’s murder like a noose I hadn’t seen tightening.
Didn’t work.
Every sip just sharpened the edges, made her face clearer—those blue eyes, red-rimmed and broken, staring at me like I could fix it.
I grabbed the phone, saw the number—one of the guys I’d put on her, watching from a distance to keep her safe.
“Yeah?” I answered, voice rough, already standing, instincts flaring.
“She won’t come with us,” the guy said, tense, low. “Got spooked. Some asshole handed her a paper, and now she’s digging in, won’t move.”
My gut dropped, cold and sharp. “What paper?”
“Didn’t see it clear. She’s clutching it, though. Looks shook.”
“Where are you?”
“Isle of Palms. Near The Soundline.”
“I’m coming,” I said, already grabbing my keys, the bourbon forgotten.
I bolted for the truck, heart pounding.
The drive to Isle of Palms was a blur—salt air whipping through the open window, the road stretching out under a too-bright sun that didn’t match the storm in my chest.
My mind churned, spitting out every word I’d say to her, every way I’d try to explain the unexplainable.
I’d start with the truth—or as much as I could stomach.
Hallie Mae, I didn’t know about your dad. I’d never hurt you like that. The paper—it’s a setup, someone’s playing us both.
But then I’d see her eyes in my head—those blue depths, soft one minute, hard the next—and I’d hear her voice, sharp, cutting through my bullshit.