Page 27

CAL

CAL

I drive an hour west.

Not far.

Just enough.

Enough to get off any main roads, to find a signal without drawing one.

Enough to be alone.

There’s a safehouse cabin tucked behind a line of evergreens near an old quarry—one of a handful scattered across the island from another life, another name. I haven’t been here in years.

It’s clean. Functional. Just what I need.

I pull the burner from the glove compartment.

Power it on.

The screen glows low, the number list still blank, just the way I left it. I tap in the name of an old contact—someone who owes me, someone who’ll talk if I ask the right way.

While I wait for a response, I open the drawer beneath the old field desk.

The folder’s still there. Photos, notes, faces. Some from before. Some from after.

I spread them out in neat rows. Methodical. Quiet.

And I find him.

The man from the field.

A little younger. Fewer scars. But the eyes are the same.

James Trent.

Mercenary. Freelance. No loyalties. No rules. Just payment and damage.

And the fact that he came here?

Means someone’s trying to stir something long buried.

My fingers curl against the edge of the desk. I sit in the quiet.

The photo of Trent still spread on the desk.

The edges curl slightly under my fingertips, cool and sharp.

My gut tightens, a slow coil of something old and bitter rising in my chest—recognition, maybe.

Or fury. Or both. A half-written message glowing on the burner. Plans beginning to form, slow and cold.

But first—

Her.

I promised I’d check in.

I press her name on the screen. It rings once, twice, then connects.

I expect her voice.

I expect softness. Maybe tiredness. Maybe a nervous laugh.

But instead…

I hear him.

My spine goes straight, a bolt of cold running down it as every muscle tightens. Like instinct hitting bone-deep before thought can catch up.

“—You think shutting yourself in there is gonna make me stop? Your time is limited here. Leeching my food, my money.”

A crash. A door slamming. Something breaking.

“Should have never let you come back. Dead weight—”

There’s a shuffle. A voice in the background—her mother, maybe. Trying to calm him. Trying to stop it.

But the yelling doesn’t.

“You think that man’s gonna stick around once he figures out what you really are? A mess. A problem. A goddamn burden.”

My jaw clenches. My fingers curl into a fist before I even register it, the breath stuck tight in my throat.

I speak her name.

Twice.

No answer.

Just the sound of her silence behind his rage.

I hang up.

Silence.

Thick and ringing. Like the world is holding its breath. My own heartbeat pounds, slow and punishing, in my ears—like a war drum sounding the next step before I even take it.

And I stand.

The floor feels too steady beneath me. My body too calm. But inside, something shifts, cold and final. Like a switch being flipped. Like the moment before a fuse catches flame.

I move slow. Deliberate. Not a sound wasted.

Because it’s not a question anymore.

It’s not a debate.

I’m going to get her.

Now.

And she’s not staying in that house another goddamned night.

Not after that.

Not while I’m still breathing.

She belongs somewhere safe. Somewhere quiet.

Somewhere that feels like mine. Not just in proximity—but in presence, in protection.

She should be sleeping in a bed I’ve made, wrapped in a blanket I’ve laid out, with the softest damn light I can find warming the corners of the room.

Where I can keep her close. Keep her safe.

Where nothing and no one gets through unless I open the door myself.