LOGINThe cracker stopped halfway to my mouth.I missed you.I should have had something sharp ready. Some sarcastic defense. Some clean little blade to cut the moment down before it grew too large.Nothing came.He stood on the other side of the island, tall and exhausted, with his hair still messy from the long night and his eyes heavy with everything he had done wrong and everything he wanted to do right. The sight of him should have been easier to resist.It was not.“I was right here,” I said.His mouth twisted. “No, you weren’t.”I looked down. He was right.For weeks, I had sat beside him in public, smiled for cameras, answered reporters, shared an apartment, shared a bed once, shared breath in the dark and still, I had been gone. Somewhere behind my eyes, behind my voice, behind every polite answer I used like a locked door.He had noticed.Jaxon noticed everything except the things fear made him blind to.A knock came at the door before either of us could say anything else.Both of
The message sat on my phone like it had been carved there.Ask Evelyn why she knew your mother.For several seconds, neither Jason and I spoke.The secure apartment had gone too quiet again. That seemed to be its favorite trick. It allowed small moments of warmth to settle, allowed laughter to appear cautiously, then ripped the floor open with one sentence from a man who should have already been in handcuffs.Jaxon stood beside the table, staring at my phone with a frozen expression. The soft amusement from remembering our childhood meeting had vanished completely from his face, replaced by the controlled, dangerous stillness I had once mistaken for arrogance. His eyes had gone flat and cold but I knew him better now. The colder he looked, the more violently he was feeling underneath.I looked down at the photograph again.Victor had Lena.Or at least, he wanted us to believe he had her.She sat beside him in the image, her shoulders straight, her chin lifted, her mouth pressed into a
After a moment, Agent Bennett pointed toward one of the photographs and spoke with a detective tone, "Amelia attended six different events involving Rory."I stared hard. Then stared again as if trying to understand.The evidence was undeniable. The dates stretched across several years.Long before Rory and I met. Long before professional hockey. Long before any of this."Why?" I asked.The question came out sharper than intended.Agent Bennett looked frustrated.For once, she didn't have an answer."We don't know."Rory continued studying the photographs. Something about her expression changed. Very slightly.Then she picked up one particular image. "Wait."Every head turned toward her. She slid the photograph across the table. Toward me.My stomach tightened immediately.The image showed Rory's father standing outside a small arena.Amelia stood beside him. There was nothing unusual there.Then I noticed the third person. The person was a woman. She had dark hair, a warm smile and o
Sleep never came.The federal apartment was quiet, secure, and probably safer than any place Rory and I had been in weeks and yet my mind refused to settle.The city stretched beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows in a sea of lights. Barges drifted slowly along the Hudson. Traffic crawled across distant bridges. Somewhere below, thousands of people were ending ordinary days and preparing for ordinary tomorrows.Ordinary felt like a luxury.I stood alone in the kitchen shortly after three in the morning, staring into a mug of coffee that had long since gone cold.The name kept replaying in my head.Amelia Kane-Callahan.My sister's name. Rory's surname.Connected.Somehow.How in hell was that possible?The archive had never contained coincidences. Every file Richard Kane created had purpose. Every note. Every contingency. Every hidden recording.Which meant my father had deliberately written that name.The implication refused to leave me alone.A soft sound drew my attention just then a
The meeting continued for another hour.By the end of it, nobody seemed particularly happy.Federal protection remained necessary.Public disappearance remained impossible.Victor remained missing.The archive remained incomplete.Everything was complicated. Totally complicated. Exactly as expected.Eventually, Agent Bennett dismissed everyone. Well, everyone except me and Jaxon.That detail immediately caught my attention.The room emptied gradually.Marcus left first.Several agents escorted him toward another interview room.Lena disappeared into a conference call involving attorneys, federal prosecutors and what sounded like a deeply unfortunate television producer.My mother lingered for longer. Watching us. Observing. Thinking. The familiar habit irritated me even as I wondered what was going on in her mind. Finally she approached us and knowing her, I braced instinctively.The reaction wasn't subtle at all. Evelyn noticed how I had reacted. Of course she noticed. She noticed
The entire room seemed to be waiting for my reaction.Federal agents. Investigators. Lawyers.A kidnapped public relations director who had apparently escaped her own abduction through sheer force of annoyance.My future child's father.All of them were watching me.Expecting something. Agreement perhaps.Acceptance. Gratitude. They were just expecting something profound.But I did not give them something profound.Instead, I laughed in response and the sound echoed through the operations room. It was a long, disbelieving laugh that grew stronger the more I thought about what Agent Bennett had just said.Federal protective custody.Of course, it was federal protective custody.Why stop at conspiracy, murder, corporate corruption, genetic experimentation, media scandals, pregnancy leaks and billionaires behaving badly when we could add witness protection to the list?The universe had clearly committed itself to excess.Agent Bennett remained perfectly calm as he spoke. "I understand th
“You had proof,” I said to Jaxon after a moment.“Yes.” he responded carefully to me. “And you still did not tell me.”His face tightened. “I was trying to build enough to protect you.”The laugh that left me sounded tired even to my own ears. “There it is again.”“What?”“Men making decisions abo
“ I found the other clauses too,” I said after a while and Jaxon’s body went still behind me.“What other clauses?”I laughed quietly. “You really do not know?”“Tell me.”I faced him again.“The impossible performance standards buried in my contract. The limited ice time used against my own metric
Jaxon dragged a hand over his face, and for the first time since I had known him, he looked older than thirty-one. Not powerful. Not untouchable. Just tired in a way that had nothing to do with hockey.“I didn’t collect it.”“That is supposed to comfort me?”“No. It is supposed to be the truth.”I
The lock felt heavier than it should have.It was ridiculous, really. A small piece of metal. A simple turn of the wrist. People opened doors every day without feeling like they were volunteering to be split open on the other side.But my hand hovered over the deadbolt as if the door was not wood a







