Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 71949 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 360(@200wpm)___ 288(@250wpm)___ 240(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71949 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 360(@200wpm)___ 288(@250wpm)___ 240(@300wpm)
But what choice did I have?
Daniela’s life was in danger.
I close my eyes, picturing her face the last time I saw her—anger and worry twisted together. She doesn’t trust me anymore. Can’t say I blame her. I wouldn’t trust me either, not after everything I’ve done.
But I want to earn her trust back. Not by begging for it. By proving I can still be the man she thought I was.
That starts with finding Belinda.
I dig out my phone and hit her name. She picks up on the second ring.
“Hawk?”
Just hearing her say my name lands like a punch to the ribs. “Yeah. It’s me.”
“Where the hell have you been?”
“It’s a long story.”
“Try me.”
“I handled it,” I say finally. “Reyes and I came to an understanding.”
“An understanding?” Her voice goes sharp. “What does that even mean?”
“It means he’s not going to the cops, and I’m not either.”
“You cut a deal with him?”
“Something like that.”
“Hawk—” Her voice cracks. “Do you hear yourself? You can’t make deals with monsters and think they’ll keep their word.”
“I didn’t have another option.”
“There’s always another option,” she snaps.
I drag a hand through my hair. “Look, I didn’t call to fight. I need to know what’s happening there. Any word about Belinda?”
A beat of silence. Then, “I’m at Chef Charleston’s house.”
That catches me off guard. “What? Your culinary school teacher? Why?”
“Belinda stayed here for a sleepover the other night. Gwen’s house. We think she met with someone that night.”
My pulse spikes. “Met with someone? Who?”
Another pause. Longer. I can almost hear her deciding whether to say it.
“You’re not going to believe this,” she says finally.
“Try me.”
“The footage is grainy, but he looks like Diego Vega.”
For a second, everything inside me stops—my heart, my breath, my thoughts. The name lingers like gun smoke.
“Daniela,” I say slowly, “That’s impossible.”
“I know. But it’s on the security footage. He stepped out of the shadows for a second, and when the wind blew his hood back—”
“No.” I cut her off. “Vega’s dead. Twice over.”
“That’s what we thought,” she says softly.
I can hear the tremor in her voice, disbelief braided with fear.
“I saw him die,” I insist. “I saw the body.”
Though the body’s gone now. What the fuck?
“Vinnie said the same, but I swear it looked just like him.” She gulps. “It’s not a face I’ll ever forget.”
Nausea creeps up my throat. Vega. Daniela’s betrothed. Vega, who…
God, I can’t think about what he did to her.
I grip the wheel so hard it creaks. “Jesus.”
She exhales shakily. “Hawk…what if he’s really alive?”
“Then we’ve got a problem,” I say. “A big one.”
I stare through the windshield at the driveway ahead, jaw clenched, mind spinning.
Vega.
The name alone makes my blood run cold.
A fucking ghost that never stays buried.
“Stay put,” I tell her. “Lock the doors. I’m coming there.”
“Hawk, I have to get back home. But I’ll stay there. I promise.”
I sigh. “Fine. But text me as soon as you’re safely at Vinnie’s. I’ll meet you there.”
I lean back in the driver’s seat.
If Vega’s alive, everything changes. Every move we’ve made, every secret we’ve buried—it all comes undone.
I think of Vinnie’s proof. The photo of a body. We all wanted to believe it was over. That the monster was gone.
But monsters don’t die easy.
Anger climbs—same kind that drove me to Reyes, the kind that keeps me moving when everything else falls apart. But under it, something I don’t want to name.
Fear.
Not for me.
For Daniela.
For Belinda.
For a family still hanging by a thread.
I start the truck. Gravel crunches under the tires as I pull onto the road. I need to get to Daniela before Vega does.
The feeling in my chest tightens.
Because even if Vega is alive, it doesn’t explain everything. Belinda’s disappearance. Reyes’s return like a bad penny. A DHS officer at Daniela’s door with paperwork ready to strip her status.
None of it is random.
No. Someone’s pulling strings. Someone who knows exactly how to hit us where it hurts.
And I can’t shake the suspicion that it all leads back to Vega.
Who the hell are those two dead fuckers if neither is Vega?
My hands feel steadier on the wheel now. I’ve got a plan, even if it’s held together with string.
Get to Daniela, lock down the house, go through the security feeds again with Vinnie, cross-check the Charleston footage, get plate readers from the county scanners if we can wrangle them, hit the airport manifests, sweep the bus depots, call in favors I hate calling.
And I’ll do it all while pretending there isn’t a noose around my neck with Reyes’s name on it.
I blow out a breath. “We’ll find her,” I say out loud.
A shape scuttles across the lane—an armadillo?—and vanishes into the ditch. My pulse. I’m wound too tight. I force my shoulders down.
Another mile. Another. Another.
I’m a few miles out from Vinnie’s when the vibration slaps into me.
For a heartbeat I think it’s my regular phone. But the feel is different.