Total pages in book: 50
Estimated words: 45996 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 230(@200wpm)___ 184(@250wpm)___ 153(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 45996 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 230(@200wpm)___ 184(@250wpm)___ 153(@300wpm)
I lean back in my chair, Sadie's hand still in mine, and try to process it all. The man across from me is my father. He’s alive. He disappeared to protect us. And now he’s here, in my mother's house, ready to tell the story I’ve been chasing for years.
"Keep talking," I say quietly. "I’m listening."
18
Sadie
I sit at the long wooden table in Ellen's dining room, my hand still tucked in Jace's under the table. The afternoon light filters through the lace curtains, casting soft patterns across the worn tablecloth. The sweet tea in front of me has gone lukewarm, the glass sweating onto a seashell-shaped coaster. I can feel the warmth of Jace's palm against mine, his thumb tracing small circles on the back of my hand in a rhythm that steadies me even as my thoughts spin.
Billy Hawthorne, or Victor as he called himself, sits across from us. His face is lined with years I can’t imagine, but his eyes are sharp and familiar in the way they mirror Jace's. He’s been talking for what feels like hours but is probably only minutes, his voice rough and steady as he explains why he faked his death so many years ago. An intel mission gone wrong. Threats to the family. A choice between staying and putting everyone he loved in danger or vanishing to keep them safe. I listen, my stomach twisting with every word, because this isn’t some story from a book. This is real. This is the man who raised Jace and his brothers, and he disappeared without a word.
Jace’s grip on my hand tightens as Billy speaks. I glance at him from the corner of my eye.
His jaw is locked, his shoulders rigid, but something softer flickers across his expression when his gaze finds mine.
Last night comes back in pieces.
His mouth against mine at the safe house wall. The hunger behind every kiss. The desperate need threaded through every touch as his hands traced me with the care of someone trying to remember every detail. The sound of his voice—low, rough, and undone—as he told me how good I felt, how perfect I was, how much he wanted me.
Then the quiet afterward.
Falling asleep tangled together, his arm wrapped around my waist, his heartbeat steady beneath my ear. The kind of peace I never expected to find with a man who was supposed to be temporary.
I really like him.
More than like.
Love.
The realization settles in my chest, warm and terrifying all at once.
This started as pretend. A protection detail I never wanted. A situation neither of us asked for.
But somewhere between the beach, the club, and the moments when he held me after stripping away every defense I had, something changed.
It became real.
And now we’re standing in his mother’s house, listening to his father unravel a lifetime of secrets while danger closes in around us.
Billy pauses, rubbing a hand over his face. "But it didn’t end there. I thought vanishing would be enough. I thought if I stayed gone, if I stayed dead to all of you, the threat would pass. I was wrong."
Ellen, Jace's mother, sits at the head of the table, her hands folded tightly in her lap. The southern charm she showed earlier has faded into something quieter, more fragile. She’s known. All these years she’s carried this secret, and the weight of it shows in the lines around her eyes and the way her shoulders slump.
Billy continues, his voice heavy. "Who has Nash and Sin? I think it’s the same people who forced me into hiding all those years ago. A company named Vanguard Helix. They never stopped watching. They’ve been keeping tabs on my sons, waiting for any sign that I might still be alive or that one of you might come looking. When you all started searching for me, when you started asking questions, it triggered them. They searched too. And now they have Nash and Sin."
I swallow hard, my throat tight. This is bigger than I thought. My sister Anniston is already in danger from whatever mess she stirred up in Halo City. Now Jace's family is being pulled into something even darker. And I’m here, in the middle of it, holding the hand of a man I can’t seem to let go of even though every rational part of me knows this could end badly.
Jace's voice breaks the silence, fierce and determined. "We need to come up with a plan. Right now. We can’t sit here and wait for them to come after the rest of us."
Billy nods slowly. "You’re right. But we need more than the two of us and your mother. We need all of you. Crewe, Colt, Banks, Mack. Everyone. If we’re going to have any chance of getting Nash and Sin back and ending this once and for all, we need to mobilize. Together."