My feelings toward the Blackwells had never been simple. They had done cruel things real, deliberate harm and I hadn’t forgotten any of it. But I didn’t want them dead. The Morrigans were already broken. The Blackwells dying wouldn’t bring anything back or make anything right. It would only give the Commander and his wife exactly what they wanted.
"Carl," I said quickly. "Contact Amber."
Lewis’s expression tightened. "I can’t reach her."
"Since when?"
"Since Rosbel Island. After we went our separate ways, contact just... dropped. I didn’t think much of it at first, but when I started digging into what the Commander and his wife were involved in, I tried to reach her right away." He paused. "I still don’t know if her family stayed on the island or if they’ve already gone back to the organization."
I thought about what Yael had said before we parted that his brother would send him sowhere safe. But where? I pulled up his contact and sent a few ssages, one after another, and sat there watching the screen. Nothing ca back.
The silence was its own kind of answer.
There was nothing I could do right now but hope. The Blackwells, like the Morrigans, had been swept up in sothing they hadn’t fully understood until it was too late. They were victims of it too, even if they’d done harm along the way. That didn’t sit easily with .
Jeffrey’s voice cut through my thoughts, low and tired. "Let’s get Dr. Laurence here first."
"Mm," I agreed.
The Hales had clearly taken precautions Jeffrey had let the assassin in deliberately, which ant the real doctors and staff had been kept away on purpose. The trap had been set long before I arrived. Still, I needed to know how much ti we had.
"Dad, how long before you find their hideout?"
"I’ve laid so traps and reached out to old contacts. It’ll take ti." He settled back into his chair with the solid, unhurried stillness of soone who had outlasted enemies before. "The man who ca today whether he talks or not he sends a ssage. They’ll know we were ready. If they want to try again, they’ll have to be very sure of themselves first."
Jeffrey looked toward the door, completely unmoved. "I’m not afraid of them coming. I’m afraid they won’t. If they do, I’ll deal with it."
While Jeffrey was getting the IV set up, Lewis and I went down to the small room at the back of the property where Theo had taken the assassin.
The man was barely recognizable.
Theo gave us a short nod when we walked in. "Nothing. He hasn’t said a word."
"Chip?" Lewis asked.
"Yes. We’ve got a technician coming to see if we can trace the signal and get a location."
Lewis crouched down and used the flat of his knife to tilt the man’s chin up. Even in that brief mont, the damage was plain blood covering most of his face, a gag fitted to keep him from biting off his own tongue. He was trained to endure. That much was obvious.
"Do you recognize him?" Lewis asked, looking at Theo.
Theo was from Shadow one of the most powerful and secretive rcenary organizations in existence. If anyone could place this man’s face, it was him. But Theo shook his head. "No. Even within Shadow, operatives on active missions stay hidden from each other. Identities don’t travel."
Lewis tapped the man’s cheek lightly with the knife tip, almost thoughtful. "If he won’t talk, we let him sit with it. Hunger does what pain can’t, as long as he stays alive long enough to feel it."
"Understood," Theo said.
Lewis took my hand as we walked out, and for a mont the weight in my chest had started to ease. Then it ca back, heavier.
"Carl." I held his hand tighter and stopped walking. "You’re the one Dad has chosen as heir. That makes you the next target."
"They’ve already tried once," he said. His eyes dropped briefly to his leg. "If Esther hadn’t been there when it happened, it wouldn’t have just been my leg."
He said it plainly, no drama in it. But I knew what that recovery had cost him the ti, the pain, the decision he’d made afterward to let people believe he was more broken than he was. He had spent years abroad letting them underestimate him, pretending the injury had left him diminished, waiting. It had been the only way to stay safe while he built himself back up quietly.
Then I ca back. My rebirth had torn through the Commander and his wife’s entire plan like it wasn’t even there.
Maybe that’s how it was supposed to go. People could sche for decades, layer plan on top of plan, and still find that fate had other ideas.
"I want them to walk straight into the trap," Lewis said. His eyes were cold in a way I recognized not hot anger, but the settled, patient kind. The kind that waited.
Jeffrey was already watching, and the police were still working through the incident in the underground parking lot. After today’s failure, the Commander and his wife would most likely pull back and reassess. They wouldn’t move recklessly twice in a row.
But the Blackwells still sat uneasily in the back of my mind. With Wisteria gone, there weren’t many of them left. Dominic, his sons, Amber, Yael, Vito. If the organization decided to tie up loose ends, the Blackwells wouldn’t see it coming. They were still in the dark about who was really running things.
If they died, that was the end of the Blackwell bloodline entirely.
I drove to the school, hoping soone might have heard sothing about Yael. But the office told the Blackwells had already arranged for him to take a leave of absence. No forwarding details. No tiline for return.
I walked across campus slowly, hands in my pockets. The cherry blossoms were in full bloom, petals drifting down across the path in slow, careless arcs. I thought about the first ti I’d co here the quiet young man in the white shirt who had handed a cup of lemon tea without making a thing of it. Easy and warm, like kindness was just sothing he did without thinking.
Where was he now?
I reached into my pocket and found the small keychain he’d given . I rembered the way he’d pressed it into my hand carefully, a little worried Lewis would find it and throw it away. That mory made sothing ache in a quiet place.
Life was fragile. I knew that better than most people ever would. Even people trained and sharp and ready could be gone in a single unguarded mont. Yael had never really been loved by his mother not the way he deserved. He had gone through his whole life without one real day of that, and he still managed to be the kind of person who offered tea to a stranger. That ant sothing to .
Even Vito. As strange as it was to admit, I didn’t want him to die either. And Amber difficult, hot-tempered, sharp-edged Amber, who had made fresh fruit juice like it was the most natural thing in the world. After everything she’d done and everything we’d been through together in Jaford, I had never expected to feel anything complicated about her.
And yet here I was.
The breeze moved through the blossoms and for one second, through the drifting pink, I thought I caught the shape of a familiar figure white shirt, quiet posture, walking just ahead of .
"Yael!"
I moved fast, cutting through the other students, closing the distance. He was right there, just a few more steps
Everything went black.
My legs gave out without warning and I pitched forward, the ground rushing up to et .
A pair of hands caught hard before I hit it. "Are you alright?"
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