I'd been searching for three hours, cross-referencing every database I had access to, following every lead Francois had given us. The name kept appearing in fragments—a mention here, a reference there—but nothing substantial. Nothing that would tell us what our mother had actually found.

  Like trying to catch smoke with your bare hands.

  The safe house's home office was state-of-the-art, equipped with enough technology to run a small corporation. Multiple monitors, encrypted connections, access to databases that technically didn't exist. But none of it was helping me find what I needed.

  Because what you need is probably sitting in Gwen's system.

  The thought made my stomach clench. The gala files that Team Pendragon had downloaded—financial records, business documents, communications from grandfather's various enterprises. If our mother had found evidence of his more questionable operations, it could be in those files.

  Files that Gwen had locked down tighter than Fort Knox.

  I leaned back in my chair, staring at the screens full of dead ends and partial leads. Hacking Gwen's system wasn't just technically challenging—it was a betrayal of trust. She'd welcomed me into her family, treated me like a brother, and I was considering violating her security to chase down a lead that might not even exist.

  But if it does exist, if this file contains what Francois claims...

  It could be the key to everything. The evidence we needed to take grandfather down, to end this nightmare, to reclaim our lives.

  To go home to Morgan.

  That was what it always came back to. Morgan, alone in that penthouse, thinking she was losing her mind, while I hid in shadows like a coward.

  I stared at Gwen's system architecture on my screen, studying the security protocols she'd put in place. Military-grade encryption, multi-factor authentication, intrusion detection that would make the NSA weep with envy. Getting in wouldn't just be difficult—it would be impossible without her knowing.

  Because Gwen is better at this than you are. A lot better.

  The bitter truth sat like lead in my stomach. She'd designed her security specifically to keep people like me out, and she was fucking brilliant at it. Any attempt to breach her system would be detected within seconds, traced back to its source within minutes.

  She'd know someone tried to break in. And she'd know exactly who.

  My fingers hovered over the keyboard, but I already knew it was hopeless. Even if I could somehow get past her initial defenses—which was doubtful—she'd have alerts and tripwires throughout the system. The moment I touched anything sensitive, alarms would start screaming.

  And then she'd trace it back here. To me.

  The thought sent conflicting emotions through my chest. Part of me wanted her to find out, wanted the decision taken out of my hands. But not like this. Not through betrayal and violation of trust.

  If Morgan finds out I'm alive, it should be from me. Not from Gwen tracking down a cybercriminal.

  I pushed back from the desk, running my hands through my hair in frustration. The files I needed were right there, probably containing everything Francois had promised, and I couldn't touch them without blowing my cover completely.

  Without revealing that I'm alive.

  And if Gwen knew, then Atticus would know. And if Atticus knew...

  Morgan would know.

  But she'd know in the worst possible way—as a lie exposed, a deception unraveled. Not as a reunion, but as a betrayal.

  There has to be another way.

  I closed the connection to Gwen's system without even attempting to breach it. Whatever the Monserrat file contained, if it even existed, whatever evidence our mother had gathered, it would have to wait until I could figure out how to access Gwen’s system.

  That would only be possible if I could access her computers. Which meant going back to Gwen and Atticus’s. Or getting my old laptop.

  But while I had a secret way into the penthouse, the loft was too exposed. Much harder to get into. I’d bought the place for the three garage exits. But an approach on foot would be much more difficult.

  I was staring at the blank screens, trying to figure out my next move, when I heard the front door of the safe house open. Heavy footsteps in the hallway, moving with purpose.

  Hector.

  Hopefully with good news.

  "Lance." Hector's voice from the doorway, grim and tight. "We need to talk."

  That doesn't sound good.

  I turned around, taking in his expression. Tight lips, furrowed brow. Someone had pissed in his cornflakes.

  "What happened?"

  "I heard back from my contact at NYPD." Hector moved into the room, closing the door behind him. "About the mugging."

  Fuck.

  The mugging that I'd fucked up our operational security to prevent.

  "And?" I went for nonchalant.

  "The kid, who mugged your wife. Danny Torrino. He's not just some random street dealer."

  Of course he wasn’t because why would shit be easy.

  I'd suspected as much from the moment Hector told me about the probe, but hearing it confirmed still sent ice through my veins.

  "What is he?"

  "Low-level associate. Runs errands, moves packages, that sort of thing." Hector sat down in the chair across from my desk. "But Lance, he doesn't work for just anyone."

  Please don't say what I think you're going to say.

  "He works for grandfather's people. And now grandfather knows someone with DuLac training protected her." Hector's expression was grim. "He'll know it was me - which means my cover is completely blown."

  Fuck.

  The blood drained from my face. "Grandfather sent him?"

  "Not directly. But yeah, the order came from high enough up the food chain that it might as well have been grandfather himself."

  “If he thinks you’ve turned, you might protect my widow. Or if he knows about that little game from last year where you posed as her mentor. He thinks you want her.”

  Hector winced. “You stalk and mentor a girl one time…”

  "Whatever game he's playing, Morgan is in the middle of it. And she might not even know she's at risk."

  Because I can't tell her without revealing that I'm alive.

  "So what are you suggesting?"

  That I stop hiding. That I tell her the truth and deal with the consequences.

  "You're talking about going back to her," he said finally.

  Yes.

  "I'm talking about protecting my wife. You might be blown. If you are, she needs to know just how much danger she’s in. Me staying dead isn’t helping."

  "She's not your wife anymore⁠—"

  "Don't." The word came out like a whip crack. "Don't you dare tell me she's not my wife. Dead or alive, she's mine, and I'll be damned if I let grandfather use her as a pawn in whatever sick game he's playing."

  Mine. And I'm hers, even if she doesn't know it.

  "And if revealing yourself gets her killed?"

  “He’s already coming for her. For you.”

  The risk of her getting hurt because I stayed hidden might be greater than the risk of her getting hurt because I revealed myself.

  Because you don't know. You can't know.

  "We'll be smart about it," I said instead. "Careful. We'll have contingencies in place."

  "Lance." Hector stood up, moving closer. "I understand why you want to do this. But if you're wrong, if this backfires⁠—"

  "If I'm wrong, at least I'll go down fighting for something that matters."

  For someone who matters.

  For the only thing that's ever really mattered.

  "What about the Monserrat file?"

  "We keep looking. But we don't let that search prevent us from protecting Morgan in the meantime."

  Because all the evidence in the world won't matter if she was dead.

  "How do you want to play this?"

  “Can you continue acting like you’re the loyal soldier?” I might have hated him at one point. I didn’t trust him fully. But I still didn’t want him dead.

  He narrowed a shrewd gaze on me. “You worry about yourself. I know how to handle the old man. In the meantime, can you get your old laptop?”

  “It’ll be tricky. But not impossible.”

  “Figure it out. The longer we can go without alerting anybody, the better.”

  I thought about it, running scenarios in my head. Direct approach versus gradual revelation. Truth versus partial truth. Risk versus reward.

  All roads lead to the same place eventually.

  "First, we’ll do it your way. If that fails, I'm going to tell her I'm alive."

  Eleven

  Morgan

  The security footage was giving me a headache.

  I'd spread the grainy printouts across one of the mahogany tables in Atticus's private library, the images scattered like pieces of a puzzle I couldn't quite solve. The afternoon light streaming through the tall windows made the photos look even more washed out, shadows bleeding into shadows until everything became an incomprehensible mess of pixels and possibility.

  Come on. There has to be something.

  The library was my favorite room in the penthouse—floor-to-ceiling bookshelves filled with leather-bound classics that probably cost more than most people's cars, comfortable reading chairs positioned near the windows like they were waiting for someone who actually had time to read for pleasure, the kind of quiet sanctuary where you could lose yourself for hours. Usually, it felt like a refuge from the controlled chaos of living in Atticus and Gwen's perfectly orchestrated life. Today, it felt like a war room.

  I picked up another photo, squinting at what might have been a figure or might have been a trick of the light or might have been my desperate imagination creating patterns where none existed. Pierce had given me copies of everything the police had access to—every angle, every timestamp, every frame of footage they'd deemed relevant to the case— but the image quality was absolute shit. I'd seen better resolution on a 1990s flip phone.

  This was hopeless.

  But hopeless was all I had right now. Hopeless and stubborn determination and the growing certainty that everyone—the police, Pierce, Dr. Chen, probably even Micah—was wrong about what had happened in that alley.

  Everyone except you. Because you're clearly the most reliable narrator here.

  The thought should have been sobering. Should have sent me running back to Dr. Chen's beige office with a full confession about my deteriorating grip on reality. Instead, it just made me more determined to find something, anything, that would prove I wasn't completely losing my mind.

  I was reaching for my third cup of coffee—the good stuff from the kitchen, not the swill from the machine in the hallway that tasted like liquid disappointment—when the library door opened with the soft whisper of expensive hinges.

  "Bloody hell, Morgan. This is where you've been hiding yourself?"

  Micah appeared in the doorway carrying a tray that smelled like heaven and looked like salvation. Two steaming mugs of what could only be his famous hot chocolate, complete with whipped cream piled high enough to require architectural support and a generous dusting of cinnamon, and a stack of what looked suspiciously like new books.

  Thank God for friends who understand your brand of crazy.

  He was wearing his weekend uniform—faded jeans that had seen better decades, a jumper with a hole in the left elbow that he refused to throw away because it was "perfectly good," and the kind of bedhead that suggested he'd rolled out of bed, looked in the mirror, and decided that was good enough for a Saturday afternoon.

  "I wasn't hiding," I said, hastily gathering up some of the photos before he could see the full extent of my obsessive spiral. "I was researching."

  "Right, course you were." He set the tray down on the table, surveying the disaster I'd made of Atticus's pristine library with the kind of careful assessment he usually reserved for particularly challenging code. "And by researching, you mean obsessing over blurry surveillance photos until your eyes bleed and your brain goes completely mental?"

  "That's a very specific and accurate description, yes."

  Also uncomfortably precise.

  He handed me one of the mugs, the ceramic warm against my palms like a small miracle. "Thought you might need proper sustenance. None of that American rubbish you call hot chocolate—this is the real deal, yeah? Proper Belgian chocolate, full-fat cream, the works."

  The first sip was like a hug from the inside—rich and sweet and exactly what I needed to remember that good things still existed in the world.

  "You're an angel," I said, closing my eyes as the sugar hit my bloodstream.

  "Too right I am. Absolutely brilliant, me." He gestured to the books with the kind of theatrical flourish that meant he was particularly pleased with himself. "I also brought reinforcements. Fresh from the romance section of that little bookshop you're mad about on the Upper West Side. The one where the owner knows your coffee order and gives you proper dirty looks when you buy the smutty ones."

  Mrs. Grimes.

  "Figured if you're going to spiral into conspiracy theories and possibly have a complete mental breakdown," Micah continued, settling into the chair across from me with his own mug. "You might as well have quality entertainment for the breaks. Can't have you going completely barmy without proper distractions."

  I picked up the top book—a shirtless vampire on the cover, all brooding intensity and impossible abs that defied both gravity and human anatomy. The title was embossed in silver letters that caught the afternoon light: "Eternal Night's Embrace."

  "Really?" I asked, raising an eyebrow. "Vampire romance? What happened to your sophisticated literary palate?"

  "Oi, don't judge a book by its cover, Morgan. Or its shirtless supernatural love interest." His grin widened, the kind that meant trouble and possibly blackmail material. "The reviews said it had brilliant character development and absolutely scorching sexual tension. Plus, the heroine's a proper badass who kicks arse and takes names. Thought you might relate, yeah?"

  "To the arse-kicking or the sexual tension?"

  "Why not both? You could do with more of both in your life, couldn't you?"

  Because one of those things requires being alive instead of whatever this half-existence is.

  But I didn't say that. Instead, I flipped through the stack—paranormal romance, contemporary romance, something that looked suspiciously like alien abduction erotica with tentacles prominently featured on the cover.

  "Micah, did you seriously buy me tentacle porn?"

  "It's not tentacle porn," he said with the kind of wounded dignity that suggested this was a hill he was prepared to die on. "It's a sophisticated exploration of interspecies relationships and the nature of consent across cultural boundaries, innit? The author has a PhD in anthropology from Oxford."

  He paused, taking a sip of his hot chocolate and grinning over the rim of his mug with barely contained mischief.

  "Also, yeah, there are tentacles. Loads of them. Apparently, they're quite versatile and after thinking about it, you deserve your own copy of such a gem."

  Despite everything—the photos, the questions, the growing certainty that I was either losing my mind or uncovering something huge—I laughed. Actually laughed, the sound rusty from disuse and slightly hysterical around the edges.

  When was the last time you laughed? Really laughed?

  "You're ridiculous."

  "I'm a treasure and a delight, I am. There's a difference." He settled back into his chair, long legs stretched out in front of him like he was planning to stay for a while. "Besides, someone's got to make sure you remember how to have a laugh. Clearly not going to be Atticus—that man schedules his bloody spontaneity—and Gwen's too knackered keeping a tiny human alive to focus on your entertainment needs."

  "I have fun," I protested weakly.

  "Obsessing over surveillance footage doesn't count as fun, Morgan. Neither does staring at the ceiling at three in the morning, wondering if you're going mental."

  How does he know about the three AM ceiling staring?

  "I don't⁠—"

  "Course you do. I can see it in your eyes, can't I? The bags, the slightly manic gleam, the way you're gripping that mug like it's the only thing keeping you tethered to reality." He leaned forward, expression growing more serious, the playful banter fading into genuine concern. "Now then, what exactly are you trying to do here? Besides give yourself a proper headache and possibly a nervous breakdown?"

  I gestured to the scattered photos, suddenly feeling foolish and exposed. "Pierce gave me copies of all the surveillance footage from yesterday. I'm trying to see if there's anything the police missed."

  Trying to prove you're not crazy. Trying to find evidence that your dead husband saved you from a mugger.

  "Anything specific you're looking for, love?"

  A miracle. Proof. Some sign that the impossible might actually be possible.

  "I don't know. Just... something that doesn't add up. Something that explains what happened."

  Micah leaned forward, studying the photos with the kind of focus I'd seen him bring to coding problems and chess matches and the occasional crossword puzzle that stumped him for more than five minutes. His expression shifted from casual interest to professional assessment, the change so subtle I almost missed it.

  "Christ, Morgan. This image quality is absolute rubbish."

  "Tell me something I don't know."

  He picked up one of the photos, holding it up to the light streaming through the windows like that might somehow improve the resolution. "You can't make out anything useful from these, can you?"

  Exactly. Which is why this is hopeless.

  "I know. But it's all I have."

  "Actually," Micah said slowly, setting down his mug with the kind of deliberate care that meant his brain was working overtime, "it's not, is it?"

  "What do you mean?"

  He was already pulling out his laptop, fingers flying across the keyboard with the practiced efficiency of someone who'd been typing since before it was cool. "The police work with whatever the building security companies give them, right? Standard definition, compressed files, the bare minimum required by insurance and municipal regulations."