The only part that’s an immediate concern is the car situation.

  I’m miles away now, Uber doesn’t come to Weston, and it’s not a good look to still bum rides off family if I’m trying to maintain that I’m an independent adult. It’s time to invest in a company vehicle.

  I roll my shoulders, the weight of the pack getting heavier every mile as I cross the bridge. I pat my leg, but I think I stuffed my purse in the backpack, and I don’t have any spare change in my pocket.

  I grunt, breezing by the sunken car far underneath me. “I’ll get you next time,” I mutter.

  Riding through the warehouse district, I look up at empty windows, darkened doorways, and abandoned alleys, but I feel the eyes all the same. As if the ghosts never ran from the flood.

  There are still people residing in Weston. Enough to keep the schools running. It was the poorer neighborhoods that proved the most resilient.

  The river flows from a higher elevation, and Knock Hill—the more affluent area that looks like it’s modeled after the Upper West Side of New York City—took the hardest hit. The streets were consumed, businesses ruined, and most of those who evacuated never came back. Thankfully, the main living areas of the brownstones—which are more black than brown now—were salvaged, only the basement levels really flooding.

  I cruise up to my house, taking the sidewalk, because cars block both ends of the street. Tables line the curbs on both sides as Farrow stacks cinderblocks, placing a grate on top. It takes me a moment to figure out what he’s doing, but it looks like a homemade barbecue pit.

  “What are you up to?” I call out to him as I park my bike.

  People surround him—some men I haven’t met, and a few familiar-looking faces among the girls. Friends of Dylan’s.

  He jogs over. “Block party. You coming?”

  Tonight?

  I climb my steps. “Why not wait till the Fourth?”

  “Because we’re crashing the Falls on the Fourth.”

  I throw him a look, shimmying out of my backpack and digging my house key out of my pocket. “You mess up my brother’s celebration, we can’t be friends.”

  I don’t care how much we might get along. Madoc works too hard.

  I start to move through the door, but Farrow comes up to my right and leans into my ear, stopping me. “Behind me, on the window frame, is a camera,” he says in a low voice.

  I lift my eyes, seeing just past him. A small lens is posted on the exterior of one of my living room windows.

  Was that there when I bought the place?

  “Two more on the side of the house,” he continues, “and one at the rear. Morrow installed them while you were at work this morning.”

  Lucas?

  I dart my gaze between Farrow and the camera and back again. He put cameras outside my house this morning while I was at work?

  “They’ll feed to a device, probably his phone,” Farrow tells me.

  That dick! He said he helped Fallon at her workshop, took some work calls… Conveniently left out that he installed security on my house, footage for which I have no access!

  I grit my teeth. “Thanks.”

  He gives me a nod and goes back to his crew. I head inside, locking the door.

  I drop my bag on the floor, ready to tear every camera off my damn house. Did my brothers tell him to put them up? Are they watching me too?

  But no, they would’ve freaked first if they knew I bought a house. Jared wouldn’t have been able to resist melting down.

  I slide my phone out of the backpack and start to call Lucas. Or text him. How dare he take it upon himself to make a decision like this about my home, and let’s not pretend for a minute it’s because he’s actually worried about my safety! It’s for him and my brothers—and my father, for that matter—to know whether or not I’m staying out too late, having men over, or not coming home at all some nights. I could scream at him. What does he think he’s going to see, and what would he do about it? Piss me off some more?

  I squeeze the phone in my hand, pacing back and forth, about to rail at him.

  But he expects that. Even if I didn’t see the cameras, he would assume someone saw him installing them, and instead of warning me when I saw him earlier, he decided to let me come home while he tried to get away with it.

  I don’t want another fight.

  I want revenge.

  Crossing the living room, I grab the Cubs cap off the couch and lift the window, wincing at the squeaks the rusted, old metal makes. Sticking my head out, I hear Farrow’s music playing from car speakers as everyone sets up for the party, and look up at the camera focused on my porch.

  When he checks his app, he’ll see footage of Farrow talking to me just a minute ago. Reaching up and staying out of view, I throw the hat over the front of the camera before tilting it on its ball joint to face inside my house.

  Right on the living room. It’s no doubt motion-activated, but he might assume it’s from the wind or a glitch.

  Pulling the hat back off, I close the window and have a seat on the couch. Taking out my phone, I call Dylan. I don’t have the patience to have this discussion over text.

  “Hey,” she answers.

  “Can you guys get away for a while tonight?” I ask her.

  They stay pretty booked at the summer camp, but since she and Aro’s boyfriends also work there, they don’t want to be anywhere other than with them.

  “Can who get away?”

  “All of you,” I reply.

  Hunter, Kade, Hawke…everyone.

  She pauses, crunching something in my ear as she eats. “I can work it out, sure.”

  I spot my notebook on the coffee table, my pen still laying discarded from when I read through it the other night and had another idea to add to the list. I flush with heat, remembering Lucas was down here alone last night. Did he see it?

  My lungs empty. That’s why he left without a word last night. And probably why he decided I needed more supervision.

  I slam the book shut.

  “Come to that house you stayed in during Rivalry Week.” I clear my throat. “8 p.m.”

  “Will there be alcohol?”

  I roll my eyes the tiniest bit. I should’ve known it would be expected. No party without it.

  “Yesss.”

  “Quinn!” she exclaims, shocked. “Yay!”

  “Shut up.”

  And I hang up, shaking my head at how everyone underestimates me.

  But I’d love to see the look on Lucas’s face when the notifications start rolling in.

  A few hours later, Hawke is growling at me. “You bought this place?”

  “Music’s too loud!” I shout over Mace’s playlist blasting on my Bluetooth speaker. “I can’t hear you!”

  He scowls as I lean my ass against the column between the foyer and the living room, clutching a plastic cup full of something Dylan made.

  Hawke is exactly like Jax. They don’t like surprises. Luckily, I know they’ve been keeping that hideout for years, so if they want their secret safe with me, then mine better be safe with them. At least for a few days.

  Dylan steps in, dragging Hunter from where they were dancing. She nudges Hawke away from me. “Take Aro up to the attic and explore.”

  Kade hands him a shot, and Hawke gulps it down, those azure blue eyes unrelenting on me. They’re not suspicious really; although, I am sure he’s wondering if I have anything else up my sleeve, but they’re more aggravated than anything. As if he failed in his duty to be the all-seeing eye.

  Aro takes his hand and leads him up the stairs. The lights lower, but the crowd is too thick to tell who hit the switch. Farrow leans into a girl by the window, while his boys are probably still in the kitchen, judging from the noise of their laughter.

  Codi, Mace, and a few others spread out on the couches and chairs. Codi leans back against the arm, hugging one knee, and she smiles, but it’s guarded. As always. I thought she might be different on her turf, but it seems she’s quiet everywhere.

  Kade pops a cheeseball into the air and catches it with his mouth as some pissed-off kid argues with him about football or something, and Hunter hugs Dylan from behind, the three of us watching more people pile in through the front door.

  It was supposed to just be Farrow, my family, and maybe Mace. If I knew I was supplying alcohol to a bunch of minors I don’t know, I would’ve chickened out. Luckily Mace has someone at the door, collecting keys.

  I tuck my hair behind my ear, glancing at the window where one of the cameras sits outside. I stare at it as it stares back at me.

  Are you watching?

  I’ll bet he is. If his notifications are on, then he’s getting one every time movement is detected. And there’s a lot of movement in here.

  “My dad is going to freak,” Dylan says over the music.

  “Eventually,” I add. “Here’s to you guys being just as good about keeping this secret as you did Carnival Tower.”

  She winces but taps my cup when I offer it. I’m sure the guys brought her up to speed.

  I examine the list of people who know I bought a house, and to be honest, no one is a weak link. Lucas might spill the beans in a moment of reaction, but as much as Hawke hovers, or Dylan sometimes just word vomits all over the place, they’re both tight ships when it comes to parents.

  “So you talked to Deacon,” Hunter says.

  I dart my eyes up to him, his skin already golden from the summer and his blond hair laying in different directions as usual.

  “What was he like?” he asks.

  That eerily calm voice through the phone coils into my ear again, kicking up my heartbeat. What was he like?

  I shrug. He felt like he was on a timer. An image of a fuse burning quickly drifts through my head.

  When I don’t reply, Dylan tells me, “This was their house.” Her eyes do a circle around the room. “He and Manas hosted Winslet here for the prisoner exchange more than two decades ago. No one has seen her since.”

  I guess I knew all of that from the murder map they built in Carnival Tower, but the history of the house weighs down, and I think about him. That voice. The man, much younger than he is now, in here with her. Was she talking about him in her diary? Or was she referring to the other one? Manas.

  Which one did she love? And which one did she not?

  I notice Dylan and Hunter are still looking at me. Do they think I’m not concerned enough?

  I am concerned. One of the brothers, at least, is calling me. I have an old car stalking me, and I’m in possession of, not one, but two places that used to belong to the men who quite possibly were the last people to ever see Winslet MacCreary alive.

  Do they still think this house belongs to them? I drop my gaze for a moment. I anticipated buyer’s remorse, but I kept pressing forward, the desperation for freedom winning out. But I may have bitten off more than I can chew.

  I look behind Dylan, seeing Noah toss Kade a beer. “Noah?” I call.

  He glances at me.

  I joke, “I think Dylan would feel better if you checked my bedroom for ghosts.”

  “Her room, you mean,” Dylan taunts.

  Winslet’s.

  I take my drink, jogging up the stairs, aware that Lucas’ security camera can see me disappearing around the corner with Noah on my tail.

  I enter my bedroom, glad to find it empty. I half-suspected someone would’ve snuck up here to fool around. The curtains billow with the wind coming through the window I’d left open. Peering out, I crane my neck, seeing people in the street to the right. White hair blows in the breeze coming from a girl sitting on the trunk of an abandoned car at the curb. She drinks from a Hydro Flask.

  The hair reminds me of Tommy Dietrich, but I can’t tell for sure.

  “You don’t have much of a bed,” Noah says, trailing in.

  “But smell that breeze.” The wind caresses my scalp. “I’m going to make it smell even better by next summer after I revamp the kitchen and bake something good.”

  Squeezing in next to me, Noah leans his hands on the sill and looks out into the small path between mine and Farrow’s houses. The bigger bedroom only had the twin bed—big enough for one person—but I didn’t expect any furnishings, so I’m grateful for it until I can get my own moved in.

  I’m anxious to get that couch downstairs replaced too. The kitchen table is some mid-century Ethan Allen. I’ll keep that. I like it.

  Another camera sits perched above my window, facing the street.

  Noah turns to me. “Couldn’t use a roommate, could you?”

  I straighten, pulling myself back inside. Huh?

  He ponders, his blue eyes dancing with a little alcohol. “Your brother is a steady paycheck, and I’m gone a lot, so it would almost be like free rent money for you.”

  Not a bad proposition, especially since I need to get a business vehicle, and I don’t want to take anything more from my parents. They paid for college and gave me the bakery for a damn good deal on money my mother gifted me when I was seventeen. The irony doesn’t escape me. Is it really independence if I used money I didn’t make on my own to get it?

  The rest is up to me now.

  But I don’t think I want to live with anyone. For someone who’s always been lonely, I’m not in a hurry to have another adult presence looming. At least one that’s not romantic.

  I tease, “I don’t think I want to be having coffee with your love life every other morning.”

  He scoffs, taking my drink. “Like they would still be here in the morning.”

  I roll my eyes as he gulps down, swallows, and I take it back, partaking of some.

  “It’s got potential,” he says, “the neighborhood.”

  I think so too. The little voice in my head is thinking about little things, like fifteen-year-old Tommy outside drinking around older guys, or how to pry into Codi’s life and what she does when she’s not working for me…

  Or Farrow and what he’s hiding behind his closed doors and clever quips. All of it a responsibility, at least to some extent. Am I trading one set of obligations for another?

  But I love the view out my window.

  “I just got out on my own,” I say quietly. “I think I’m gonna try it for a while.”

  I look back at him, seeing him nod. He doesn’t need it explained.

  “But…” I broach. “There are other houses for sale on the block.”

  He chuckles, coming back to the window next to me. We gaze out at the three-story brownstones, falling apart after so many years of neglect. Looters destroyed the interiors, and broken windows let decades of snow, rain, and wind inside. My house is one of the nicer ones as the history of the place made it more of a shrine than a target.

  Not many people want to move to a failing neighborhood with low property value, and spend thousands of dollars to renovate.

  But Noah might.

  “Farrow probably wouldn’t give you permission, though,” I tell him.

  Noah’s eyes flicker with amusement as he stares down at the narrow alleyway between mine and Farrow’s houses. “Is that so?”

  But he says it like it’s a challenge.

  Something tells me that Farrow doesn’t let anything happen on Knock Hill that he doesn’t like, and I’m not sure if he doesn’t like Noah Van der Berg, but he will certainly be in his face here.

  The music downstairs cuts off, the vibrations through my floor suddenly ceasing.

  A piece of furniture moves, someone shouts.

  I stand up straight. “Something’s up.”

  Noah follows me out of my bedroom, a growl stopping me in my tracks at the top of the stairs.

  “Everyone out!”

  I look to Noah.

  “Cops?” he says.

  I take a step just as Lucas charges from the living room, back into the foyer, and whips open the door.

  Turning to Hawke, he tells my brother’s son, “Go. She’s going to be in a hell of a lot of trouble already. Don’t make it worse.”

  I’m going to be in trouble? Is he serious?

  I expected him to call and berate me. Or maybe slip in unnoticed when he saw the party on his cameras.

  But he’s charging in here like it’s his damn house.

  “Now!” Lucas shouts when no one moves.

  What the hell is he doing?

  One of Farrow’s friends steps into view. “Who the fuck are you, man?”

  But Lucas doesn’t hesitate. Whipping his T-shirt off over his head, he spins around. “Out!” he yells.

  And I see it. The same thing everyone sees. The tattoo down his right shoulder, curving around the shoulder blade, and fading as it descends to the ribs and waist.

  “Oh, shit!” someone exclaims.

  The room silences, and I grab the banister, craning my neck to study the design, but he moves too fast.

  “Move!” Lucas whips his arm, gesturing to the door.

  And just like that, everyone floods out of the house.

  Not walking.

  Running.

  “Let’s go!” I hear someone say.

  “You heard him,” Mace calls out. “Everyone out now!”

  Confusion freezes me. Why are they listening to him?

  Bodies collide, pushing each other as they try to fit out the door.

  “Oh my God,” one of Aro’s Weston friends bursts out. “Did you see that?”

  “That was a real fucking tat,” someone else says.

  My eyes zone in on Lucas, burning so hard they hurt.

  I jerk my head to Noah, telling him to follow everyone and get out. I don’t want him in Lucas’s path.

  He holds back, but I stand aside, silently urging him as I tip my head to the door. As the place empties, Lucas glares up at me and I hold his eyes without blinking.

  That tattoo. I’d forgotten about it. He had it that day at the camp lodge when I was a kid.

  The door slams shut behind the last of the guests, and I barrel down the stairs, charging up to him.

  “What the hell was that?” I bark.

  I jet around him, trying to get a look at the ink on his back, but he turns, keeping us face to face.

  His blue eyes spit fire as he gazes down at me. Heat pours off his body, and he breathes like he’s dying to hurt me, and I’m not sure that scares me at all.