I camped out, and no one even dared to come over to me.

  Curled in a ball, face forward, eyes trained on the door. I wasn’t budging an inch, because the same part that was so scared this was all a delusion, all a prank, was the same part of me that feared that if I dared look away, she wouldn’t return to me.

  She had to return to me.

  I had to have her again.

  Life wasn’t over for us, for her.

  I wasn’t leaving this seat until my mother actually walked through the door.

  Then the buzz happened.

  I heard Peter on the phone from the gate.

  They were coming.

  That would’ve been security calling them in to the house, even though Kash had clearance. They still would’ve called, because they knew I would’ve wanted to know.

  So I sat up, my entire body one big heartbeat at a time.

  Thump.

  I moved.

  Thump.

  I scooted to the edge of the seat.

  Thump.

  They were coming.

  Thump.

  My feet touched the floor.

  Thump.

  My hands curled around the chair cushion.

  Thump.

  Peter went to the door. He opened it.

  I heard the crunch of gravel under the tires.

  They were there.

  They had parked.

  Thump. Thump. Thump.

  The doors opened.

  My heart stopped. My whole body froze.

  I heard Kash’s voice, and then—a woman’s voice.

  I tore out of there.

  Thumpthumpthumpthump.

  I sprinted past Peter, through the open door, and she was climbing out of hers.

  She was there.

  She was thinner.

  More frail.

  But it was her.

  It was Chrissy.

  It was my mom.

  She looked up. Her eyes trailing up the stairs, to me, and there she was.

  “Mom!”

  “Honey.”

  She was sobbing.

  Tears were probably streaking down my face.

  I waited. I still waited. I needed an indication that if I went down there, I wasn’t going to break her.

  Her arms lifted, and that was all I needed.

  I flew down the stairs, and I was on her. Arms around her neck. Around her waist. I kept hugging her. Burying my head in her neck. Smelling her.

  She wasn’t a figment of my imagination anymore. I wasn’t smelling her ghost.

  She was real and alive. Flesh. Blood. Bones. Ligaments. The whole bit.

  Chrissy Hayes just rose from the dead.

  “Mom!” I couldn’t let her go, no matter how tight I was squeezing her. I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. No one could make me—but no one was trying to.

  She was holding me back just as hard, and whispering to me, “You are so beautiful, honey. So beautiful and kind and strong. And I love you. Your mother loves you so much. You sweet, sweet girl. Oh, my goodness.” She pulled back, framing my face. Tears were glistening over her entire face. She didn’t care. She was taking me in as I was taking her in. She breathed as if she were afraid to let go of the air. “If it was possible, you have gotten even more stunning.” She was blinking rapidly. Her hand cupped the side of my face. Her thumb swiped over my cheek. “Oh, honey.” She melted, and her forehead moved to rest against mine.

  I was holding her.

  She was cupping the side of my face, and she was smiling at me.

  Our eyes were so close our eyelashes were almost touching, but neither of us cared. We were breathing each other in, we were that desperate.

  “Mom,” I whispered, biting back tears. “What happened?”

  “Oh, baby.” She lifted her head, winding her arms around me, and she tugged me to her. She held me gently in her arms now, as if already shielding me from what she needed to tell me. “We’ll get to that. I promise.”

  I felt her head lifting. Turning.

  She tapped my arm softly. “You tend to your man, because you’re not the only one who saw a ghost today.” She stepped back, but her gaze was trained over my head, toward whoever had been waiting for our reunion to finish. She squeezed me once more before stepping away. “I need to see to my man, too.”

  She was the one who ran this time, going up the stairs toward Peter.

  His hand hadn’t moved from the doorknob, like he was scared to let it go. But then she was in front of him, and he leaned back.

  She stopped.

  I found myself waiting, holding my breath.

  My mom lowered her head, as if she were suddenly shy. She was saying something. I couldn’t make out the words, but whatever she said, it worked.

  Peter surged for her, wrapping his arms around her, and he lifted her in the air. He let out a roar before burying his head in her hair, smoothing one hand down her hair, and as I watched, he kept touching her. They hugged a long time, maybe even longer than she and I had, but he never stopped touching her. Even after their hug was done and she moved back an inch, their heads were together. She was saying things to him. He was nodding; both were crying. He never stopped running his hand down her arm, over her shoulder, down her hair, smoothing over her cheek.

  I felt Kash behind me, and my body was already sagging into him.

  He caught me, but it wasn’t a big catch.

  I felt him, and my body gave out. He merely stepped in behind me so I was resting on him. His hand came around my stomach. He nuzzled down by my ear and neck. “You okay?”

  I nodded, but reached up. My hand slid through his hair, clasping the back of his head, and I looked to him. He was observing me, his eyes hooded, and I remembered my mom’s words. “Are you okay?”

  His chest rose and held.

  Something was wrong.

  I turned around to stand facing him. His hands fell to my waist, then moved around so one of his palms lay flat on my back, tunneling up under my shirt.

  I continued watching him, touching his chin. “What happened?”

  His eyes went from my mouth to my eyes, and I saw he was conflicted.

  “Kash.”

  He frowned, a sadness shining from him. “I had to make a choice.”

  I caught my air again. “Between?”

  “You and my brother.”

  I flattened my hands on his arms, my lungs still ceasing from relaxing. “And?”

  “And…” He drew in another sharp breath. It sounded painful. “You’re not going to like it.”

  FORTY-NINE

  Kash

  Three weeks.

  We waited while the family got used to having Chrissy back.

  There was a media shitstorm over Chrissy’s “back from the dead” situation. How that news got leaked, I didn’t know, but it was on the list to find and punish.

  For three weeks, people were afraid to ask Chrissy what she went through.

  Bailey did try, but Chrissy folded into a nearly catatonic state. She stopped talking for two days. It was enough to scare everyone, so for the rest of the time, Bailey basked in her mother’s presence. Peter got laid again—a lot, judging by how he was the one glowing all the time. Seraphina’s laughter didn’t echo in sadness anymore. Cyclone was living up to his name; he was literally a cyclone again, running everywhere in the household.

  Payton looked nervous when she saw Chrissy, and I made a point to check in with Marie.

  “It’s like she’s been trained to be invisible. She’s here. She’s spending time with the kids. But the second Chrissy shows up, Payton scatters like a scared mouse. I’m now fine with the lady, realized I was wrong to get all up in my feelings the first time, but yeah. It’s the oddest thing.”

  Chrissy never balked. Bailey never said a word. So Payton was excused from my mind.

  She wasn’t a problem.

  Another person that wasn’t a problem: Matt. He was hanging out and seemed to be stabilizing. He mentioned an idea for a company and wanted to talk to me about it later. He also mentioned a girl had caught his eye, but that’d been the only mentions of either.

  It was during those three weeks that we all chose to forget about Calhoun and Quinn’s trial, and we all chose to forget that Chrissy was home after enduring something so horrific that a mere question about it would paralyze her.

  It took them that long to finish questioning my brother, before they were content to move him to a different holding facility.

  After I told Bailey my plan, she wanted to help. I didn’t want her to incriminate herself any more, but I had to be honest. I couldn’t lie to her, and that meant she did it without my knowledge. I woke one morning and she was sitting there, cross-legged and beaming at me. She was waving a piece of paper in the air. “I have what you’ve been waiting for.”

  “Tell me you didn’t.”

  “I did.” She sounded so smug. “And don’t worry, I really made sure nothing could be traced back to me.”

  I was afraid to ask what else she’d done.

  She heard that they were able to trace her and hadn’t liked it, not one bit. But they didn’t realize that the choice was always going to be Bailey.

  So, I was waiting.

  In the meantime, I pulled my team from Calhoun.

  Once we got the signal, I was moving in to grab my twin.

  I sat up. “When and where?”

  She handed over the paper. “He’s being moved at one tomorrow morning and that’s the address. I looked it up. It’s a house. But from what I hacked, it sounds like they’re only holding him there for the night. Then he’ll be driven to another safe house outside of state lines.”

  “Can you track where the second house will be?”

  She paused, biting her lip, before she shook her head. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to. I’ve looked at other trips where they’ve moved a high-priority subject, and some messages weren’t relayed over the internet or technology. Coordinates were given to one agent, who then traveled to the house and gave the message face-to-face.”

  That meant we had one opportunity. And that also meant they’d be watching.

  Her hand fell to my arm. Her thumb stroked over my pulse on the inside of my wrist. “It’ll all work out. We have Chrissy back. You can grab Chase, and then maybe you can find out everything you need. You can move in on your grandfather, finally.”

  That was the hope, but I was tired. I was tired to the bone.

  “Tell me you wiped everything, because they’re going to come after you.”

  She nodded, her teeth sinking into her lip again. “I did. I will.”

  No one else was looped in.

  “You’ll have to stay back.” I exhaled sharply, bending forward so my forehead was resting on her knee.

  Her hand came down on the back of my head and held me there. Her fingers slid through my hair, and she began massaging the back of my scalp.

  “It’ll be okay.”

  I grabbed her shirt and fisted it. “It’s not. Leaving you behind is never okay.”

  “But it’s necessary.”

  I lifted my head, knowing she could see how heavy this was weighing on me, but I wasn’t shielding myself from her. Not anymore, not with what I was about to put us both through. “Is it, though? Is there another way?”

  “Your brother won’t tell you what you need to know while he’s in custody. You have to take him. You have to know what he knows. He’s the one putting you in this situation.”

  I looked at the paper.

  I looked at the address.

  I looked at the time.

  I had thirteen hours.

  WITNESSES TO BE CALLED FOR QUINN CALLAS’S DEFENSE TEAM

  After weeks, the prosecution has rested their unfair case. Circumstantial evidence is weak, there is a lack of witness testimonies and holes were found in their timeline. The head attorney for Ms. Callas says they have a strong argument to present to the court. They are confident their client will be rightly acquitted.

  —Inside Daily Press

  FIFTY

  Bailey

  “Why are we doing this again?” Matt asked, his head inclining over mine as we were weaving in and out of Naveah.

  Matt didn’t know what was going down tonight. And we only had a small window to get into place. I was outside the door, almost on Kash’s heels as he left for his top secret mission. My guards were with us. Kash wouldn’t be alarmed if we went to Naveah.

  But from Naveah is where we needed to lose the guards.

  Yes, yes, I know.

  How stupid of me to lose my guards. They’re on us for a reason. Blah, blah, blah.

  But I figured I already knew where the bad guys were. Calhoun was somewhere in Greece. Kash told me that, and I doubted he would’ve traveled back in the few days since Kash had pulled his guys from Calhoun. And the other bad guy was Kash’s twin brother. We all knew where he was; that was the whole point of tonight.

  So, one night. I was willing to risk it.

  Matt just didn’t know any of this.

  We were fast coming to the time when I would have to clue him in, but before that, I marched over to Tony, who had a girl gyrating on his lap.

  His hands were on her waist and he was leaning back, a lazy smirk on his face, watching her. His eyes trailed to us and I noticed the caution coming over his face.

  Be scared of me, buddy. Be very scared of me.

  That gave me a warm feeling.

  My hands found my hips, and I nodded at the girl. “Get rid of her.”

  He frowned, his eyebrows lowering. His hands kneaded the side of her waist. “Why?”

  “Do it. Now.” I was not messing around.

  He noted it, and nodded, patting her on the bum. “Get lost.”

  Such kindness from such an asshat.

  She glared at him. “Are you kidding me?”

  He wasn’t even paying attention to her anymore. “Yeah. Get lost. Team Brainiac makes me soft anyways.”

  She harrumphed, flicked us a look, then saw Matt, and a sultry smile came over her face. “Hey there.”

  Matt wiggled his eyebrows at her, waving his fingers, too. “Hey there.”

  Tony sat up. “Really?”

  Matt snapped back to attention. “Right.” He jerked his chin toward the dance area. “How about you go give me a dance out there? I’ll watch from here.”

  Her eyes lit up, her smile turned even more seductive, and her hips were swaying as she walked down to where everybody else was dancing.

  Once she was gone, I motioned to both of them. “We have to go.”

  Tony and Matt shared a look, but Tony was getting up. He was doing it slow, but he was doing it. “What the fuck, Hayes?”

  “You need to do something for us, and we’re not going to owe you. You’re not doing it for any other reason than just to help us, and because you owe us.”

  His nostrils flared, and his head moved back. “I owe you? Your math is wrong. I’ve now done you two solids. You owe me.”

  I leaned in, making sure he knew I wasn’t messing around. “No.” I clipped that word out. “You owe us. You owe me. You owe Matt for being a bad influence on him.”

  Tony’s eyes darted over my shoulder, and I couldn’t see Matt’s response, but I heard his, “Um…”

  I didn’t care. I kept going. “You owe me for being a douchebag, for having girls touching you, blowing you, and doing all the disgusting sexual things you’ve been doing. Not for doing them, though. I’m sure the girls might have something to say about that. No. For me. Because you did them right next to me, when you know you shouldn’t have done that. You enjoyed making me uncomfortable, and because of that, you are going to do this and you aren’t going to ask questions. You’ll never talk about it again. You won’t even think about it again.” I waited. One beat. “Got it?”

  I couldn’t say that there was fear in Tony’s gaze, but there was definitely a new uneasiness.

  I cocked my eyebrow, and he nodded. “Fine. What do I need to do?”

  “You are going to set up a distraction for us, and then you’re going to drink with us for the rest of the night.”

  Except, that wasn’t exactly how it was going to go.

  * * *

  As plans went, this one was simple. That was the genius of it, in my opinion.

  There was no real thought put into the selection of our stand-ins. Tony walked up to two people, a guy and girl, and told them to go to the back section. They were told to wait, and that showed the power these guys had over normal people, because they did it, no questions asked.

  It hit me then how much I had grown accustomed to this world. I didn’t see Tony as the intimidating guy I had when I first saw him. I didn’t see Matt Francis as the Matt Francis. He was my brother. Tony was annoying. That’s who they were to me. But when Tony approached those two strangers, their eyes were saucers, they gulped, and they jumped when Tony told them “Go.”

  I would later process this. Later. Not now. I did not have time. But this very interaction would remain in the back of my mind.

  The plan was put in action.

  We went to a dark corner and as the guards were watching us, the three of us slipped into the booth. This booth was chosen for a reason. It was far enough away that the guards would see us go in, and from there, they knew three people were partying in the booth. The shadows and the club’s dark lighting would help camouflage our stand-ins. The guards were ordered to remain at the bottom of the walkway to keep people away from us. It was a bit of a diva move, because we were taking up an entire section of the club, but it was necessary.

  We got into the booth.

  We ordered drinks.

  The guards all saw this, then turned their backs as they took their positions. One glanced back to make sure we were there, and I allowed that we could waste five minutes. That was it, and then Tony called in his distraction.

  I don’t know who he asked or how he got them to do it, but exactly three minutes in, there was a burst of fireworks in the front corner of the club. One guy stood with sparklers, and when those went off, all eyes were on him. He was in plain sight of everyone. A few people shrieked. Most laughed. And the club’s security guards took him out.

  Everyone relaxed after that and went back to partying.