They stopped as they approached, Coulter’s arms folded across his chest, his expression unreadable. But the air around him carried weight, heavy as a storm cloud.
“Yo, Silas, you good finishing up solo?” I called to my first mate. He gave a quick nod, already bent over, scrubbing the deck. Slinging my gear bag over my shoulder, I walked toward my brothers. “What’s up?”
Coulter didn’t answer right away, just looked at me steady, eyes harder than usual. That stare alone was enough to put a lump in my throat. Coulter wasn’t the type to blow up quick; when he simmered, it meant the boil would last.
Spence shifted, scratching the back of his neck like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “I filled him in.”
My stomach dropped. “Fuck, man.”
Coulter’s voice was calm, but disappointment edged every word. “Fuck you, man. How could you keep this from me? From us? You know we’ve always had your back.”
The words stung, but pride had me bristling. My instinct was to square my shoulders, like somehow making myself bigger would make me right. “Under the circumstances, surely you can understand.” I jerked my chin toward the far end of the dock, leading them further away from Silas’s earshot. “Alright. So now you know. Got any brilliant advice?” I flicked a glance at Spence. “Because so far, we’ve come up goose eggs.”
Coulter’s gaze never left mine. His jaw was tight enough to crack a molar. “On one hand, I think we should tell Faith. She’s smart, and she’d know how to handle this. On the other, I don’t want to put her—or any of us—at risk by pulling her into it.”
“Exactly,” I snapped. “And the same goes for Dad and Waylan. You say they’ve got secrets, but what are the chances their forty-year-old skeletons have anything to do with what’s happening now?” I waited a beat before andsweign my on question. “Slim to none.”
“You found a bale,” Coulter said. “That was bad luck. Then you called it in. Also bad luck—or bad judgment. But leaving me in the dark?” His jaw tightened further. “That wasn’t luck. That was a choice.”
Spence let out a low whistle. “He’s not wrong. And he’s really not happy about being the last to know.”
“Not cool, brother,” Coulter said, shaking his head once, each word deliberate. “Not fucking cool.”
The disappointment in his voice cut deeper than anger ever could. Guilt twisted in my gut, sharper than I wanted to admit. I hadn’t wanted to drag Coulter into this. Or his cop girlfriend.
I opened my mouth, ready to tell him I’d been protecting him, but the words stuck in my throat. Protection or not, he was right. I’d made the choice for him.
Coulter blew out a slow breath, like he was trying to get a handle on the fire still simmering. “Have you even seen those guys since? Any sign they’re still around?”
I shook my head. “Nope. They were tailing me for a while, but for a couple weeks, not a glimpse. Who knows if they’re watching, though? Could be they’ve got eyes on us right now, waiting to see what we do.”
“That’s what keeps me up at night,” Spence said, darkness lacing his words. He kicked at a coil of rope lying loose on the dock, his usual cool cracked around the edges. “We’ve been buying time, but for what? What’s the endgame here, Kai? Is there even an end in sight to this nightmare?”
I didn’t have an answer. None of us did. And that was the worst part—same questions, same silence, same dead ends.
Silence settled between us, broken only by the clank of Silas offloading the rods. A boat horn blared from the channel, echoing against the mangroves. Somewhere down the dock, a cooler lid slammed shut, punctuated by laughter. The world kept turning, ordinary life humming around us, while we stood frozen in the same loop.
I stared past them, out toward the horizon where the last of the sun bled into the water. It should’ve been beautiful. Instead it looked endless, like the problem stretching out in front of us—no edge, no out, no way forward.
Coulter knew now, sure—but it didn’t make me feel any better. Because we still didn’t have a plan. It felt like we were stuckon replay, circling back to the same ground zero every time. Groundhog Day with higher stakes and worse odds.
CHAPTER 27
JASMINE
The last few days had been a blur of work, paint, and Kai. I’d pulled two shifts at the bar, made progress on the heron canvas I’d promised my mom, and still somehow managed to lose hours tangled in Kai’s arms whenever I could steal them. It was indulgent, sure, but for once it didn’t feel like running away from anything. It felt like living.
“Living” looked like tiny domestic snapshots that kept surprising me: his fishing boots parked by the door, an extra toothbrush leaning against mine, dishes in the sink that were his, not mine. Coming home late from the bar to find he’d left the porch light on for me. Falling asleep to the hum of cicadas and wake to his arm heavy over my waist. If danger lurked at the edges, we kept the center warm.
Tonight was supposed to be another step toward normal. Jess was driving up from Key West, breaking the trip in Islamorada before heading to Miami tomorrow to catch her flight. She’d be meeting Blaze’s family for the first time since their engagement—she’d been buzzing about it for days, filling my phone with heart emojis and exclamation points. I’d promised her cocktails and a proper girls’ night send-off.
Which was why I stood at the mirror now, curling iron in hand, trying to coax my hair into something halfway glamorous. The bathroom smelled faintly of coconut conditioner and hair spray. Humidity fogged the corners of the mirror even with the fan running. My canvas bag was packed by the door with backup sandals in case we ended up dancing and I needed to kick off my heels.
I was smiling at the thought when Kai’s reflection appeared behind me in the glass. He leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, his expression… off. Not angry exactly, but weighted, set in a way that made my stomach dip. The longer he stood there without speaking, the tighter my chest pulled.
“Coulter knows,” he said finally.
The curling iron wobbled in my hand. “Knows… what?” My voice came out too fast, too sharp. My brain scrambled for answers—about Reef, about the smugglers, maybe Spence spilling something, or the goons showing up again. A strobe of awful possibilities flashed in series: Reef at the marina, the bald goon at the Trading Post, my slip with Faith. But only one possibility made my pulse spike: Faith. He couldn’t mean Faith.
