I slide the card into my purse, then glance back at the journal, still open on my lap. It feels different now. Not just a record of her thoughts, but a map of choices I don’t yet understand, decisions she made in the quiet spaces of her life that never made it into conversation.
She didn’t believe in things like this.
But she believed in survival.
The thought settles deep, unsettling in its implication.
Maybe she was afraid.
More afraid than she ever let me see.
A chill moves through me, slow and deliberate, but I push itaside, closing the journal with more force than necessary and setting it beside me.
Tomorrow night, I’ll drive to Miami.
I’ll sit across from a woman who claims to see what others can’t.
I don’t know what I’ll find there, or if any of it will make sense.
But I do know this.
I’m not stopping now.
Chapter Thirty-Five
I’m sitting at our usual table at La Madeleine, the five of us arranged on the terrace in the soft spill of afternoon light, martinis sweating against delicate stems while untouched pastries sit between us like props we no longer care to admire. The café hums with its usual rhythm, cutlery clinking, voices rising and falling in easy conversation, but our table feels sealed off from it, suspended in something quieter, heavier. The only thing missing is Whitney. The absence settles over us without being named, an unspoken gap that shifts the air just enough to make everything feel slightly off.
“I still can’t believe it,” Tara says, shaking her head as she brings her glass to her lips, though she doesn’t drink. “The Seminoles. Right here in our neighborhood. It was terrifying.”
Caroline leans forward immediately, her voice lowering as if the story demands intimacy. “Did you see the leader? The one with the sunglasses? He was… intense. I thought Phillip was going to pass out right there on the lawn.”
Julia nods, her brow drawn tight with concern. “What do you think they want from him? That didn’t look like a warning. That looked like something worse.”
I take a slow sip of my drink, letting the burn of the gin settle at the back of my throat, though it does nothing to steady the unease coiling inside me. The image is still vivid, the line of bikes, the sound of engines reverberating through the street, the way Phillip stood there, smaller somehow, diminished in a way I’ve never seen before. It felt wrong, like something that had slipped into our world without permission, something that didn’t belong among manicured lawns and curated lives.
Stephanie exhales, her voice practical but edged with strain. “Phillip has been through enough. First Whitney, and now this. It’s just… it’s too much for one person.”
Whitney.
Her name moves through the space between us and settles, quiet and heavy. I feel it the same way I always do, a sharp pull beneath my ribs, grief braided tightly with something darker, something that refuses to soften with time. I wrap my fingers more firmly around the stem of my glass, forcing my expression to remain composed.
Julia’s gaze shifts to me, searching. “McCullough, you’re right next door. Have you noticed anything strange? Anything that might explain why they showed up like that?”
I shake my head, the motion smooth, controlled. “No. Nothing out of the ordinary.” The lie comes easily, almost too easily, slipping into place before I have to think about it. I can’t tell them what I know, what I believe. I can’t tell them that the man they’re pitying is the same man I’m certain killed my best friend.
Caroline leans back, exhaling slowly. “This whole thing is making me uneasy. What if they come back? What if next time they don’t just stand there and stare him down?”
A quiet ripple of agreement moves through the table. I can see it in their faces, the discomfort, the fear beginning to take root beneath the surface of their perfectly controlled lives. Tothem, the Seminoles are a threat, something external and dangerous. To me, they are something else entirely. A possibility. A reckoning.
“Maybe we should talk to the HOA,” Tara says, her voice tightening with resolve. “Increase security or something. A gate, a guard. This is exactly the kind of thing that shouldn’t be happening here.”
Stephanie nods quickly. “We pay too much to live here to feel unsafe.”
I remain quiet, letting their voices move around me, my thoughts drifting elsewhere. To Maverick. To the truth I’ve kept buried beneath careful silence. They would never understand what the club actually is, not beyond the surface, not beyond the easy label of something criminal and crude. They would never understand the kind of loyalty that binds men like my brother to something like that, or the reasons he chose it in the first place.
“McCullough?” Caroline’s voice pulls me back. “Are you okay? You’ve gone quiet.”
I lift my gaze and offer a small, practiced smile. “I’m fine. Just still shaken from yesterday.”
