Anger climbs—same kind that drove me to Reyes, the kind that keeps me moving when everything else falls apart.But under it, something I don’t want to name.
Fear.
Not for me.
For Daniela.
For Belinda.
For a family still hanging by a thread.
I start the truck.Gravel crunches under the tires as I pull onto the road.I need to get to Daniela before Vega does.
The feeling in my chest tightens.
Because even if Vegaisalive, it doesn’t explain everything.Belinda’s disappearance.Reyes’s return like a bad penny.A DHS officer at Daniela’s door with paperwork ready to strip her status.
None of it is random.
No.Someone’s pulling strings.Someone who knows exactly how to hit us where it hurts.
And I can’t shake the suspicion that it all leads back to Vega.
Who the hell are those two dead fuckers if neither is Vega?
My hands feel steadier on the wheel now.I’ve got a plan, even if it’s held together with string.
Get to Daniela, lock down the house, go through the security feeds again with Vinnie, cross-check the Charleston footage, get plate readers from the county scanners if we can wrangle them, hit the airport manifests, sweep the bus depots, call in favors I hate calling.
And I’ll do it all while pretending there isn’t a noose around my neck with Reyes’s name on it.
I blow out a breath.“We’ll find her,” I say out loud.
A shape scuttles across the lane—an armadillo?—and vanishes into the ditch.My pulse.I’m wound too tight.I force my shoulders down.
Another mile.Another.Another.
I’m a few miles out from Vinnie’s when the vibration slaps into me.
For a heartbeat I think it’s my regular phone.But the feel is different.
Not in a good way.
Slowly, I reach into my pocket.
The burner.
I pull it out.
One new message.
It can only be from Reyes.
His favor.
He’s calling it in already.
