28
DANIELA
Hawk watchesme across the small table, candlelight twitching in his eyes like he’s swallowing back something that burns.
“I wish I could tell you everything,” he says.“I don’t want to overburden you.”
I open my mouth to argue, but then decide against it.
I’m also keeping secrets, after all.
“Before anything else,” he continues, voice low, “I need to be straight with you about my brother.Eagle’s OD was staged.”
I nearly drop my fork.“Staged?By whom?”
“We don’t know yet,” he says.“But it wasn’t a relapse.Someone dosed him.It was a hit to rattle me.”He frowns.“To rattle all of us.”
A cold wind seems to slip under the tablecloth and crawl under my skin.I picture Eagle’s white face, the machines, the bloom of bruises at his veins.Staged.
Hawk keeps going.“And Reyes… He escaped.I was dealing with that.That’s why I wasn’t with you last night.”
My pulse snaps.“Escaped?From where you kept him?”
His jaw shifts.He nods once.“Yeah.”
I lean back, gripping the napkin in my lap.“And you didn’t tell me.”
“I’m telling you now.”He swallows.“It’s handled.”
“How?”The word feels like a shard on my tongue.“How is a man like that ever ‘handled’?”
Hawk drops his gaze to the table for a moment.“He asked for a favor,” he says.“One favor, later.”
I go very still.A ringing starts in my ears.“What kind of favor?”
His mouth pulls tight.“He wanted a building on Bellamy land burned.A forgotten place.I… I went out there.”
For a second I can’t hear the restaurant sounds at all.
“Did you do it?”I whisper.
“No.”He leans in.“No.I used AI to make it look like I did.It buys us time—metime—to figure out why he wants it gone.There has to be something in that building tied to him.I won’t torch evidence that could bury him for good.”
A laugh breaks out of me.“So you let yourself be owned by a man like Reyes and now you’re…counter-owning him with fake photos?”
“It’s not ownership,” he says quietly.“It’s chess.”
“Chess,” I repeat, staring at the trembling flame between us.“My father used to call it that too.He said a man is a piece.Move him right and he’ll kneel on his own.”I lift my eyes to Hawk.“Men who owe bloody favors are how my father built his empire.You know this.”
His hands flatten on the table.“I do.”
“Then why would you step into the same trap?”
“Because I thought I was protecting you,” he says.“Because Reyes sniffed around you in Colombia.Because he touched your life.Because I thought I had a chance to stop him.And I took it.”
Heat floods my cheeks.He went after Reyes because he thought he was sending me the gifts.
I push my chair back an inch.The scrape is loud.Heads turn and then turn away.I hear my own breath.It sounds like I’m running though I’m sitting still.
