She’s trapped. She didn’t “choose Evan.”
Rose sounds far away. “Dallas, what do we do?”
My throat tightens so hard it hurts.
I stare down at the message again as if it might change if I read it twice.
It doesn’t.
My hands start shaking.
Anger flashes up so hot it makes my skin feel too tight. Anger at Evan, at William Ross, at myself for ever believing that staged smile meant anything.
Then fear follows it, cold and brutal.
Because if she’s being watched, if she doesn’t have her phone, and she had to sneak a message through a business account just to reach someone…
How much worse is it than we know?
“We need to find her.”
“I know.” Rose turns the phone so I can see. A corporate address in the city. My stomach drops with it. “This is where we go.”
Mom’s words echo in my head as an order:If Faith asks for help again… clearly, directly, you go. Without hesitation.
My hands clench around the phone.
I don’t even feel the decision happen. It’s already done.
I’m moving.
I’m out of the office and down the hall before Rose can finish wiping her face. Boots pounding on wood. Heart pounding harder. Every nerve in my body lit up as a wildfire.
“Dallas!” Rose hurries after me. “What… what are you doing?”
“Boone!” I shout.
Boone appears, snow dusting his shoulders, eyebrows lifting at my face.
“What?” he asks, already reading the urgency in my voice.
“Faith,” I say, and the name tastes of blood and hope. “She reached out.”
Boone goes still. “What?”
I thrust Rose’s phone toward him so he can read. His eyes track the message, and I watch his jaw tighten with every line.
When he looks up, his expression has changed.
The calm, steady Boone is still there.
But there’s a storm behind his eyes now.
“She wants out,” Boone says quietly.
“Yes.”
“And she’s being watched.”
