I hold her gaze.
“Yes.”
This is too much truth for a parked SUV on a bright street outside a tiki bar.
Her fingers tighten around the phone. “That is a very sad answer.”
“It’s a real one.”
She looks down again, and I can see the part of her that wants to argue with me fighting the part that knows I am not trying to wound her.
I hate that I am the one putting suspicion into a place she has always kept safe. I hate more that the place may not be safe at all.
“Look at me,” I say quietly.
She does.
“I am not accusing Vanessa. I’m not asking you to stop trusting her. I’m asking you to let us keep the circle wide until we can make it smaller.”
Her breath catches slightly.
“I don’t know how to do that.”
“Then I’ll do it for now.”
“That sounds exhausting.”
“No.”
It sounds like what I’m built for. But that is not what I say.
“I’m hungry again,” I say instead.
She blinks. “What?”
“You had pancakes. I had eggs. That was hours ago.”
“It was forty minutes ago.”
“Long enough.”
The confusion on her face slowly changes into reluctant amusement. “Are you trying to distract me with food?”
“Yes.”
“That was extremely obvious.”
“I’m not subtle.”
“You are literally paid to notice things quietly.”
“Different skill set.”
She lets out a laugh, small but real, and some of the tension leaves her shoulders. Good. I’ll take the win.
I start the SUV and pull away from the curb, keeping one eye on the mirrors and one on the road ahead. Kara doesn’t text Vanessa back. Not yet. She holds the phone in her lap with the screen dark, staring out at Sunbreak Harbor as if the island has become a puzzle she does not know how to solve.
I don’t have all the pieces either. But I know this much. The threat around Kara Stone is not random. It knows her history. It knows her soft places. And if Vanessa Moreau is standing anywhere near the center of that pattern, Kara is going to break before she believes it.
