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"Good." She settled back against my chest. "Because I'm not letting you go."

The fierce possessiveness in her voice made me smile. "Wouldn't dream of it."

We drifted into comfortable silence. Katherine's breathing evened out, deepened. I held her while she slept, cataloging her weight against me, the scent of her hair, the soft sound of her breathing.

For the first time in three months, maybe longer, I felt at peace.

The ping from my laptop woke me at 3:31 AM. Katherine stirred but didn't wake. I carefully extracted myself from her arms and pulled on my jeans.

The facial recognition alert flashed on my screen. Multiple hits. Instagram, TikTok, posted twenty minutes ago.

I pulled up the images.

Three different accounts, all posting from the same event. Based on the backdrop, it was a private party at some Hollywood venue. The automated system had flagged faces in the background of candid shots.

Russell Dunlap. Clear as day.

My pulse kicked up. The bastard had been hiding for days, and now he showed up at a Hollywood party?

I downloaded all the images and ran an analysis. The timestamps showed the posts went up between 2:15 and 2:30 AM Eastern. Which meant the party had happened hours ago West Coast time.

Russell appeared in six different photos from three separate accounts. Always in the background, always moving, but clearly present.

In two of the photos, he was talking to the same woman. Blonde, late twenties, wearing a black dress. The body language between them was intense. In one shot, her hand was on his arm. In another, Russell was gesturing emphatically while she looked distressed.

I ran facial recognition on the blonde woman.

Sophie Tremaine. Actress based in Los Angeles. Twenty-eight years old. No criminal record. LinkedIn was sparse, but she was active on IMDb. She did bit parts on television, but she recently did a co-starring role in a major movie.

Now, how was she connected to Russell? I started cross-referencing Sophie’s background this time. It took a while, but I found it. Naomi Tremaine had married Russell’s father. She had a young daughter, Sophie Tremaine. She was six years old when she was brought into the family, Russell would have been twelve. No wonder there hadn’t been any kind of relationship showing up when we were looking through Russell’s background.

My blood went cold.

I checked IMDb again to see if she was connected to Passing Through Jordan, but I saw nothing. That didn’t mean squat. The last time she’d updated it was six months ago. Which was weird, almost every other actor on the site was updating their profile daily. They were hungry for work.

I stared at the photos again. The intense conversation. Sophie's hand on Russell's arm. The distressed expression on her face.

I needed Katherine’s input, but my gut told me this was the lead we’d been looking for.

I heard Katherine turn the handle of the bedroom door, and I saw her naked in the doorway. “Is something wrong?”

I debated talking to her about what I’d found or going back to bed and holding her in my arms. Holding her won by a country mile.

“Nothing that can’t wait.”

I veered off to the mini-bar and plucked out the intimacy pack Amber had been so curious about. I looked at the box. Two condoms. It’d have to do.