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“Something is wrong.” I kept watching her.

“Nothing is wrong. The nurse gave her morphine for the pain. She’ll feel much better when she wakes up.”

I jerked back. “Without her permission? There’s a note in her chart. I’m getting a nurse⁠—”

“No, no,” Mom said hastily. “She asked them for it. She was in so much pain, Sebastian.”

I stilled. Lila had recovered from a stab wound with nothing but extra-strength ibuprofen for pain management. No way in hell was she taking morphine now for a scratch on her thigh. Especially not after she’d come face-to-face with some very unpleasant ramifications of her father’s addiction.

My mom had just lied right to my fucking face.

Why?

A sick feeling churned in the pit of my stomach.

And then the dominoes fell one right after the other.

I hadn’t told her Lila was in danger. And Rhett hadn’t told her Lila was at Mercy River. He’d found out from her.

Clay didn’t have the knowledge to erase himself from the internet, and he didn’t have the resources to pay someone to do it for him. But Mom’s pockets were deep and her connections wide.

Horror slid through me. No. It couldn’t be. She was my mother.

But I knew.

“What did you do, Mom?” I whispered. And then I roared. “What did you fucking do?”

Mom gasped, her face ashen. “Sebastian⁠—”

My head whipped toward Lila. When had her chest last moved? Come on, baby. Take a breath.

She didn’t.

“Naloxone!” I shouted into the hallway. “I need naloxone now! My wife is having an overdose!”

39

LILA

Two weeks after my half-brother and Seb’s mother teamed up to ruin my life, life had mostly returned to normal. Normal in that no one was actively trying to kill me, I was accepting work assignments again—Norway in January, I could not wait—and I could make it through a conversation without falling asleep. My mom had gone back to San Francisco a week ago. Seb had finally stopped checking on me every hour.

Normal felt strange, though. For one, Seb’s mom was on house arrest until her trial. Seb hadn’t talked to her since the day she’d tried to murder me, but I had. Kathleen had written me a very nice letter apologizing for everything. I told her to go fuck herself.

It would probably be a while before I was comfortable in public spaces. I still flinched anytime someone brushed too close. But I was giving myself grace. Getting nearly murdered twice in twenty-four hours was a lot. It might take some time before I trusted that a stranger wasn’t going to put a knife in my gut.

I carried a whistle and pepper spray everywhere with me now. The doctor had finally cleared me for driving, but he wanted me to hold off on strenuous physical activity for another week or two. Once he gave me the go-ahead, I planned to enroll in weekly self-defense lessons.

I just didn’t know if those lessons would be at my neighborhood gym in West Oakland or here with Tamilee. Now that I could drive Relly back to California, there was nothing to stop me from leaving Mercy River Ranch.

Seb hadn’t said anything about me leaving. But he hadn’t said anything about me staying either, and I was slowly losing my mind. This had been the point where he’d taken off after my rock climbing accident. He’d waited for me to heal. And now, I was healed.

But this wasn’t three years ago. And if he thought I was going to let him walk away again without a fight, he was sorely mistaken.

I finished drying off from my shower, pulled on clean underwear and Seb’s Navy T-shirt, and shook my hair free of its bun. Swiping the fog from the mirror enough to see my face, I gave myself a stern look.

“Don’t chicken out,” I said, jabbing my finger at my reflection with each word.

Seb was sitting on the sofa, his socked feet kicked up on the coffee table, hands clasped over his flat stomach, head tipped back in deep contemplation of the ceiling.