Chapter 31 Evie
Everyone in the crowd looked the same—young, hungry, dangerous. No one looked like the kind of man who might’ve once had dinner with my parents.
Or possibly might’ve once betrayed my parents.
If Jack Anderson was here, he was doing a hell of a job blending in.
But it didn’t matter, I would find him. I stepped into the hallway, already pulling out the tablet I had hid in my jacket. It took me five minutes to break into Asher’s camera system, and two more to start a recognition search with a rough age range.
The seconds ticked by until I heard a set of footsteps.
I held my breath until I realized they were coming this way.
I swung to the door to my right, trying the handle and giving a silent thank you to the universe when it opened.
I still didn’t want anyone else in the pack to know I was trying to find Anderson first and talk to him before they did.
I pushed the door shut with a quiet click, listening until the footsteps passed. The screen blinked again—one match—but I already knew the face. One of Asher’s bodyguards. Not worth my time. I kept the scan going, flipping through the next stretch of camera footage.
My hand wrapped around the handle again, giving it a pull, only to find it didn’t budge.
“What the hell?” I muttered, twisting harder.
Still locked.
A spike of panic slid in under my ribs, cold and sudden. I cursed myself for not being more careful, for getting myself cornered in a dusty little closet in the middle of a warehouse where no one would hear me if—well, if anything. The air already felt tighter. My chest felt tighter.
I slapped along the wall for a light switch, but the tablet’s glow barely cut through the shadows. Dropping it carefully to the floor, I dug out my phone and typed fast.
Evie: I’m in the closet down the hallway opposite of the exit. Don’t ask. Come quick.
Evie: Please.
I turned on the flashlight, relief starting to trickle in—until my foot snagged on a bucket.
I stumbled hard, slamming into a metal shelf that groaned like it had been waiting years for this moment. Then everything came down—buckets, cans, bottles—clattering and bouncing off my head and shoulders.
Something cold and thick splashed over me, oozing down my cheek. The smell hit me a second later.
Not paint. Not water.
Oh God.
What the hell had dumped all over me?
The tablet started beeping, but I scrambled for my phone, trying to open my camera. My fingers only slid across the screen, a red hue in the liquid making me freeze.
A strangled sound tore out of me—half gasp, half curse—as the door swung open, flooding the tiny space with light so bright it stabbed at my eyes.
For the briefest, most pathetic moment, relief unfurled in my chest because I thought it was Aiden, but the shape in the doorway was shorter, not as broad, and not at all the man I wanted it to be.
I dropped down, grabbing the tablet, and stepped into the hallway as my eyes adjusted back to the light.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
I looked up at my savior, the man who opened the door, but my eyes didn’t linger, my tablet beeping again and grabbing my full attention.
The facial recognition had found another man in the age range I’d requested—and that same man was standing right in front of me.
He looked down at my tablet, his eyes going wide before they narrowed.
He was about my height, his eyes a little beadier than I expected, his stomach a little rounder.
I had pictured him more like Cameron Fletcher—tall, slim, aging well—but the man in front of me looked more frazzled, more unkempt, and for some reason, that deflated the bit of hope I had let settle in my chest.
Could this man really be the one who ruined my parents’ lives? Could he really be the one hunting me—or us—down?
“Looking for me?”
“That depends, are you Jack Anderson?”
His nostrils flared, the wave of emotions he was going through painted on his face.
“It is you. I thought . . . what happened to you?” he asked.
“None of your business. Are you Jack Anderson?”
He stepped back, checking the hallway for anyone else and, once he saw it was clear, grabbed my arm to pull me into the door across from the one I had escaped.
“You bitch. You’re the one that’s been digging into me, aren’t you?”
“You’re the one that’s been asking around about us, aren’t you?” I snapped back, fighting at his fingers digging hard into my arm.
He shoved me through the bathroom doorway hard enough that my shoulder clipped the tile wall as he followed me in.
My shoes squeaked against the grimy floor as I caught myself, and the smell hit me—cleaner, but sour, like whoever last mopped the place had spread the filth around instead of getting rid of it.
The overhead light flickered once, buzzing like it was thinking about dying, and every inch of the mirror above the sinks was spiderwebbed with cracks, reflecting my red-streaked face back at me a dozen times.
“Veritas isn’t something you want to mess with,” he said, breathing hard. He had reached back out, his hand clamping on my arm again, but now there was something else in his voice—something that made my chest tighten for a whole different reason. It wasn’t anger. It was urgency.
“I’m already messing with it.” I jerked against his grip. “I need to know what they were doing and who even was doing it. Are you the one who’s been asking about me and my friends? Why?”
“Because others are asking me,” he shot back.
His eyes darted to the door as though he expected someone to come bursting through any second.
“And those people are worse than you can imagine. You should consider it a relief I found you first. They’re after you and they aren’t happy it’s taking so long to get to you. ”
My stomach churned, but I shoved the feeling down. “Right. And you’re the concerned citizen who wants to warn me? Because you look a lot more like the kind of guy who’d take a paycheck to sell someone out.”
He really did, too.
Jack wasn’t ugly by any stretch. He had to be in his fifties now, but he still looked in decent shape.
What wasn’t in good shape was how out of sorts he looked.
When I thought about a cunning businessman I thought of Asher—well kept, eerily calm, not a hair out of place.
Nothing about Jack screamed mastermind of an empire.
Something in his jaw twitched, like maybe I’d hit close to the mark. “You think you know how this works, but you don’t. You think you should be worried about me, but you have no idea what’s coming.”
“The only thing I’m worried about is how you guys got my parents involved. How did Veritas lead to their death?”
“Your parents weren’t given a choice. That’s why they joined. That’s why they stayed.”
“That’s not an answer. Did Veritas put out a hit to kill my parents?”
He shook his head. “You don’t even understand what Veritas is. That business could not really have put out a hit on your parents.”
“You’re right, I don’t understand, but I want to. Please tell me.”
He stayed silent, the air around us thick and musty. I opened my mouth to push again, but his next words made my stomach knot.
“The Order will be watching you. They already are.”
It felt like an omen—like he was here to warn me instead of threaten me like I expected.
The door slammed open with a bang that rattled the mirror, a sliver of glass dropping to the ground behind me. Anderson’s head whipped around, but I didn’t have to look to know who it was—every nerve in me already recognized that particular kind of fury.
Aiden.
Only when I turned to face him, he wasn’t looking at me—not really—he was looking at the blood.
“Evie—” He gasped, his words ragged like he’d sprinted here. His gaze darted from my face to Anderson’s grip on my arm, and I could see the split-second rage fill him.
I knew exactly what this looked like and Aiden would be out for blood if he thought Anderson had done this to me.
Before I could get a word out, he was moving. No hesitation, no warning, only a blur of motion slamming into Anderson.
Anderson’s hand was still gripping my arm as he staggered back.
The impact shoved me into the wall, knocking the air out of my lungs.
He didn’t go down, throwing up his arms to block the first strike.
Aiden didn’t slow—he fought like a storm, wild but with precision behind every hit.
The sound of fists on flesh was sharp and ugly, echoing in the cramped room.
Anderson grunted, trying to get a grip on him, but Aiden slipped free, driving his elbow into Anderson’s ribs.
“Stop! It’s not—” My words tangled in my throat, useless against the crash and scuffle in front of me. Neither of them could hear me. The fake blood felt tacky against my skin, and every time Aiden’s eyes flicked toward me between swings, they only got darker.
Anderson managed to shove him back into the sinks, the porcelain groaning under the weight. Water sputtered from one of the taps, splattering the floor.
Anderson went for Aiden’s shoulder, trying to twist him into the wall, and Aiden shoved back.
I stepped forward without thinking, hand reaching for Aiden’s arm to pull him off—only to catch Anderson’s elbow across my cheek.
White heat exploded behind my eyes. The world tilted, and I stumbled, palm slapping against the fractured mirror before my weight dropped me hard against the sink’s edge.
Glass rattled. My cheek burned. For a heartbeat, everything froze.
Aiden’s head snapped toward me, and the look on his face made my breath hitch. I’d seen him angry before, but this was different. This was feral.
He hit Anderson again—harder this time. A meaty, sickening sound that made my stomach twist. Anderson went down on one knee, gasping, but Aiden didn’t let him get up.
He swung and his fist connected with Anderson’s nose.
“Aiden, stop—” My voice was weak, but it got through enough for him to break contact. He grabbed my wrist, more gentle than I would have imagined he could, and started pulling me toward the door.
I glanced back once. Anderson was slumped against the stall, breathing hard, his eyes locked on me with something I wasn’t expecting—a warning, maybe. Or regret. I didn’t know, but it lodged in my chest like a splinter.
The door slammed behind us, cutting him off, and Aiden muttered under his breath about how he should go back and kill him. His hand found mine, holding it tight, before he pulled me into his chest.
“You’re hurt—tell me it’s not your blood.”
“It’s not mine.”
He held me a moment longer, just letting me breathe against him, his arms a solid shield around me. Then, with a low, almost possessive growl, he stepped back and started moving, guiding me out to the parking lot without another word, as his hand never left mine.
But over the pounding of my heart, I could still hear Anderson’s voice in my head.
The Order will be watching you. They already are.