Chapter Thirty
Hailey
The morning of December twenty-third arrives with weak winter light and a silence that presses against my eardrums.
We’re sitting around the small table—Knox on my left, Liam on my right, our knees not quite making contact underneath. The
food is untouched. Eggs going cold, toast hardening. Marlena’s stocked kitchen has been generous, but none of us have an appetite
anymore.
Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. Tomorrow at midnight, Marlena’s deadline hits.
Knox is staring at his coffee, turning the mug in slow circles on the table. Liam is pushing scrambled eggs around his plate.
And I’m sitting here wondering how we went from mind-blowing sex to this funeral parlor atmosphere in twelve hours.
“So,” I begin, “it’s time we talk about it.
“The deadline,” I add when neither of them responds.
Knox speaks first. “We find another way out.”
“The door’s unlocked.” Liam sets his fork down. “And outside is miles of frozen wilderness that would kill us in an hour.
No gear, no supplies, no idea which direction leads anywhere.”
“There has to be something—”
“There isn’t. Sometimes there just isn’t, Knox.”
“So we hand over the diamond and hope Marlena keeps her word?”
“I don’t see you coming up with alternatives.”
“Enough.” I press my palms flat against the table. “Both of you.”
They fall silent.
“Look,” Liam says, his tone shifting. Softer. More careful. “Maybe there’s a middle ground.”
He turns to me with that earnest expression I remember from our years working together. The face he made when he was trying
to talk me into something risky.
“Hailey. Tell us where it is.”
I stare at him.
“The diamond. Where you hid it.” He reaches for my hand. “Maybe if we know, we can figure out a way to get it ourselves. Get
ahead of Marlena.”
I pull my hand back and glance at the ceiling. At the corners of the room. At all the places we searched for cameras and found
nothing—which doesn’t mean they’re not there.
“She could be listening right now, Liam.”
“She said she’s not watching constantly—”
“She said a lot of things. She also said she’d kill one of us without blinking.”
My gut clenches. That old warning bell, the one that’s kept me alive through jobs that should have gotten me killed.
I’ve been ignoring it since we got here.
“How did she know?” I blurt.
Liam blinks. “What?”
“Marlena. How did she know we were coming to retrieve the diamond?”
“She’s been tracking it for years. She has resources—”
“We flew private.” I’m watching his face now. “When we landed, she had teams waiting. Armed guards. Sedatives. This cabin
stocked and ready. That’s not tracking. That’s advance notice.”
Knox straightens in his chair.
Liam’s appearance doesn’t change. But I’ve known him longer than anyone, and I catch the sweat beading at his temple.
“Maybe she got lucky,” he says.
“Nobody gets that lucky.”
I think about the lodge. The way Liam kept checking his phone at dinner. The way he seemed nervous but kept deflecting. The
way everything went wrong so fast, so smoothly.
“What was the original plan?” I ask. “When you showed up at my apartment after five years. What was supposed to happen?”
“Kedrov was closing in. We needed to—”
“You said there were complications. Things you didn’t tell me about the job.” My pulse is pounding. “You promised you’d explain.”
“Hailey—”
“What was the plan, Liam?”
He doesn’t answer. It’s so quiet that I can hear the wind outside.
And I know. I’ve known since they threw us in here, if I’m honest. That whisper in the back of my mind that something was
wrong, that the timing was too convenient.
I just didn’t want to believe it.
“You told her.” The words come out flat. “You told Marlena we were coming.”
“It’s not—”
“This whole thing. The resort. Getting grabbed.” I’m on my feet, chair scraping back. “You planned this.”
“It wasn’t supposed to go this way.”
Knox shoves back from the table.
“Explain,” he says. “Now.”
Liam runs both hands through his hair. “The kidnapping at the lodge was supposed to be it. Marlena’s people grab you, scare
you, demand the location. You tell them—under duress, which is important—and then she retrieves it herself. Done.”
“And then she lets us go?”
“Yes. That was the deal. She gets the diamond, we walk away, and when Kedrov comes looking—”
“He’d still be furious we stole it in the first place.”
“Yeah, but Kedrov’s been hunting us for the location. That’s why we’re valuable to him—we’re the only ones who know where it is. If someone else forces it out of us? We’re useless. He’d have to go after Marlena to get the diamond back, not us. We’d be off his radar.”
“You really believe that?”
“Revenge is expensive. Kedrov’s a businessman. He’s not going to waste resources tracking down two people who can’t give him
anything anymore when he could focus on actually getting his diamond back.”
The logic is cold. Calculated. And so perfectly Liam that my throat tightens.
“So that was the plan,” I say slowly. “Get us kidnapped. Let Marlena scare the location out of me. And then we’re free because
we’re no longer worth hunting.”
“Yes.”
“And were you going to profit? Selling the diamond with Marlena?”
He flinches. “I . . . I don’t know. Maybe. She kept implying there might be something in it for me, but the details weren’t—”
“Weren’t worked out yet.”
“I was trying to protect you. Get you out from under Kedrov for good.”
Knox moves so fast I barely see it. One second he’s seated, the next he’s got Liam by the collar, slamming him against the
counter hard enough to rattle the pots overhead.
“You son of a bitch.”
“I didn’t know about the cabin.” Liam’s hands come up, not fighting. “The timeline, the death threats—none of that was the
plan. She was supposed to let us go after a day. Two at most.”
“And instead?”
“She played me.” His voice cracks. “I thought I had leverage, but she was working her own angle. The second she had us both,
she cut me out.”
Knox cocks his fist back.
It connects with Liam’s jaw faster than I can move. The crack of knuckles on bone echoes through the cabin.
But Liam doesn’t crumple. He surges forward, driving his shoulder into Knox’s chest, sending them both crashing into the table.
My coffee cup shatters on the floor.
“You self-righteous asshole—” Liam gets a fist into Knox’s ribs. “You want to play judge and jury?”
Knox grunts, twists, gets Liam in a headlock. “You sold her out—”
“And what did you do?” Liam wrenches free, blood on his lip. “You followed her for months. Memorized her schedule. Learned
her routes. Put a fucking tracker in her boot like she was a package you were shipping.”
Knox’s next punch goes wide. Liam catches his arm, uses his momentum to slam him against the refrigerator.
“You’re not her protector, Knox. You’re her stalker. The only difference between us is I had the balls to show up at her door
instead of jerking off to fantasies about her every night.”
Knox roars and charges. They hit the floor hard, rolling, fists flying. The coffee table skids sideways. A lamp crashes.
“I did it to keep her safe—” Knox lands a blow to Liam’s stomach.
Liam wheezes but doesn’t stop. “So did I! That’s literally what I just said—”
“Bullshit. You did it to save your own ass—”
“I did it so Kedrov would stop hunting her!” Liam catches Knox’s wrist, twists. “You think I wanted to make a deal with that
psychopath? I was out of options!”
“You had options. You could have told the truth—”
“Like you told her the truth? About the tracker? About watching her for months like some lovesick creep?”
Knox hesitates. Just a second. Liam uses it to flip their positions, pinning Knox’s shoulders to the hardwood.
“We’re the same,” Liam spits. “The only difference is you lie to yourself about it.”
“I never put her in danger—”
“You think obsessing over someone from the shadows is protection? That’s not keeping her safe. That’s making yourself feel
better about wanting something you were too chickenshit to ask for.”
I grab the cast iron skillet from the counter.
I slam it against the stovetop so hard the clang reverberates through my teeth.
Both men freeze.
“Get. Up.”
They untangle slowly, breathing hard. Knox’s lip is split. Liam’s eye is already swelling.
“You.” I point the skillet at Knox. “Followed me for months. Tracked my movements. Learned everything about my life without
ever saying a word. All to ‘protect’ me.”
I swing the skillet toward Liam. “And you. Made deals behind my back. Got us kidnapped. Lied to my face. Also to ‘protect’
me.”
I set the skillet down with a clatter that makes them both flinch.
“Here’s what you two need to get through your thick skulls. I don’t need protecting. I’m not some damsel waiting to be rescued.
I survived ten years in this life before either of you decided to make me your pet project. I’ve outrun cops, outmaneuvered
mob bosses, and stolen from people who would have skinned me alive if they’d caught me.”
I step closer, making sure they’re both looking at me.
“I can take care of myself. I’ve been doing it since I was seventeen. So the next time either of you decides to ‘protect’
me by lying, manipulating, or tracking me like a goddamn FedEx package—don’t.”
Knox wipes blood from his mouth. He doesn’t argue.
Liam touches his swelling eye. “Hailey—”
“I’m not finished.” I take a breath. “Tomorrow is the deadline. And now I wonder if I can trust either of you to keep me alive.
Fucking barbaric cavemen.”
“Hailey—”
“Don’t. I need to think. I need to figure a way out of this.”
I grab a new cup of coffee and move to the couch.
The three of us. Trapped together. One day left.
And if Marlena’s been watching this whole time? She’s gotten one hell of a show.