Chapter Thirty-Two
LUKE
The look in Mila’s eyes hit harder than the way she left—hollow, like I’d already proven Elise right. Mila wanted space, so I gave it to her. But space didn’t mean surrender. It didn’t mean letting her believe Elise owned a piece of me she never would.
Fine. Mila could have her distance for now. While she did, I would find out what the hell she meant about the recording.
I pulled my phone from my pocket, thumb flying over the screen until I hit our thread. There was a gray waveform bar above the text I’d sent her this morning. I hadn’t even noticed it. My stomach dropped when I hit play.
Drew’s voice filled the air, sharp and controlled. “Protect yourself. Don’t let Mila be the reason you go down.”
Then my voice, lower, clipped in a way that almost sounded resigned. “Maybe you’re right.”
No wonder she looked wrecked. Out of thirty minutes, she’d heard thirty seconds—the part that colored me in the worst light.
But Elise knowing? That was what lit me up. I hadn’t left my phone unattended. No one had touched it. Unless—spyware. Something slithering through my messages without me seeing. Dammit. My battery had been dying faster lately. There had to be something running in the background, eating it up.
The hallway blurred. Fury steadied my stride. People moved out of the way as if they felt it—no one wanted to be caught in my orbit.
The bell rang as I shoved into Econ. Jax slouched in his usual seat in the back, boots kicked under the desk. I dropped into the chair beside him, muscles tense.
“Phone,” I muttered.
He raised a brow but handed it over without a question. I punched in my PI’s number hard enough the plastic creaked.
I didn’t waste time with greetings when Marcus picked up. “Marcus, how did Elise get access to a voice note I never sent?” I cut him off before he had a chance to respond. “If there’s malware, purge it.”
He didn’t ask why—just gave me orders. “Power down. Restart in safe mode. Then trace installs.”
That was why he was worth what I paid him. My hands moved fast, following his voice until the screen confirmed it—software buried deep, a program mirroring outgoing files.
I hadn’t opened shady links. No attachments. No clicks that could’ve handed Elise access. Which meant only one thing—physical contact.
Practice. Games. My bag in the locker room. Elise could walk into that place as though she owned it, and if she hadn’t done the install herself, she would’ve found someone who could—Logan.
My chest burned. She hadn’t played her usual games with Mila this time. She’d crossed a line. She’d dug into my life, stolen my words, twisted them into a blade, and shoved it straight between Mila and me.
The rules that had shielded her just shifted. She’d crossed a line.
But Elise could wait. Mila couldn’t.
I snapped my head toward Jax, who’d been watching me as if I was about to combust. “Do what I just did. Now. Then make Chase and Theo do it too. All of you check your phones.”
Alarm flickered through his usual flat calm. “Spyware?”
“Yeah.” I was already pushing to my feet.
The teacher paused mid-sentence as my chair scraped back.
“Where are you going?” Jax asked.
“To find Mila. Tell Coach I’m skipping. Personal reasons.”
No one stopped me.
I hurried through the halls and into my car. The first place I went was Mila’s house, but it was empty. The arena was a no. She wouldn’t put herself anywhere near practice today. The roof was ours, but she’d know that was where I’d go first.
That left one place since the boardwalk studio was gone. The only one that still gave her peace when everything else was overwhelming—the beach.
It didn’t take long for me to drive along the coast and pull into the lot. It was where I found her car, locked and empty. Relief hit first, followed by the hollow twist of knowing she hadn’t gone far. I scanned the sand until I saw her.
About half a mile down the beach. Arms looped around her knees. Eyes fixed on the horizon while the waves broke heavy along the shore and rolled back.
I spotted her before she saw me—eyes fixed on the horizon as if daring the water to take her.
I crossed the sand, wind flattening my shirt against me, salt sharp in the back of my throat. Each step sank deeper than I wanted, but I kept going until I reached her.
She didn’t look up when I sat, lowering myself into the same pose. Close enough that our shoulders brushed, not enough to trap her.
“I hit the wrong icon,” I said finally. “That’s how the conversation was recorded in the first place.” The words came out harder than I meant, the wind dragging them out to sea. “I won’t pretend the conversation didn’t happen.”
Her voice came out thin. “I listened.”
“I know.”
“Then maybe the smartest move is distance.” She didn’t look at me, just at the water, like every wave was waiting to prove her right.
My jaw locked. “You heard one sentence without the rest of the fight.” Maybe you’re right. I knew how that sounded.
“The rest sounded a lot like you letting him push you to save yourself.”
“I don’t need his permission to protect you.” My control snapped, harsher than I intended. I lowered my voice. “I was playing angles out loud. You got thirty seconds of a thirty-minute argument, and what you did hear was tampered with, taken way out of context.”
“And he won.”
“He didn’t.” I forced myself to stop short of touching her. “If he had, I wouldn’t be here.”
Her laugh was brittle. “Your family wants you far away from me.”
“That’s never happening.”
“You sure?” Her head turned then, eyes burning. “You sure when Lorne starts moving chess pieces?”
“Lorne can make moves,” I ground out. “Not against you.” Heat flared through me, ugly and bright. “What the hell did Elise feed you?”
She hugged her knees tighter, fury breaking through. “Basically, that everyone you love is a liability—especially me. And that liabilities get cut.”
I didn’t look away. “Everything I love is a liability here. Doesn’t mean I drop it.”
She didn’t answer, just dug her fingers into the sand. The wind pushed her hair into her face, and she didn’t bother to move it.
“Mila,” I said quietly. “Elise played us both. She had spyware installed on my phone.”
Her head jerked up. “What?”
“That recording—the one you received? It was spliced. She cut sections and layered them so it sounded like I agreed with Drew.” I clenched my teeth, the old burn of fury lighting behind my ribs.
“I didn’t send it. I didn’t even know she had access until my PI talked me through how to find the virus and remove it. ”
She stared at me as if she wanted to believe it but didn’t dare. Then she shook her head, a short, disbelieving exhale following. “Why am I not surprised?”
“Because it’s her style.” I reached for her phone, slow enough so she could stop me if she wanted. “Can I?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Why?”
“Because if Elise tapped mine, she probably got to yours too.”
She hesitated then handed it over. My fingers brushed hers—small static contact, too charged for the moment. I unlocked her settings, fingers moving fast, muscle memory and rage in equal measure. A buried file blinked at me in the diagnostics—mirrored connection, same app.
“You have it.” I showed her the screen. “Same spyware. She’s been copying our messages, maybe tracking locations too.”
Mila went still. “You can get rid of it?”
“Yeah.” My voice came out rougher than I meant. “Already did.” I swiped through the final line of code, cut the connection, and dropped the phone back into her palm. “You’re clean now.”
Her hand closed around it slowly. “So this is how she’s been getting everything.”
“Not anymore.” I met her eyes. “Nothing is going to come between us.”
She exhaled, a shaky sound that could’ve been relief or heartbreak. “Until the next thing.”
I didn’t argue. Because she was right. But at least for now, we’d caught one of the knives before it landed.
The fight drained out of me slowly, leaving only the ache of everything we still hadn’t talked about.
Her shoulders shifted, as if the movement steadied her a fraction. Elise had aimed to leave her bleeding long after she walked away, and she had. I saw it—the doubt, the fear—and forced myself closer to center. “You’ve told me you don’t think your mom’s been honest since before Blackwood.”
“She hasn’t.” The word scraped her raw.
“Then maybe I’m not the only one raised on half-truths and threats dressed up as protection.” My tone dropped, steady, the one I used when I needed her to hear me without breaking apart. “Maybe the only good thing in this is us choosing each other anyway.”
A sound tore out of her that wasn’t a laugh and wasn’t a sob. “You make it sound simple.”
“It isn’t.” I let my knee brush hers in the sand. “But this part is.”
We sat breathing the same air until her grip loosened on her legs. Her hand drifted, fingers finding the edge of my shirt. I looped an arm around her back, pressing my palm into the sand—close enough to cage, careful not to.
“I’m not walking away,” I said, slow enough to nail down each word. “Not for optics. Not for my father. Not for Drew. Not for Lorne. Not because Elise thinks she knows the angle I’ll take.”
“Even if it gets worse?”
“It will.”
“Even if Dunn moves?”
“He already has.” I leaned in until there was only an inch between us, breath heavy enough to count as contact. “Tell me to go if you want distance. I’ll give you that. But I won’t take it from you.”
Her eyes burned into mine. “That’s what you really want, isn’t it?”
I closed the space until there was nothing left to take. “That’s the last thing I want. I want this. Us. No one coming between you and me.”
The words landed heavier than I meant, but I didn’t pull them back. Her breath caught, sharp in the space between us, and for a second, it felt as though the ocean and the whole damn sky had gone still to hear the answer.
We shifted, facing one another. Her hands slid up to my neck. My grip drifted to cup her cheek, instinct fighting control and losing in the only way that mattered. The pull between us was tidal; you could step back from water, but you couldn’t stop the moon.
We broke because we had to. Her eyes stayed locked on mine, wide and wrecked in a way that mirrored me.
“Then tell me—if your father pushes, if Lorne stares too long, if Drew warns you again—what do you do?”
“I tell them distance isn’t protection,” I said. “It’s surrender.”
“And if they make you choose?”
“I already have.”
Her lips parted, eyes flashing as if she wanted to call me a liar but didn’t have the proof.
I leaned closer, the words dragging out of me rougher than I meant. “I don’t care if everything implodes around us. I can’t stay away from you.”
The space between us collapsed. No hesitation this time, no slow control. Just heat, anger, need—everything that had been chewing at us breaking loose. Her mouth met mine hard enough to bruise, my hands in her hair, her fingers fisting my shirt as though we were both trying to keep from shattering.
It wasn’t careful. It wasn’t safe. It was real.
When we tore apart, breathless, her forehead pressed to mine. I still heard the ocean crashing and the wind tearing, but none of it felt bigger than what was happening right here.
“This is messy,” she whispered.
“We’re allowed messy.” I kissed the corner of her mouth, grounding us. “We’re not allowed lies.”
The ocean roared. The sand shifted. But we held steady as my mouth crashed into hers.
Her lips parted under mine, until I couldn’t tell where the sea ended and she began.
She tasted of wind-whipped air and defiance.
My thumb dragged along her jaw, memorizing the line of it, while her nails scraped into the back of my neck as she threaded them into my hair—pain and want sparking through the same wire.
She gasped when I angled closer, and I caught the sound against my mouth, swallowing it as if I’d been starving for it. Every shift pressed her into me harder—the push of her chest, the catch of her hip against mine, the way she didn’t retreat, not an inch.
Control was a word that didn’t exist in this moment.
I was fists in her hair, rougher than I should’ve been, softer than I wanted to be, caught between dragging her closer and remembering she was breakable.
She didn’t let me choose—her tongue brushed mine, pulling me deeper, making the decision for both of us.
The world pitched under us, but none of it broke the grip I had on her. On this. On the proof that distance had never been an option.
When we finally ripped apart, breaths ragged, foreheads locked, my chest heaved like I’d just gone three rounds in the ring. Her pupils were blown wide, lips swollen, hair tangled from my hands.
Her voice broke through, wrecked and unsteady. “We’re going to burn for this.”
I didn’t blink. Didn’t let go. “Then let it burn. Nothing else matters if I have you.”
“Then we face whatever comes our way together,” she whispered and placed her hand in mine.
I tightened my grip, the sand cool against our knuckles. For a second, it felt as if that promise might be enough to hold everything steady. I exhaled. “There’s more.”
Her brows pulled together. “More?”
I reached into my back pocket for my phone and swiped the screen awake. The glow cut across both of us, queuing up the grainy photo, the timestamp burned into the corner. “My PI sent this earlier.”
She leaned closer, squinting. The picture was blurry—night-shot—but the shape was there.
“Who am I looking at?” she asked.
“It’s the night you and your mom left. See the timestamp?”
“Oh.” Her lips paused slightly apart as the pieces fell into place. “Is that…?”
“Yeah. It looks like Lorne.” The outline was unmistakable.
“And that’s the night Darren was last alive.”
“Yeah. But I’m not sure he isn’t still breathing. You told me about overhearing Elise mention a Mr. Langley, who I can only assume works at Dunn. Darren had no known relatives.”
“So you’re saying this picture doesn’t prove Lorne was the murderer, even though it places him at the scene?”
“Pretty much. There’s no body, no weapon, nothing that can tie him to Darren’s death. For now, we don’t do anything. All we really have is a blurry picture and conjecture.”
“And if he’s not alive—if someone’s using his name?”
I felt her fingers tighten around mine, her pulse quick against my palm. “Either way,” I said, “we stay quiet until we know which.” The ocean crashed before us, steady and merciless. Whatever truth waited out there, it was already in play.