Chapter 21
TWENTY-ONE
SALEM
I wake up to the bed shifting. It’s still dark outside.
Ozzy slides back under the covers like he belongs here.
Like we belong here. His heat finds me immediately, a warm press at my back, his arm curling around my waist. For one sweet second, my body relaxes into him like nothing bad exists.
Then I feel it. The tension in him. Not the kind that means he wants me.
The kind that means he’s carrying something heavy and sharp, trying not to cut me with it.
Ozzy’s mouth brushes my hair. “Salem.”
My eyes open fully.
His voice is low. Careful. Like he’s choosing every word.
“Yeah?” I whisper.
He doesn’t answer right away. His hand flexes against my stomach, then stills. “I don’t want to lie to you,” he says quietly. “Ever.”
My heart stutters. Something cold creeps under my ribs. I shift, turning in his arms so I can see his face. In the dim light from the bedside lamp, Ozzy looks… carved out. Jaw tight. Eyes steady but too serious. My stomach drops. “Okay.”
He exhales slowly, like he’s bracing for impact. “I have some hard truths.”
I push myself up on my elbows, the sheet slipping down my shoulder. My skin prickles. “Hard truths about what?” My voice comes out smaller than I mean.
Ozzy sits up too, leaning back against the headboard. He reaches for my hand immediately, grounding me before he even starts. His fingers are warm and solid. “I talked to Dean,” he says.
I swallow. “Okay.”
Ozzy’s thumb strokes my knuckles once. “They looked into Carl.”
My throat tightens at the name. Carl is a word that tastes like cigarettes and cheap cologne and eyes that linger too long.
Ozzy watches my face. “And your mom.”
My breath catches. A tiny, stupid part of me—the part that’s still twelve years old and waiting for her to choose me—leans forward. Like maybe this will be good news. Like maybe she’s frantic and searching and crying and saying my name.
Ozzy’s voice turns softer. “They found them.”
My pulse lifts, hopeful and terrified. “Where?”
Ozzy’s jaw tightens. He doesn’t look away. “In the tropics,” he says. “On vacation.” The words don’t compute at first.
Vacation.
Tropics.
My mother.
Carl.
I blink hard. “What?”
Ozzy holds my gaze. “Luxury resort. Private bungalow. The kind of place that costs… a lot.”
My mind scrambles to catch up. My mother never has money. My mother complains about money like it’s a weather pattern. My mother asks me for twenty dollars like it’s oxygen. My mother going on vacation is so absurd it almost sounds funny— except Ozzy isn’t smiling.
My throat constricts. “No.”
Ozzy’s grip tightens on my hand. “Salem—”
“No,” I say again, sharper. “That doesn’t make sense. She can’t afford—”
“She’s affording it,” Ozzy says quietly. “And Carl’s with her.”
My chest goes hollow. I feel empty. Like the part of me that still hoped she might miss me just got scooped out with a spoon. I stare at Ozzy, waiting for him to tell me this is a mistake. Waiting for him to say, Sorry, wrong person. False lead. We got it wrong.
He doesn’t.
My lips part, but nothing comes out. My body feels oddly heavy, like gravity just doubled. “How…?” I whisper finally. “How is she there when… when I—” I can’t finish. Because the sentence is too humiliating. How is she drinking cocktails on a beach while I was being sold like I’m nothing?
Ozzy shifts closer. His free hand slides up my arm. “We don’t know how yet.”
I laugh once, sharp and ugly. “We do know how.”
Ozzy’s eyes harden. “Not fully.”
I shake my head, staring down at our tangled hands like they belong to someone else. “She didn’t even care I was gone.”
Ozzy’s voice goes low. “That’s not true.”
I look up, my eyes burning. “Isn’t it? If she cared, she’d be… I don’t know. Calling. Looking. Screaming. Something.” My voice breaks. “Not… tanning.”
Ozzy’s jaw clenches, anger flickering behind his eyes—but not at me. It’s focused on the world instead. He strokes my cheek with his knuckles. “I’m sorry.” The words land like a hand on an old bruise.
I blink fast, trying to keep my face from breaking. Because I hate crying. I hate giving anyone that satisfaction. But Ozzy isn’t anyone. Ozzy’s the only person who’s holds me like I matter.
My voice comes out hoarse. “So she’s just… fine.”
Ozzy inhales slowly. “She’s being watched.”
“Watched?” I echo, confused through the fog.
“Dean’s got people on them,” Ozzy says. “Following. Digging. Trying to figure out where the money came from and whether Carl has connections to the ring.”
My stomach turns. “So you think…” I start, but the thought is so vile I don’t want to say it out loud.
Ozzy’s eyes lock onto mine. “I think Carl might be involved.”
My skin goes cold. And suddenly the emptiness turns into something sharper.
Rage. Because if Carl had anything to do with me being taken— if my mother let it happen— if she sold me— I don’t know what I’ll do.
I don’t know what version of me will crawl out of that truth.
I swallow hard. “There’s more, isn’t there?
” I ask, because Ozzy’s face still looks like he’s carrying another blade.
Ozzy doesn’t deny it. He shifts. “Yeah.”
My pulse stutters. “Tell me.”
Ozzy’s hand tightens around mine again. “They traced the secure booking. The person who hired Maddox Security to rescue you.”
My breath catches. The person who paid for my rescue. My mind flicks to the idea I’ve been clinging to: Someone chose me. Even if I don’t know who.
Ozzy’s voice is careful. “It was your father.”
The world tilts. My stomach drops so fast I feel nauseous. I’m going to puke. Seriously. I blink a few times, breathing through my nose to steer the nausea away. “My… father?” I whisper.
Ozzy nods once, slowly. “Yeah.”
I stare at him, waiting for my brain to make sense of the word.
Father.
You’ve got to be kidding me. The man’s a ghost. He was never around. He’s just a space my mother filled with silence and disdain and the occasional drunken rant about “men who leave.”
I swallow. “I don’t—” My voice breaks. “I don’t have a father.”
Ozzy’s expression softens. “You do.” The words hit me like a punch in the chest.
I pull my hand back instinctively, pressing it to my sternum like I can hold myself together physically. “How?” I whisper. “How would he even know where I was?”
Ozzy shakes his head. “We don’t know yet. Dean’s team is looking into it.”
My mind races. If my father knew I’d been taken… how? Did my mother tell him? Did Carl? Did he see something online? Did he—did he care? Questions pile up so fast I can’t catch any of them. “What’s his name?” I ask, voice tight.
Ozzy hesitates just long enough for me to feel the weight of it. Then he says it.
Arthur Charles.
It means nothing to me. I blink. “I’ve never heard of him.”
Ozzy nods like he expected that. “Yeah.”
My chest aches. “Why would he—” I shake my head, trying to force the thoughts into a line. “Why would he want me rescued if he never… if he never contacted me? If he knew he had a daughter, why didn’t he—” My voice breaks again, anger and hurt tangling together.
Ozzy moves fast, sliding closer, wrapping his arms around me and pulling me against his chest.
I resist for half a heartbeat out of pride. Then I crumble into him because I’m so tired of holding myself alone.
Ozzy’s hand cups the back of my head. “I don’t know, Salem.”
My voice is muffled against his skin. “This is so messed up.”
“I know,” he murmurs.
I swallow hard, blinking against the sting in my eyes. “So my mother is on vacation, and my father—my father exists, apparently—and I’m just… I’m just finding out now?”
Ozzy holds me tighter. “I’m sorry.”
I lift my head, eyes burning. “Is he… is he a good person?”
Ozzy’s expression turns unreadable. “I don’t know yet.
” That’s the worst answer. Because it leaves room for anything.
And my life has taught me not to hope. Hope is just the first step toward humiliation.
But still, something in my chest—tiny and stubborn—wants to believe this man didn’t rescue me for selfish reasons.
That he didn’t pay to save me out of guilt or fear or image. That he paid because he wanted me alive.
I whisper, “Can I talk to him?”
Ozzy’s face tightens.
My stomach sinks before he even speaks.
Ozzy’s voice is quiet. “That’s the thing.”
I go still. “What thing?”
“We can’t reach him,” Ozzy says. “Dean’s been trying. No answer. No response.”
My throat tightens. “Maybe he’s busy.”
Ozzy’s eyes hold mine, steady and grim. “Maybe.”
My voice shakes. “What do you mean maybe?”
Ozzy exhales slowly. “He might be missing.”
The air leaves my lungs. Or worse, my brain supplies, because my brain is cruel.
Ozzy doesn’t say it aloud, but his eyes do. He might be dead. Something cold and focused clicks into place inside me.
I sit up abruptly, the blanket falling to my lap. My hands shake, but my voice comes out sharp. “Then we need to find him.”
Ozzy’s brows lift. “Salem—”
“No,” I say, cutting him off, surprising even myself. “If he hired you—if he paid to get me out—he knows something. He has to. He had to know where I was, or who took me, or how to reach Maddox Security. He knows something.”
Ozzy watches me like he’s measuring the steel in my spine.
My voice steadies. “I’m done being the girl bad things happen to. If my father is real and he’s missing, then we find him.”
Ozzy’s gaze darkens, something proud and protective flaring. “You don’t even know him.”
“Exactly,” I snap. “And somehow he’s still the only one who tried to save me.” The words hang there. They’re heavy.
Ozzy’s jaw clenches, anger flickering. “Yeah.”
I swallow, forcing the tremor out of my voice. “I want answers.”
Ozzy reaches out and cups my face gently, thumb brushing under my eye like he’s wiping away a tear I didn’t realize escaped. “We’ll figure it out,” he murmurs. “Together.”
I blink hard. “Promise?”
Ozzy’s eyes lock on mine, steady as stone. “Promise.”
Promises are dangerous. But Ozzy doesn’t make them lightly.
I lean into his hand, letting myself breathe. Then I nod. “Okay,” I whisper. “Then let’s find him.”
Ozzy’s mouth softens, and he pulls me back into his arms—tight, protective, like he’s holding me together while my entire history rearranges itself. And I let him. Because for the first time in my life, the future doesn’t feel like a closed door.
It feels like a hunt.
And I’m not running anymore.