Chapter 27
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
MORGAN
Fletcher’s message comes through before I even leave the parking lot, the notification lighting the dashboard in a cold blue glow that makes the inside of the car feel smaller.
A list of addresses scrolls across the screen, each one tied to Abi through overlapping utilities, short-term leases, and payments routed through accounts Miles thought were buried deep enough no one would bother digging.
The first two were nothing.
One empty apartment that smelled like fresh paint and abandonment, another storage property packed with boxed furniture and dust thick enough to tell me no one had stepped inside for months.
Each dead end tightened something in my chest, not panic, not yet, just the growing certainty that Miles built this with layers meant to waste time.
Time I don’t have.
The third address sits at the bottom of the list.
The utilities are active but inconsistent, and it was paid for through a shell account that connects back to Abi. Fletcher added one line beneath it.
This one feels different.
I stare at the address longer than necessary, jaw tight, fingers flexing against the steering wheel. Instinct settles heavy in my gut, the same quiet certainty that has carried me through situations where hesitation meant someone didn’t make it home.
This has to be the one.
I don’t call anyone or wait for backup. Every minute spent coordinating is another minute Constance spends wondering if no one is coming.
The neighborhood appears ten minutes later, streetlights glowing soft against trimmed lawns and identical mailboxes. It’s the kind of place people move to when they want safety. Children’s bikes rest on driveways, porch lights burning warm.
I slow as I pass the house the first time, letting my eyes move over it without turning my head. No visible surveillance or guards pacing the yard.
I continue down the block, circle once, and park two houses away.
I stare at the front of the house again.
A single light glows in an upstairs room, soft behind the blinds.
There’s a minivan in the driveway with a fading dealership sticker on the back window, and a neat row of children’s chalk drawings on the edge of the sidewalk that twists something sharp in my chest, because the entire point of choosing a neighborhood like this is that no one looks too hard.
No one imagines violence behind hydrangeas.
No one pictures a woman tied up while a dog barks two houses down and someone waters their lawn as if it’s any other night.
I bring Chance’s face up in my mind without meaning to. His small voice in my ear, his trust when he nodded at me, the way his shoulders relaxed when he realized I wasn’t leaving him alone. I promised him I would see him soon, and I don’t make promises I can’t keep.
I tuck my phone away and open the glove box.
My gun sits where it always sits, cleaned, loaded, familiar.
I don’t love using it, nor do I get off on blood or violence.
I get off on control, and I’ve learned the hard way that control sometimes means violence, and that sometimes means you can’t afford to hesitate when it counts.
I slide the weapon into place under my jacket, check my knife, check the small flashlight, and then I sit for one more beat, breathing through my nose, letting the rage settle into something usable. Anger is fire, and fire can burn you down if you don’t shape it.
Miles’ first mistake was believing he knew what I’m capable of, because he sat across from me in boardrooms and drank whiskey with me in private lounges. He thinks that means he understands me.
He doesn't.
I step out into the night and close the door without a sound. The air is damp, cool enough that the inside of my lungs feels clean when I inhale, but it also carries the faint smell of cut grass and wet pavement.
I move along the sidewalk and cut through the side yard, careful not to brush the bushes that line the fence.
At the side gate, the latch is cheap, and I ease it open with a slow lift, no click.
The backyard is small, neat, with a patio chair turned slightly as if someone sat there earlier and didn’t bother to straighten it.
A single planter of dead herbs sits on the edge of the small deck, and the back door is glass with a curtain drawn.
I crouch, pull a small tool from my pocket, and work the lock with practiced patience. The mechanism gives a soft shift. I pause, listening, but don’t hear anything. I open the door and step into the kitchen.
Warm air hits me first. Not heat, but lived-in warmth, the kind that comes from recent cooking, from bodies moving through space, from lights being turned on and off.
There’s a faint smell of onion and something fried, and it turns my stomach in a way I don’t like, because it reminds me of Constance’s house.
It reminds me of barbecue on paper plates, of her hands washing dishes while I watched her like she was a miracle I didn’t deserve.
I move deeper, clearing corners the way my body remembers without me having to think about it.
Living room to the left, neat but not staged, a couch with a throw blanket folded too carefully.
A hallway leading to the front of the house, and a staircase that rises to the second floor with a slight creak on the third step.
I stop at the base of the stairs and listen again. The upstairs light is still on.
I take the stairs fast, skipping the third step. At the top, the hallway stretches narrowly, doors on either side. The light spills from the room at the end.
A voice cuts through the quiet, high and strained. “You said it would work,” a woman hisses.
Abi.
I don’t move closer yet. I position myself just outside the doorframe, shoulder to the wall, and listen.
A second voice answers, lower, calmer, male, but it’s not Miles.
“You need to calm down,” the man says.
“I am calm,” Abi snaps, and then she laughs. “I’m so calm I could scream.”
There’s a sound like something being thrown, followed by a thud.
I don’t knock or announce myself. I enter like I own the air in the room, because hesitation is how people die.
Abi spins toward me so fast her hair whips over her shoulder. She’s younger than I remember, or maybe she just looks younger without office makeup and a controlled posture. Her eyes are too bright, her cheeks flushed, her lips parted like she can’t decide if she wants to cry or bite.
She sees me and freezes, and for a second, there’s only shock. Then her face twists, and panic bursts out of her like steam.
“Oh my God!” she shrieks, backing up. “You can’t be here, you can’t be here, you’re not supposed to be here.”
The man moves, reaching toward something on a table, and I lift my gun without thinking, aim steady, voice calm.
“Don’t.”
He stops. His hands rise slowly, his eyes wide because he wasn’t ready for me.
I study him, taking in the tremor in his fingers, the calculation behind his eyes, the way his weight shifts just slightly toward the doorway, like he’s already thinking about escape.
Loose end. Risk. Future problem.
I pull the trigger.
The sound cracks through the house, sharp and final. His body jerks backward, surprise frozen on his face as he collapses against the wall and slides to the floor. Silence follows immediately, heavy and absolute.
I don’t look away or rush forward to check. I already know.
He made his choice the moment he helped take her.
And I made mine long before I walked through the door.
The color drains fast from Abi’s face, her mouth opening and closing like her brain can’t catch up with what just happened. The manic confidence she wore before fractures, replaced by something raw and animal.
“You… you just shot him,” she whispers, voice shaking, eyes darting between the body and the gun still steady in my hand.
“Where is she?” I ask.
Abi swallows, her throat working hard. “I don’t know what you mean.”
I take one step forward, just one, and the temperature in the room seems to drop.
“Yes, you do.”
She shakes her head so fast her earrings flicker. “No, I don’t, I don’t, I don’t. I swear, it wasn’t supposed to be like this.”
I glance past her, clocking the room. A guest bedroom, cheap furniture, a suitcase open on the bed with clothing stuffed into it, like someone packed in a hurry. There’s a laptop on the dresser, lid open with keys on the table.
Abi is still talking, words spilling out in a frantic rush.
“He said you wouldn’t come yourself, he said you’d send people, he said you wouldn’t risk it, he said—”
“He,” I repeat, voice flat, and I stare into her eyes until she flinches. “Say his name.”
Her lips tremble. “Miles.”
The sound of it from her mouth makes something cold slide through my veins.
“Where is she?” I ask again.
Abi’s breathing turns fast. She looks toward the ceiling as if she’s trying to find an answer in the drywall.
“She’s upstairs,” she blurts, then her eyes widen like she didn’t mean to say it. “No, wait, I mean, she’s not, I mean—”
I move past her, shoulder brushing hers hard enough to make her stumble, and I head toward the hall. Abi grabs at my sleeve, nails scraping my jacket.
“You can’t,” she gasps. “You can’t go up there.”
I spin back, and my voice goes low enough to make her freeze.
“If you touch her again, if you even breathe in her direction wrong, you won’t make it out of this house.”
Abi’s eyes fill with tears. Her bravado collapses, and what's left is a shaking, angry girl who bet on the wrong man and is realizing she’s not special.
“She doesn’t love you,” she spits desperately. “She just wants you because you’re dirty, because you like it filthy, because you’re sick, and she’s not even—”
“Stop talking,” I cut in, and the sharpness in my tone makes her mouth snap shut. “You’re not important enough to speak about her.”
Her face crumples, fury and humiliation twisting together. For a second, I think she might break down completely.