18. Sean
SEAN
We don’t agree on what to do about David. I don’t remember the last time we disagreed about anything for this long.
Huck wants to break his legs. Literally. He says it too calmly for it to be a joke.
I want something quieter. Strategic. The kind of pressure that squeezes from the inside out until a man self-destructs.
“He’s already humiliated,” Huck argues, pacing in front of the window. “Let’s not wait until he recovers. Let’s finish it now.”
“Humiliation doesn’t guarantee silence,” I say, seated at the desk we dragged into what used to be a guest room. The new ops center is still bare—just the desk, two chairs, three monitors, and a whiteboard half-filled with David’s known contacts. “Sometimes it invites retaliation.”
“Then we hit harder.”
“We’re not vigilantes.”
Huck stops pacing. “Speak for yourself.”
I almost smile. Almost.
Then Wesley bursts through the door. He doesn’t knock. Doesn’t speak right away. He just holds up his phone with a locked jaw and eyes too wide for it to be anything but bad. “Where is she?”
I sit up straighter. “What?”
“Bailey.”
“What about her?”
He flips the phone around. “Twitter says she’s at an ice cream shop in Studio City. Someone posted a video. Two angles. Clear face shot. Maeve’s with her.”
I push back from the desk, already standing. “Where’s Jessica?”
“With Eli.”
“You’re sure Bailey’s not here?”
Wesley shakes his head. “Not in her room. Not in the house. I checked the entire camera feed. No departure on the front drive.”
“So, she snuck out.”
“Looks like it.”
I clench my jaw. This woman is going to be the death of me.
Wesley’s already moving toward the hallway, typing something rapid-fire on his phone. “I’m pulling the thread. Socials say it’s the place on Ventura near Laurel. Paparazzi are there in force.”
“Her phone?”
“She’s not answering.”
I grab my earpiece. “We take two cars. Huck, you’re with me. Wes—call in backup. See if Chief’s closer.”
He’s already dialing.
I grip the edge of the desk so hard the wood creaks. What the hell is she thinking?
We separate, bound to our destinations. Huck drives like the laws of physics are a polite suggestion. I don’t tell him to slow down.
The SUV cuts through traffic like it’s got teeth. Horns blare. A Prius swerves. Someone yells something we can’t hear through the glass. Not that we care. I keep my eyes on the street, hand tight around my phone, waiting for it to buzz. Waiting for anything.
Still no answer.
Wesley’s voice crackles through my earpiece. “Chief’s two blocks out. ETA ninety seconds.”
“Copy. We’re four blocks away.”
“You want me in the back or going through the front?”
“Back. She’s going to want a soft exit.”
“Assuming we get an exit.”
That shuts us both up.
Huck takes a left hard enough to make the tires chirp. “You think she just wanted space?”
“No,” I say. “She wanted control.”
He glances at me, eyebrows raised.
“She snuck out with Maeve. No guards. No heads-up. No location beacon. She didn’t just want a break from us—she wanted to prove she doesn’t need us.”
“She’s wrong.”
“She’s scared.” And I don’t blame her. Not really.
She’s had her world flipped inside out. Between David’s threats, the rooftop, the Friedburg pressure—every day we ask her to trust us more, lean harder, hand over pieces of her autonomy. She’s done it. Again and again.
But there’s a line she’s not willing to cross, and that line is letting someone else carry everything . To be honest, if I were in her shoes, I’d probably pull some bullshit too.
That doesn’t mean I’m not furious right now.
Wesley’s voice cuts in again. “I’ve got the video.”
“Send it.”
He does. I narrate for Huck so he can watch the road. “The video is an ice cream parlor patio. Bailey’s got her back to the camera. Maeve’s sitting across from her. Two paparazzi cross the street. You can hear them shout her name. Bailey grabs Maeve and starts walking.”
“Where?”
“Looks like toward the side lot.” I slam a fist against the armrest.
Huck doesn’t flinch.
“Tell me why,” I mutter.
He doesn’t answer.
“Tell me why she won’t let us help her.”
Still silence.
Because we both know the answer. It’s not pride. It’s fear. Fear of being dependent. Fear of appearing weak. Fear of needing us so badly that she forgets who she is when we’re not around.
Fear of losing herself to another man. Or in our case, men.
I grit my teeth. “How the hell am I supposed to protect her if she keeps making herself a target?”
Huck finally says something. “You already are.”
I don’t respond. Because I don’t feel like I am. Not when I’m one stoplight away from watching the woman I’d take a bullet for get backed into a wall by camera flashes she never asked for.
We make the turn onto Ventura and the streetlights hit the windshield like spotlights.
Not just streetlights. Camera flashes.
A cluster of bodies angled toward a single storefront. Ice cream shop. Chalkboard signage out front. And just inside the window?—
Bailey, standing in front of Maeve like a human shield, lips pressed into a tight line, shoulders squared like she’s preparing for war.
She’s alone. No security. No plan. Just a mother with her daughter in a glass box.
“Jesus,” I mutter.
Huck sees it too. “They’re already on her.” He pulls the SUV to a hard stop half a block away. “You going in?”
“No,” I snap. “Not yet. We’re too visible. If they catch us dragging her out, it becomes a story.”
“They’ve already got the story. Mom takes daughter for ice cream. Why the hell is that such a big deal to these fuckers?”
It’s a good question, but I don’t answer. I’m already tapping into our private comm. “Chief, do you have visual?”
Her voice clicks in. “I’m on the north side. I see the shop. Press count is five, maybe six. No entry yet, but they’re posturing. Not letting her out.”
“Copy. We hold until we know she’s safe.”
“Assuming she doesn’t bolt first,” Huck mutters.
I look through the windshield again. Bailey hasn’t moved. She’s talking to Maeve, but her body stays between her daughter and the window.
I’m furious because I told her this would happen. I told her she needed to loop us in. That we can’t do our jobs if she keeps deciding when to disappear. That David isn’t the only predator out there.
I clench my jaw, watching her through the glare of flashing lights. “Come on, Bailey,” I whisper. “Tell me you’ve got this.”
But the longer I wait? The more I’m sure she doesn’t.
Chief’s voice cuts back in through my earpiece. “Still no movement from her.”
“She’s talking to Maeve,” I say. “Trying to keep her calm.”
Wesley chimes in from base. “Paps aren’t trying to push in, but they’re forming a tighter ring. One of them has video. I’m trying to get it suppressed.”
“They’re blocking every exit,” Chief adds. “If she tries to leave now, it’ll be all over the internet in ten seconds.”
I already know that. I also know she’s not going to call. Not because she’s defiant. Because she thinks if she admits she needs us now, it means she never really had control in the first place. And that’s what she’s terrified of— losing control again.
I rake a hand through my hair, watching her through the shop window like I can will her to look my way. Just once. Just long enough to tell her I’m here.
But she doesn’t. She keeps Maeve’s face tucked close to hers, keeps herself angled just right so that every flash from the sidewalk hits her back, not her daughter. She’s doing exactly what she thinks she has to do.
And I hate that it’s working. Because she shouldn’t have to do it alone.
Huck says it first. “We should just go in.”
“No,” I bite out. “Not yet.”
“You’re really gonna let her sit in there like that?”
“I’m not letting her do anything.”
He doesn’t push again, because he knows what this is.
This isn’t restraint. It’s respect. Twisted and messy and fucking infuriating .
If I go in now, all suited up and flanked by security, I rip the mask off everything she was trying to hold together.
I turn this from a mother-daughter errand into a scene.
A rescue. A story. I make her look weak, exposed, fragile. A victim.
And if there’s one thing she never wants to be again…
So I wait. And I boil.
And I make a quiet promise to myself, as I watch her eyes flick toward the exit and then away. When she finally walks out of that shop? I’m not going to yell. I’m not going to shame her. I’m just going to remind her what it feels like to be surrounded. To be protected.
To not have to do this alone anymore.
“I’ve got an in—employee exit in the rear,” Chief says over comms. “Take it?”
“Right the fuck now.”