Chapter 2 Gage
GAGE
There’s a fist wrapped around my heart, squeezing harder every second the tender gets farther away. I don’t move. My hands stay welded to the cold railing of the bow, my body pitched forward like if I lean far enough, I can drag the moment back to me.
Drag her back to me.
Salt wind slaps my face, but I barely register it. My hair falls into my eyes, and I flick it back, refusing to blink. If I blink, she’s gone. The shape of her. The way my brain is already lying to me about what I saw. I need to keep looking, even though there’s nothing left to see.
Footsteps hammer across the deck, fast and urgent. They skid to a stop beside me.
“Who was that?” Rafe rasps, breath cutting sharp. “What the hell happened out here?”
I don’t answer. I stare at the frothy wake the tender carved through the black water, my eyes burning from the effort alone. If I listen hard enough, I can still hear the engine whining—one last thin thread of sound before the waves swallow it whole.
Rafe nudges my arm, harder this time. The way he does when he’s pretending he’s not worried. “Yo. You okay? You hit?”
A sound leaves my throat, but it’s not really a word. More like a breath that forgot what it was supposed to be. Rafe’s gaze sweeps over me, scanning for blood, breaks, anything that makes sense of why I’m frozen to the deck like I forgot how to move.
“What’d you see?” he asks, his voice dropping into that low, dangerous register he uses when something’s wrong.
My throat locks up.
Because I did see someone.
A silhouette cut clean against the pier lights. A shape I know the way I know my own heartbeat. The tilt of her head. The sure-footed way she ran, quick and quiet, like she always knew exactly where she was going.
Bellamy fucking Hale.
The name detonates behind my teeth.
She vanished six years ago. The girl I spent a year seeing everywhere—every street corner, every crowd, every goddamn wave when the sunlight hit it wrong. A ghost I could never stop chasing. But she was a ghost. She had to be.
Fuck, maybe she still is.
And saying her name out loud would make me sound insane. So I swallow the truth until it burns, until it settles like something corrosive on my tongue.
“It was too dark,” I say finally. My voice sounds wrong in my own ears. “I saw someone, but it could’ve been anybody.”
Rafe’s eyes narrow.
I force myself to meet his stare and hold it. Dare him to call me out. Dare him to hear everything I’m not saying. My pulse hammers hard against my neck, like it’s trying to escape my skin.
After a few seconds, Rafe nods once. “All right. We’ll figure it out soon enough.” His jaw ticks. “Coco’s not gonna let this shit fly. She’s gonna think someone stole from her. Us.”
Cruz pops his head out of the cabin doorway. “Gage. Rafe. Move. Bishop’s about to put a hole in the wall.”
Rafe hops down first. I blink—finally—and the afterimage of the fleeing tender smears across my vision like smoke. The ache in my chest flares sharp and stupid.
I push it down and follow my brother inside.
The saloon is wrecked. Cabinets hang open, drawers dumped, the place torn apart like whoever got here first didn’t bother being gentle. Dust motes float through the light, suspended like the chaos hasn’t figured out where to land yet.
Bishop stands over the empty safe like it personally insulted him. Cruz leans against the galley counter, arms folded, expression smooth, eyes unreadable as ever.
“This yacht was definitely hit before we got here,” Cruz says. “Which means somebody fucked up.”
Rafe scoffs. “Yeah? Whose intel was this again?”
“No one said it,” Bishop snaps. “So don’t.”
Rafe clamps his mouth shut and flashes our brother a feral sort of grin.
I move past them, yank open a drawer. It’s empty except for a couple of stray papers and a small ziplock bag tucked in the corner. I pinch it between my fingers and hold it up. “Guess it’s not completely empty.”
Bishop shoots me a look. “What are we supposed to do with that? Fence this weed for fifty bucks?”
Cruz lifts his brows and waggles them. “Or we could just smoke it.”
I flick the bag toward him, but Bishop snatches it out of the air. “And if Coco finds out you’re high on a job?”
Cruz shoves his hands into his pockets and rocks back on his heels, gaze sweeping the trashed cabin like he’s bored. “What job? I thought we were just out for a midnight stroll on some asshole’s yacht.”
Rafe lets out a humorless bark of laughter. Bishop doesn’t even blink.
But me? My head’s not on the safe. Or the haul. Or the weed.
It’s still on the silhouette at the back of a fleeing boat.
The image won’t let go. Burned clean and bright behind my eyes. A fucking ghost I swore I’d stopped chasing.
The yacht feels too small all at once. The air too tight to get a full breath.
Cruz pushes off the counter with a sigh sharp enough to cut glass. “Okay. Let’s break this down. Someone hit this before us. Question is—who?”
“No one’s working this marina,” Rafe snaps. “We would’ve heard.”
Cruz tilts his head, unimpressed. “Please. You don’t even hear Bishop breathing unless he wants you to.”
“Who the fuck do you think taught him that?” Rafe flips him off without looking.
Bishop turns from the safe, gaze cold and razor-focused. “We’re missing something. Search it again. Top to bottom.” His tone leaves no room for argument. “Walls, vents, lockers—every damn inch.”
Rafe grumbles but starts yanking cushions up again. Cruz ducks into the galley and begins tapping along the underside of the cabinets, listening for hollow points. Bishop moves with surgical precision—lifting, pulling, stripping the space for secrets.
And me?
I try to move. Try to focus. Try to stop seeing that silhouette burned onto the back of my eyelids.
Bellamy.
Couldn’t be her—couldn’t. But the shape of her body. The way she leaned when she ran. The quick, sure movements—
Stop. Fucking focus.
I force my hands into motion, start opening drawers, but I’m not really seeing any of it. My body’s here.
My head is still on the pier.
Rafe slams a locker shut. “This is bullshit. Who the hell out here even knows the owner keeps cash on board?”
Cruz doesn’t look up. “No one, everyone.” He shrugs. “It doesn’t really matter, does it?”
“This was supposed to be an easy job,” Rafe bites out.
“Well,” Cruz drawls. “It wasn’t.”
Rafe’s jaw flexes like he’s swallowing all the shit he wants to say.
Bishop cuts clean through it. “If someone’s hitting the same marks as us, I want to know who.” His gaze sweeps the room, cold and assessing. “Before they fuck us on another job.”
Cruz straightens, eyes sharpening. “Could be a rival crew. Someone new, trying to cut their teeth. Or maybe some old player returned.” A devilish grin flickers. “Or, fuck, I don’t know. Maybe the guy fucked someone’s girl, and they took their revenge in cash.”
I look down at my hands. They’re steady. Too steady. Under the skin, they’re shaking like hell. I curl them into fists until my nails bite into my palms hard enough to anchor me.
Rafe scoffs. “You got a lot of ideas, don’t you, brother?”
Cruz’s grin goes feral. “You’d be surprised how many.”
Bishop ignores both of them. “We regroup in five. Clear what you can, then we take the haul back.”
Rafe snorts. “Haul. Great word for the twelve bucks and a charity bracelet we found.”
Cruz lifts a gold bangle between two fingers. “Hey, this is at least—”
“Cruz,” Bishop warns.
The air tightens instantly into something dangerous and electric. The kind of tension where one wrong word could turn the whole yacht into a chokehold.
Which is when Rafe—of all people—breaks the mood with a quiet, “So… who’s telling Coco?”
Everything stops.
Cruz freezes mid-step. Bishop’s jaw flexes. I blink.
Rafe lifts his brows. “What? Someone’s gotta do it.”
Cruz lets out a single, dark laugh. “Not it.”
“Not it,” Rafe echoes immediately.
I realize what’s happening a beat too late. “I’m—”
“Gage it is,” they say in unison.
“Absolutely not,” I fire back. “I’m not telling her we burned two weeks for pocket change.”
“You’re the favorite,” Rafe says flatly.
“Fuck off,” I shoot back. “Everyone knows Cruz is the favorite. That’s why he’s still living at home.”
Cruz’s smirk is a goddamn weapon. “Aw, someone’s jealous.”
A surprised laugh tumbles out of me before I can choke it back. “Jealous of Coco cockblocking me? Nah, I’m good.”
Bishop finally turns, expression flat as midnight. “All of you shut up. I’ll tell her.”
Rafe blinks. “She’s gonna bite your head off.”
“She bites harder when she smells weakness,” Bishop says. His gaze cuts through us. “And all three of you reek of it tonight.”
Cruz clutches his chest dramatically. “Wow. Inspirational. Really feeling the brotherly support.”
I scrub a hand over my mouth to hide the grin threatening to break free. I don’t feel like landing on Bishop’s shit list tonight—and that motherfucker hits people for fun.
Bishop ignores us both.” Two-minute sweep. Then we’re gone.”
He stalks back toward the master berth. I’m sure he’s mentally assembling lies and half-truths he can deliver without flinching.
Rafe lets out a low whistle. “We’re dead.”
I follow him toward the companionway, numb. A little unsteady.
Not because of Coco. Not because of the job.
Because as we descend the stairs, the image slams back into my skull—the girl on the bow, lit up in the spotlight, running like she knew exactly how to disappear.
And the worst part?
My heart recognized her before my head did.