Chapter 30
Chapter
Thirty
GRACE
Two more months passed, and somehow life had settled into something that felt dangerously close to normal.
Not the kind of normal I used to have—bright lights, cameras, runway chaos, schedules planned down to the minute.
This was a different kind.
A better kind.
The deck was finished—broad and warm under bare feet, with a view that stole my breath every sunrise. The garden boxes were planted—herbs, tomatoes, peppers, strawberries—all things the guys pretended they didn’t care about but absolutely fussed over when they thought I wasn’t watching.
As for our French doors… God, they were beautiful.
Walnut frames, glass panels so clear it looked like the mountains were stepping straight inside. When the morning light hit just right, the whole suite glowed like some kind of daydream.
This place didn’t just feel like home. It was home.
Life was good. Really, really good.
The guys had taken two missions in the last couple of months—short ones, clean ones. The first was a forty-eight-hour in-and-out that only needed Bones, Legend, and Voodoo. The second required all of them—and me.
I still didn’t know how to fully articulate what it meant to be included. Not just tolerated. Not protected into uselessness.
Included.
It reminded me that I wasn’t broken. That I could still be capable. That I could want my life back, and while I did, I also valued the life I had now.
I’d slowly, carefully reached out to a handful of contacts—people I trusted, or trusted enough with boundaries and encrypted channels. Rachel Manning was one of them.
She was loud, brilliant, sarcastic, and had an uncanny ability to read between every line of every silence.
Which made it all the more alarming when my phone buzzed one late evening with her name lighting up an encrypted app we used because it made the guys happier and me safer while also protecting Rachel too.
We were out on the deck, roasting s’mores over the fire pit.
The night air smelled like pine and toasted sugar.
I was tucked between Voodoo’s legs in one of the oversized deck chairs, Bones and Legend were arguing about the structural integrity of marshmallows, and AB was sprawled on a blanket with Goblin curled at his side.
My phone buzzed again.
I glanced down.
Rachel (Secure Line)
You awake? Need to talk?
My heart slipped a beat.
Rachel didn’t do careful punctuation or even more careful questions. Or at least she hadn’t since we’d reconnected after AB cleared her as “safe.”
I sat up straighter.
“Gracie?” Legend asked immediately.
“I’m fine,” I said automatically—too fast for it to sound believable.
The guys went still. Not grabbing, not crowding—just… ready. Every one of them.
I swiped to accept the call and brought the phone to my ear.
“Rach? What’s going on?”
A breath, then a familiar voice, husky, low, and tight. “Okay, so, full disclosure? I debated not passing this on.”
My stomach dropped. “Why?”
“Because it’s weird,” she said. “It felt… I don’t know. Loaded? I’ve been sitting on it for a couple days, trying to decide if I should even tell you.” A pause. “But then I asked myself what I’d want done if the situation were reversed.”
Behind me, Voodoo’s hands tightened on my hips. Bones stood up like a shadow congealing into a man. AB was suddenly sitting upright, eyes already on my phone. Legend froze mid-reach for a graham cracker.
Swapping us to speaker, I swallowed. “Rachel… what message?”
She exhaled like she’d been holding it the whole time.
“A man showed up at the studio three days ago,” Rachel said. “Polite, soft-spoken, Latino, mid-thirties maybe. Said he was looking for you.”
Every hair on my body rose.
“He indicated that he knew I knew you,” she continued.
“He didn’t push, didn’t pry, didn’t ask where you were.
Didn’t even threaten or try to intimidate.
If anything he was—absurdly polite. But…
you know how you just get that feeling about some people.
It’s unnerving, but you’re pretty sure they aren’t a serial killer sizing you up for a skin suit? ”
Legend’s askance look would have been comical at any other time, but right now I was worried about Rach.
“Yes, I do. Are you alright?”
“Oh, babe, I’m fine. Seriously. More than fine, but he said he had a message and he wanted to leave it with me in case I spoke to you.”
The tension vibrating around the guys stretched even tauter if possible. It was making it hard to take a deeper breath. “In case you spoke to her?” Bones repeated the phrasing in a cool, deliberate voice.
“Yes,” Rachel said. “Another reason I hesitated. Felt—targeted considering we’ve just been talking about setting you up with new headshots and building out your package.”
We had.
“Have you talked to anyone about that?” AB asked, no accusation, just straightforward inquiry and he had his tablet up and on.
“Nothing you don’t already know about,” Rachel said. “But… before you interrupt again. I’m not the only photographer he approached.”
Voodoo slid his arms around me. All the warmth of the day had fled and ice seemed to run in my veins. “He said that?”
“Yes, and me being a suspicious bitch, I called a few of them today. He has indeed approached a few photographers, in the U.S., in Italy, and here in France.” Rachel huffed out a breath. “Left a message for you with all of them.”
“So, fishing expedition.” Legend folded his arms.
“I’m not speculating on him or his motives,” Rachel continued.
“To be clear, he did not ask me if I was in touch with you, did not ask for a number to call you on, or indicate in any way he wanted me to give him your information. All he wanted was for me to give you a message if I talked to you and to please only give it to you.”
My pulse thudded in my ears.
“What message?” My voice wasn’t steady anymore. It cracked at the edges.
Rachel took another breath.
“He gave me a phone number,” she said softly. “And told me to give it to you… because it was about Amorette.”
The night went silent.
The fire popped. A marshmallow fell off someone’s stick into the flames. Goblin whined once, low.
I couldn’t breathe.
“What is his name?”
Rachel whispered, like she knew I was breaking apart. “Grace, he just said ‘a friend’. When I said that wasn’t good enough, he would only give me one name. Matias.”
Bones swore under his breath. Voodoo muttered “holy shit” like a prayer. Legend shot to his feet. AB’s eyes went sharp—calculating, scanning, already moving through possibilities.
Matias.
That name didn’t mean anything to me.
“Grace?” Rachel’s voice cracked. “You there?”
I tried to speak and nothing came out. My throat wouldn’t move. My eyes burned so violently I had to blink just to see.
Voodoo’s arms came around me, steady and warm and unshakable.
“I’m here,” I croaked. “I’m… here.”
“I don’t know what this means,” Rachel rushed out. “I don’t know if it’s real. But if someone had information about someone I loved, even if they turned out to be a quack, I’d want to know. So I’m telling you.”
“Thank you,” I whispered.
“Want the number?” she asked gently.
The guys drew closer around me like a shield.
AB nodded once and I said, “yes please.”
Rachel read the number. He typed it instantly, cross-checking, pulling it apart.
“This could be total bullshit,” she said. “Some crazy fan. Or it could be nothing. But it could also be… something.”
“If it’s something,” Bones growled, voice low and lethal. “We’ll handle it.”
Rachel hesitated. “Grace… are you safe?”
“Yes,” I whispered, eyes burning. “I’m safe.”
“Good.” A shaky exhale. “Love you, girl. Call me after you talk to him?”
“If we talk to him,” Legend corrected sharply.
“After whatever happens,” she said. “I’m here.”
The call disconnected. The world felt too big and too small all at once. I stared at the phone in my hand.
A friend named Matias. A number. Information about Am.
It seemed like such precious little information and yet… it was so much at the same time.
It was like the universe had ripped open and handed me a live grenade. I turned slowly toward the guys.
Their faces were a wall of determination, fury, fear, and something so fierce it hurt to look at.
AB spoke first.
“We call only after I verify everything,” he said. “We do this smart. We do this together.”
Bones nodded. “You’re not talking to anyone alone, Dollface.”
Legend stepped closer, voice steady. “We move carefully. Deliberately. But we find out.”
Voodoo pressed his forehead to the back of my head, the loop of his arms around me so damn strong. “Firecracker… breathe for me.”
I let out a shaking breath, a half sob, half exhale. Fear, hope, confusion, shock tangled beneath it all. For the first time in a very, very long time…possibilities opened up again.
“Okay,” I whispered, throat tight and heart pounding. “Let’s find out what he knows.”
All four of them answered at once—voices low, sure, unbreakable: “Together.”
The next week blurred into something sharp-edged and breathless.
The vetting process we put “Matías” through was slow, brutal, and methodical—exactly the way the guys needed it to be.
AB tore apart every piece of available data he could pull together.
Legend cross-checked every document. Bones hunted every possible tail or connection. Voodoo ran the in-person assessments.
And the strangest thing?
Matías didn’t resist. Didn’t protest. Didn’t push.
Running the name against the organizations we’d already dealt with gave us a couple of possibilities but we were loath to push too hard. Still, AB sent Rachel the photos and she identified one of them as the man who came to her studio.
She confirmed it without hesitation.
“That’s the guy,” she’d said. “That’s exactly who came to see me.”
After that, we stopped guessing. We played the odds.