Chapter 7 Theo
"She went to the fucking cops!" Beckett shouts, slamming the front door behind him hard enough to rattle the room.
I stand from the couch. "What do you mean she went to the cops?"
His face is twisted as he spits out, "His girl — she texted the burner that she was going to the police, and I didn't believe it, so I drove by the nearest station to the medical center. Guess who I saw walking out."
I take two measured steps forward, entering his space. He's about an inch shorter than I am. But it’s just enough.
His eyes flick up. "What the fuck are you—"
I grab his face before he can finish, fingers digging into his jaw. "She texted you, and you didn't think to mention it?"
He shoves my hand off and stumbles back, then steps forward again, trying to match me. "There's a reason I don't tell you shit, Theo. You would've fucked everything up."
I clench my jaw because he's right. "I would've made sure she never made it to the station."
"You're a loose screw, man!"
The rage spikes white through my veins. I pick up the empty beer bottle from the table. I want to throw it; instead, I set it back down… carefully.
I say, "That girl probably knows exactly how sick her little boyfriend is, and yet—" I crack my neck. "She still goes to the hospital every day to play the devoted girlfriend."
Silas makes a contemplative noise from the couch. "What if she doesn't know?"
Beckett glances at him. I keep my stare on Beckett.
"What if he kept her around as a cover?" Silas continues, infuriatingly reasonable about it.
My eyes move to Silas. "And my sister was…what?"
Beckett and Silas exchange a look while I grab the nearest fucking thing to occupy my mind. A broom. Perfect. I grab the broom and start sweeping the floor.
"Theo." Beckett's voice sharpens. "Are you in?"
I dump the dustpan’s trash into the trash without answering.
Silas says, "We get the laptop back before she finds someone to crack it open."
I set the broom against the wall and shake my head slowly. "I have a better idea."
Beckett reads me immediately. "We're not doing that. Not yet." He rubs his jaw. "Laptop first. Then whatever's in your head."
"You think you know what I was going to say?"
He almost grins. "I know exactly what you were going to say."
"Then you know it works."
"Laptop first," he repeats.
Seventy-four minutes to Adela’s house. I count every one of them, fingers drumming against my thigh while Silas drives and Beckett rides in back. The streets thin out as we leave the city behind, replaced by sprawling properties behind iron gates and long driveways.
Rich people and their fortresses.
We park half a mile out. We’re all dressed in black — jeans, hoodies, gloves, masks.
"Cameras on the north and east entrances," Beckett mutters, checking his phone before pocketing it. "Security is top-tier."
"Then we go in through the back," I say.
We circle the perimeter low and quiet. My heart beats steadily. That disconnection again — body moving, mind watching from somewhere above it all.
Silas tries the first door. Locked. Beckett tries the second. Locked. I try a side entrance near what looks like a sunroom, and the handle turns under my palm.
"Stupid rich fucks," I murmur, and ease it open.
Inside is exactly what I expected. Marble floors, framed art, furniture no one actually sits on. Everything pristine. Museum energy.
I fucking hate museums.
We move slowly through the first floor, listening. The house breathes with the occasional creak of settling wood, nothing more. It’s just past two in the morning. Everyone's asleep.
The staircase curves wide and grand up to the second floor. We take it one careful step at a time, Beckett first, then Silas, then me.
At the top, there is a second sitting room, a hallway of closed doors. Beckett and Silas start checking rooms. I move down the hall slowly until I reach a particular door.
I stop.
There's something in the air. Faint. Soft. Something that shouldn't have a scent but does anyway.
Beckett appears at my shoulder. I nod toward the door. He steps back.
The knob turns without resistance. It’s unlocked.
Perfect.
The room opens up like something out of a different world — wide and soft-lit by moonlight, a four-poster bed at the center draped in white linen. Everything silver and still.
And there she is.
Beckett and Silas move immediately to the desk, the drawers, the bags. Methodical. Quiet.
I walk toward the bed.
Adela’s on her side, one hand tucked beneath her pillow, dark hair spilled across white. Her breathing is slow and even. She looks like she hasn't moved in hours.
I stop when my legs touch the mattress frame, and I look down at her.
So fucking delicate.
So breakable.
I reach out slowly and trace the curve of her bottom lip with one gloved fingertip. She inhales sharply. I go still, watching her face. Every muscle in me suspended.
I hold my breath. If she opens her eyes, everything changes.
She doesn't. Her breathing settles back into its rhythm.
I lift the edge of the blanket carefully. The same red pajamas. Little cherries. I almost grin.
Then I notice a glint around her throat –– a pink Swarovski pendant catching the moonlight like a tiny, captured star.
It looks like something special.
I pull out my pliers.
I lean over her slowly, holding every breath in my body, and position the tool around the chain. I press firmly, and one side falls. I stare at her face while I do it — daring her, almost, to wake up.
She doesn't.
My fingers close around the pendant and draw it out from beneath her, inch by inch, until the whole chain pools into my palm.
I straighten and hold it up in the moonlight for a second. Then I slip it into my pocket.
Beckett catches my eye from across the room and shakes his head.
The laptop isn't here.
We search everything — under the bed, in the closet, through every bag. Careful. Thorough. We put everything back exactly as we found it.
Nothing.
We stand in silence for a moment, the three of us, looking at each other in the dark. I glance back at the bed one last time. The sleeping girl who has no idea how close she came tonight. The pendant presses warm against my thigh through the fabric of my pocket. I shouldn't have taken it.
Back in the car, Beckett hits the steering wheel. "We were too late."
"If you'd shared the text when you saw it—"
"And if you hadn't lost your head with Cody in the first place—"
I laugh. Low, quiet. He looks at me, and I keep laughing, because that's all there is to do with it right now.
"Forget the laptop," I say. "Your plan didn't work. We move to mine."
Beckett exhales through his nose, long and controlled. He hates my ideas. He also can't deny that they work.
They always work.
Eventually.