Chapter 21
Tate
Leaving Stella was the right call. I kept telling myself that as I drove away from the Hayward estate, the painful look on her face burned into my memory.
It was for the best. It had to be.
Everything about her family was a goddamn minefield—her controlling parents and the suffocating expectations that had been crushing her for years.
I’d walked into that situation thinking I could help, thinking I could be the one to support her and give her what she needed.
Instead, I’d only added to the complications.
Things had gotten too personal. Too intimate.
I’d crossed lines I never should have approached, let alone vaulted over.
Every night she’d slipped into my room, every time I’d touched her, every whispered conversation in the dark—it had all felt so right in the moment.
So inevitable. But now, I could see it for what it was.
A fucking mess with her parents that I’d helped create.
I still planned to invest in her business. That much hadn’t changed. Stella had talent, vision, drive. She deserved someone who believed in her, and I wasn’t going to let her family’s disapproval of me stop me from being that person. Professionally, at least, I could still support her.
But the two of us? Our lives were so different.
She was a Hayward—old money, social connections, a world of galas and country clubs and people who summered as a verb.
I was a guy who’d clawed his way up from nothing, whose father had taught him what violence looked like up close.
I was a man who’d spent his twenties in war zones and had never truly had a serious relationship.
What could I really offer her and could I really be enough?
She deserved someone who could stand beside her at those charity events without feeling like a fraud. Someone her parents would approve of—or at least tolerate. Someone who wouldn’t complicate her already complicated life just by existing in it as I just had.
Maybe stepping back was the kindest thing I could do for her. Maybe the best way to protect her was by giving her the space to build the life she wanted without me getting in the way.
The thoughts circled relentlessly in my mind as I pulled into the Noble and Associates parking garage.
Those same thoughts followed me into the elevator, and they were still gnawing at me when I pushed through the office doors and headed to Sutton’s office, where I’d been summoned, despite the late hour.
To say I wasn’t happy about being forced away from Stella was a damn understatement. But maybe—maybe it was better this way. A clean break rather than the slow, painful unraveling that would come from trying to force myself into a world where I’d never truly belong.
Sutton glanced up at me as I walked inside his office, his expression caught somewhere between exasperation and grudging respect.
“I have nothing against you wanting to fund her business,” he said, leaning back in his chair.
“But you couldn’t have waited until after this case was wrapped up to tell her? ”
“She’s been stuck in that house for weeks, infantilized by her family, dismissed at every turn.
” I kept my voice steady, even as frustration churned beneath the surface.
“It slipped out. I wanted her to know that someone believed in her. That someone was willing to give her a chance.” That, at least, was one thing I didn’t regret.
Sutton fixed me with a look that told me he suspected there was more to the story but couldn’t prove a damn thing.
Offering to invest in Stella’s business clearly indicated some kind of personal connection, but it didn’t prove anything romantic.
For all anyone knew, it could be friendship.
Mentorship, even. A professional recognizing potential in a young entrepreneur.
Sutton could be as suspicious as he wanted, but he couldn’t say for certain what I felt for her. And right now, I wasn’t even sure I could say it myself. Not when doubt had crept in, obscuring everything I’d thought I knew.
“Luckily, your record is spotless,” Sutton finally said. “And this isn’t like Hayward walked in on you kissing his daughter. That I don’t know if I could excuse.”
“Nor should you, sir.” Just because I’d done exactly that—and more—didn’t mean I was unaware it had been a bad idea. A fireable offense, even. The kind of lapse in judgment that could tank a career.
“Since it’s a professional matter rather than a personal one, I don’t have to remove you from the case entirely.” Sutton’s eyes narrowed. “You’re still lead on the investigation. You just can’t have direct contact with her.”
“Understood.” I was grateful to stay busy, to keep my focus on finding the threat. It was the only way I could still protect her, even from a distance. Even if I couldn’t be the one standing between her and danger anymore.
“Kane’s been working through the photos from the gala,” I said, steering the conversation back to solid ground. “I’m hoping we’re close to a breakthrough.”
“Good.” Sutton nodded. “You might not be on Stella’s detail anymore, but you’re still our best tech operative. Put those skills to use.”
“Glad to know I’m still good for something around here,” I said dryly.
* * *
Kane had transformed the tech room into something that looked like a crime scene investigation from a television procedural.
Every photo from the gala—posted on the organization’s website, shared on social media, collected directly from guests—had been printed and plastered across an entire wall.
Hundreds of images, arranged chronologically, creating a visual timeline of the evening.
“Jesus Christ,” I blurted out when I walked in, surprised to see him there so late on a Friday evening.
Kane shrugged, unperturbed. “Not all of us are comfortable sorting through files on a computer. Some of us prefer old-school detective work.”
I didn’t know much about Kane’s time on the police force, but I suspected he was the type who valued traditional methods—instinct over algorithms and databases. Given his history of being framed, I couldn’t blame him for not trusting technology to tell the whole story.
“I’ve color-coded each photo by photographer,” Kane explained, gesturing at the wall. “So you can track who was capturing what throughout the night.”
I nodded my thanks, and Kane left me to it. I rolled up my sleeves and got to work.
As I looked over everything, I realized that the people around Stella fell into two categories: those introduced to her by her parents, and those who drifted up to chat on their own.
I tracked their movements through the photographs, holding up the threatening images that had been sent to Charles Hayward, trying to match angles and positions.
Hours passed, night segueing into morning. My eyes burned. The coffee in my cup went cold, then got replaced, then went cold again.
Something wasn’t adding up.
“What’s bothering you?”
I nearly jumped out of my skin. Ford was standing behind me, fresh cup of coffee in hand, looking far more rested than I felt.
“Did you have to sneak up on me like that?”
Ford grinned. “Just wrapped up my assignment. Thought I’d see what you were working on.” He nodded toward the wall of photos. “What’s the puzzle?”
I sighed, running a hand through my hair. “We’re looking for someone who’s been wronged by Hayward. Whoever took these photos got close enough to his daughter to practically touch her. How do you get that close to a man like Charles Hayward without him recognizing you?”
“Time changes people,” Ford offered. “Even without trying. And there’s always plastic surgery.”
“True.” I scanned the faces in the photos.
“But look—all the older people who got close to Stella over the course of the evening, they know the Haywards. They greet each other warmly. They’re tagged in each other’s social media going back years.
These are established relationships without any underlying issues. ”
I scrubbed a hand along my jaw, frowning at the images. “I’ve been through everyone who lost a child because of Hayward’s previous prosecutions, before he became a defense attorney—especially daughters. They’ve all come back clean. Moved away, died, or have solid alibis.”
Ford studied the board, his expression thoughtful. “You said you’re looking for someone older who was previously prosecuted by Hayward, right? Around his age?”
I nodded. “That’s been the assumption.”
“But wouldn’t that person be getting a bit old for this kind of work?
Not that you ever outgrow vindictiveness.
” Ford gestured at the photos. “But this requires serious effort. Stalking someone around town, planting cameras, slipping past security at high-profile events. That’s a young person’s game. ”
I stared at him, letting that theory sink in. “Why would a young person be targeting Hayward?”
“Maybe you’ve been looking at it backward.” Ford shrugged. “Instead of a parent who lost a daughter, maybe it’s a daughter who lost their father.”
The words hit me like a bolt of lightning. I’d been approaching this from the wrong angle entirely. Looking for grieving parents when I should have been looking for grieving children—children who’d grown up without their fathers because Charles Hayward had put them away.
“I hate to say this,” I told Ford, clapping him on the shoulder, “but you might be a genius.”
“I know. Just don’t tell Violet,” he joked, referencing his girlfriend. “She already thinks I’m too cocky for my own good. If she finds out I’m actually solving other people’s cases now, I’ll never hear the end of it.”
“Your secret’s safe with me,” I said, already turning back to my desk and my computer. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a list of vengeful kids to track down.”
* * *
It took me two days to work through the list. Two days of cross-referencing court records with birth certificates, tracking down social media accounts, following digital breadcrumbs across a dozen different platforms. Two days of hating that I wasn’t there in person with Stella, protecting her, ensuring with my own eyes that she was safe.
God only knew what her parents were putting her through. Pressuring her to reject my investment. Shaming her for daring to think she could make her own choices. Trying to break her spirit until she gave up and became the compliant daughter they wanted.
It made my blood boil.
But I needed this uninterrupted time to find the threat.
As much as I hated to admit it, this kind of work required total focus—the patience to follow breadcrumbs, the concentration to spot patterns in mountains of data.
It was why I didn’t do traditional bodyguard work as often.
Tech was my strength, and right now, it was the best way I could protect her.
I narrowed the list to people whose fathers had died in prison or received life sentences—people who’d lost any chance of a relationship with their parent because of Hayward’s prosecutions. Then I tracked their current locations, their occupations, their online presence.
One name kept nagging at me: Siobhan O’Hagan.
Daughter of Michael O’Hagan, an Irish mobster Hayward had prosecuted ten years ago, before switching sides to being a defense attorney.
Siobhan had been fourteen years old when her father was convicted, and sixteen when he’d died in prison of cancer.
I couldn’t find any trace of her anywhere—no current address, no employment records, no social media matching her name, age, and description.
It was like she’d vanished.
I pulled up the old court documents and news articles from the trial.
There wasn’t much about Siobhan—she’d been a teenager, protected from media coverage—but the defense had made a point of emphasizing what a devoted father Michael was.
How close he and his daughter had been. A last-ditch attempt to humanize him when the life in prison verdict seemed inevitable.
I tracked Siobhan’s mother, Sara, to New Jersey, where she’d moved to live with relatives after the trial. Her Facebook was sparse but public. I scrolled through old photos, looking for anything useful.
And then I found it. A photo of Siobhan from maybe ten years ago. Blonde hair, sharp features, a guarded expression that seemed too old for her teenage face.
Something about her looked familiar so I ran the image through our facial recognition software, comparing it against every photo from the gala.
The match came back in seconds and my heart stopped.
Hair color could change everything about how you perceived someone. Just a frame of color around the face, nothing about the features themselves altered. Siobhan O’Hagan had blonde hair in every childhood photo.
Bridget had red hair but the bone structure was identical. The shape and color of the eyes. The angle of the jaw. It was the same person.
Bridget—who was dating Charlie Hayward, worming her way into the family through the son.
Bridget—who worked at the law firm and had access to Charles’s office, who could slip threatening letters and photographs into the mail pile with no way to trace them.
Bridget—who had spent years changing her name, building a new identity, climbing the ranks at the very firm run by the man who’d destroyed her family.
She hadn’t just gotten close to the Haywards. She was on the inside.
I stood up so fast I knocked over the pen holder, sending them scattering across the desk and floor. I had to warn them. The snake wasn’t just in the garden—she was in the house, coiled around Charlie’s arm, waiting to strike.
And it might already be too late.