Chapter 23-JADE
The coffee shop on Pacific Coast Highway has become my refuge.
It's a small place, tucked between a surf shop and a boutique that sells overpriced candles, with mismatched furniture and a barista who remembers my order.
Oat milk latte, extra hot, no foam. I've been coming here every morning for the past week, carving out a small space in the world that belongs only to me.
Phoenix knows I come here. He doesn't hover anymore, doesn't track my phone or demand constant updates on my location.
But I catch him watching me sometimes when I leave, a flicker of anxiety in his eyes that he tries to hide.
The effort he's making to give me space is visible, almost painful, and I love him more for it.
Today the fog rolled in early, thick and gray, muting the sounds of traffic and turning the morning light soft and diffuse.
I spent two hours at my usual table by the window, nursing my latte and working on my manuscript while the world outside disappeared into mist. The words flowed easily for once, and I left feeling lighter than I have in weeks.
Almost normal.
The bell above the door chimes as I step out onto the sidewalk, my laptop bag slung over one shoulder.
The air smells like salt and eucalyptus and the faint sweetness of the bakery next door.
I'm thinking about what to make for dinner, whether Phoenix will be home early enough to eat together, when a man falls into step beside me.
"You're Jade Catalano. Phoenix Crawford's girlfriend."
The voice is calm, conversational, like we're old acquaintances running into each other by chance. I glance up at him and my feet slow without my permission.
He's tall, well over six feet, with dark hair cut close to his skull and eyes the color of winter sky.
Pale gray, almost colorless, watching me with an intensity that makes my skin prickle.
He's wearing an expensive coat over a dark sweater, and his shoes are Italian leather, polished to a shine despite the damp weather.
There's something familiar about his face. Something I can't quite place.
“Who are you?”
"You got my texts, I assume.”
My blood runs cold. Was the one sending me all of those anonymous texts? "Who are you?” I ask.
"Dominic Webb." He keeps pace with me easily, his long stride matching my shorter steps. "Marcus's brother."
My mouth drops open.
I see the resemblance now. The same strong jaw, the same sharp cheekbones, though Dominic's features are harder, colder, stripped of Marcus’ false charm. This is what Marcus might have looked like if he'd had any real discipline. Any real control.
I keep walking, forcing my legs to move even though everything within me screams at me to run. "I don't know anything about your brother."
His hand closes around my arm, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise. I stumble to a stop, yanked backward by the force of his grip.
"Let go of me."
"Let's not play games, Ms. Catalano." His voice is still pleasant, still conversational, but his eyes are flat and dead. "I think we're past that, don't you?"
I try to pull away, but his fingers only tighten. We're standing in the middle of the sidewalk. No one stops. No one even looks twice. Just a man and a woman having a conversation. Nothing to see here.
"I know exactly what happened at that cabin."
The words freeze me more effectively than his grip ever could.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
Dominic smiles. It's the most terrifying thing I've ever seen, that smile, because it doesn't reach his eyes at all. His eyes stay cold and empty.
"My brother drove up to the Crawford cabin in Angeles National Forest. He'd been watching you for days by then, waiting for Phoenix to leave you alone long enough to make his move.
I've been watching you too. Not as long as he did, but long enough to know your coffee order and which table you prefer when the fog comes in.”
I feel the blood drain from my face. The fog seems thicker now, pressing in on all sides, muffling sound and light until there's nothing in the world but me and this man.
"He went inside," Dominic continues. "There was a confrontation. I imagine he tried to take what he wanted from you."
My stomach heaves. I taste bile at the back of my throat.
"My brother had certain vices. I'm not blind to who he was." His voice is matter-of-fact, almost bored. "Rape wouldn't have been beneath him. It wouldn't have been the first time."
"How do you know all this?" The words come out in a whisper.
"Marcus was paranoid. Had been since he was a teenager.
He recorded everything on his phone. Conversations, meetings, anything that might be useful later as leverage.
He started recording whenever he felt a situation might turn useful, before he walked into a room, before he got out of his car.
He'd done it for years." Dominic's grip on my arm loosens slightly, but I don't pull away.
I can't move at all. "Auto-uploaded to a private cloud server. He thought it made him untouchable. After he disappeared I went looking and found the credentials on his laptop. Twelve backup locations. Marcus was nothing if not thorough.”
The words knock the air from my lungs.
"I've heard the whole thing, Ms. Catalano." His pale eyes bore into mine. "The break-in. Your screams when he grabbed you. The sounds of the struggle."
I'm going to be sick. Right here on the sidewalk, in front of this monster in an expensive coat, I'm going to vomit.
"And then Phoenix arrives. The beating. My brother begging for his life at the end."
I can hear it in my head now. The wet sounds of the fire poker. Marcus's voice, slurred and desperate, pleading for Phoenix to stop. And then the final blow, the one that ended everything.
I'm shaking. My whole body is trembling, and I can't make it stop. He has everything. The entire nightmare, recorded and saved and waiting to destroy us.
"So you see, I don't need you to tell me the truth." Dominic releases my arm and takes a half-step back. "I already know it. Every detail. Every sound. Every moment of my brother's pathetic death."
"What do you want?" My voice is barely audible.
Dominic straightens his coat, adjusting the collar. "Not yet. I'm not ready to tell you what I want yet. But soon."
He smiles again, that dead-eyed expression that makes me want to scream and run and hide.
"I just wanted you to know where things stand. So you understand that your boyfriend's family money can't make this disappear. The police can be bought. Evidence can be destroyed. But I have copies in places his father’s people will never find. And I have a very long memory."
"Phoenix was protecting me." The words burst out before I can stop them. "Marcus was going to rape me. He was going to kill me. Phoenix saved my life."
"I don't care what Marcus was going to do." For the first time, something flickers in those pale eyes. Something hot and dark and dangerous. "He was my brother. My blood. And now he's dead, beaten to death while he begged for mercy."
"He didn't deserve mercy. He was a monster."
"Perhaps." Dominic reaches into his pocket and pulls out a business card. He tucks it into my jacket pocket, his fingers brushing against my chest in a way that makes my skin crawl. "But he was my monster. And someone has to pay for taking him from me."
He turns to leave, then pauses, looking back over his shoulder.
"I'll be in touch, Ms. Catalano. Don't do anything stupid in the meantime." His lips curve into something that might be amusement. "There's nowhere you can go that I won't find you. Nowhere in the world."
Then he walks away, disappearing into the fog like he was never there at all.
I stand on the sidewalk, frozen, the mist swirling around me. My heart is pounding so hard I can feel it in my skull. My hands are shaking too badly to hold anything. The card in my pocket feels like it weighs a thousand pounds.
He has a recording. He heard it happen.
Everything. The attack, the murder, all of it, captured on Marcus's phone and saved to a cloud server somewhere that Nicholas Crawford's money and influence can't reach.
We're not safe.
I fumble for my phone with numb fingers, nearly dropping it twice before I manage to pull up Phoenix's contact. The screen blurs through my tears as I press call.
He answers on the first ring. "Jade? What's wrong?"
I can barely get the words out. My throat is tight, my lungs won't work properly, and everything I want to say gets tangled up with the fear that's choking me.
"Phoenix." I force his name past my lips. "We have a problem. A big one."
"What happened?" His voice sharpens instantly. "Are you hurt?"
"Marcus's brother. He found me. He knows everything." I'm crying now, tears streaming down my face. "He has proof. He has a recording of the whole thing."
There’s silence on the other end that stretches so long I start to wonder if the call dropped.
Then Phoenix's voice comes back, cold and hard in a way I've never heard before. Not even when he was killing Marcus. Not even when he was covered in blood and holding me in his arms.
"Where are you?"
"Outside the coffee shop. The one on PCH."
"Don't move. I'm coming to get you."
The line goes dead.
I stand on the sidewalk, hugging myself against the cold that has nothing to do with the weather. The fog continues to roll in, thick and gray, erasing the world around me piece by piece.
I think about the card in my pocket. Dominic Webb's name and number, a direct line to the man who holds our future in his hands.
I think about the recording. Marcus's voice, Phoenix's voice, my own screams echoing in some server somewhere, waiting to be used against us.
Phoenix's car appears through the fog five minutes later, pulling up to the curb with a screech of tires. He's out of the driver's seat before the engine even stops, crossing the sidewalk in three long strides and pulling me into his arms.
"Are you okay? Did he hurt you?"
"I'm fine." The lie tastes bitter on my tongue. "Just scared."
He look at my face. Whatever he sees there makes his face tight.
"Tell me everything. Every word he said."
Standing there in the fog, wrapped in his arms, I tell him everything.
When I finish, Phoenix is silent for a long moment.
"Get in the car," he says finally. "We need to talk to my father."
I climb into the passenger seat, and Phoenix pulls away from the curb, the car screeching.
For the first time since the cabin, I wonder if we're going to survive this.