Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 71949 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 360(@200wpm)___ 288(@250wpm)___ 240(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71949 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 360(@200wpm)___ 288(@250wpm)___ 240(@300wpm)
Belinda’s laugh echoes in my head—the way she called me Dani with that little lilt, how proud she was when she won a cheeseball empire playing poker, her beautiful touch on the piano.
She was a light in all our lives.
And now she’s gone.
My chest tightens. I focus on breathing, but the air presses down instead of filling my lungs.
Hawk hangs up one call and immediately makes another. His voice is lower now, quieter.
I don’t interrupt. Not until he ends the call, murmurs something I can’t catch, and finally looks at me.
“You’re eerily calm right now,” I say.
He gives a humorless half-smile. “You think this is calm?”
I shrug. “You’re functioning. I’m not.”
“You’re in shock,” he says gently. “That’s not the same thing as not functioning.”
I bury my face in my hands. “I can’t even think straight.”
He takes a step toward me, his gaze softening. “That’s why I’m here.”
I hate that I want to believe him.
He walks toward me. “You said DHS came before the cops got here?”
“Right before.”
He frowns. “The timing is too perfect.”
“I know.” I sink down on a chair at the kitchen table. “That note wasn’t hers. I know it. Every word felt…off. Like an adult trying to sound like a kid.”
“Listen to me,” he says. “We’re going to find her.”
“How?” My voice cracks. “She could be anywhere. He could be anywhere.”
“I’ve got calls in to every contact I have—Interpol, DEA, three private investigators who owe me favors. If Brown’s on the move, someone will see him.”
“And if he’s not?”
“Then he’s close,” Hawk says. “Which makes him easier to find.”
I shake my head. “You make it sound simple.”
“It’s not,” he says quietly. “But it’s possible.” He stands, turns toward the window, and exhales hard. “Do you think this is punishment?” he murmurs.
“What?”
He doesn’t look at me. “All of it. Eagle, Reyes, your immigration case, Belinda. It’s like some cosmic equation snapped back into balance.”
I swallow hard. “For what? For us?”
He glances back over his shoulder. “For me.”
“That’s not how it works, Hawk.”
“Maybe not,” he says. “But it feels like it.”
I stand, step closer until I can smell the faint tang of road dust and coffee on him. “You don’t get to make this your fault.”
He turns fully to face me. “Then whose is it?”
“His.” I make the word sharp and final. Hawk may not have been here when I needed him, but this isn’t on him. “Brown’s. You didn’t take her.”
“No,” he says. “But I wasn’t here to stop it either.” He runs a hand over his face, through his hair. “When I got your messages, I thought my heart was going to stop. I was two hours away and I didn’t even know.”
“Don’t.”
“I mean it,” he insists. “If anything happens to her—”
“Stop.” I press my hands to his chest. “Don’t say if. She’s alive. We’re going to rescue her. She’s going to be okay.”
“Yeah,” he says. “We’ll find her.”
For the first time tonight, I see the man I fell for. Not the Bellamy fixer, not the strategist. Certainly not the guy who went fucking crazy and broke into multiple homes. Just Hawk.
Then, as quickly as it went away, panic takes me again. “What if we don’t?” I shake my head. “What if I’m not even here?”
“Baby…”
I cross my arms. “DHS could show up again. They said my temporary protected status is revoked. If they decide to detain me, they can. They could deport me before we even find her.”
His jaw tightens. “They’re not going to touch you.”
“You don’t know that.”
His gaze darkens. “I do.”
“What makes you so sure?”
He puffs his chest out. “Because they’ll have to go through me first.”
At first, I almost roll my eyes at his words. It’s the kind of thing he says easily, like a vow he’s made a hundred times before. But when he says it now, it sounds different. Heavy. Real.
I want to argue, tell him not to risk himself for me, but the words won’t come. My throat feels too tight.
Instead, I whisper, “You can’t fight the government, Hawk.”
He sniffs defiantly. “Watch me.”
Something hot and reckless flares in my chest. Hope, maybe. Or love. Or both.
He takes a slow breath, the edge in his voice softening. “Go upstairs. Try to rest.”
“I can’t.”
“You need to.”
“You think I’m going to sleep while she’s out there?”
He sighs. “No. And neither will I.”
5
HAWK
I pace the length of the hallway outside Belinda’s room until my vision blurs. My head’s pounding, a mix of exhaustion and guilt, but I can’t stop moving. I need momentum. It’s the only thing that’s ever kept me sane.
My mind keeps looping through everything that’s fallen apart in less than forty-eight hours—Eagle’s call, Reyes disappearing, Daniela’s immigration nightmare, and now Belinda. It feels orchestrated. Like someone set up dominoes months ago, and I was too busy trying to breathe to notice them falling.