Page 122 of Wilde and Deadly

“Plan A was to frame Cade. I figured with his and Davey’s history, it was a done deal, but Davey had to be all fucking noble and go hear him out.”

The room went still.

Bridger exhaled sharply.

Dom stopped pacing.

Elliot leaned forward, eyes sharp.

Cade growled.

“Is that—?” Rowan started.

“That’s live,” Daphne confirmed. “That’s happening right now.”

Another voice, clearer this time.

Liam. Alive.

“You poisoned Elliot. Your best friend.”

Davey’s stomach tightened.

“And I hate my twin brother. So what?”Brody’s voice was light, almost amused.

“I don’t get that,” Celeste whispered and looked at her sister with her heart in her eyes. “How could you hate your twin?”

Daphne shook her head. “I don’t know.”

Fiona lifted her gaze from her tablet for the first time. Her tone was all business. “I need a recording of this. It’s a confession. I can file charges the moment you bring Brody in.”

Cade let out a quiet laugh, but there was no humor in it. “We’re not bringing him in alive.”

Fiona glowered at him. “You didnotsay that, Cade Wilde. I didnothear that.Nobodyheard that, understood?”

“Heard what?” Sabin asked innocently.

“Exactly.”

Davey ignored them all. “Do we have Liam’s location?”

“Nearly there. A few more seconds…” Daphne’s fingers flew over the keyboard. “I pulled the last five minutes of Liam’s audio logs and ran a location scan alongside them. The implant still has a weak BlueLink signal—it’s not transmitting at full range, but it’s giving me pings from nearby devices.”

She tapped another key, and a red marker blinked on the city map.

“And there he is.”

Bridger took a sharp breath. “That’s underground.”

“Yep.” Daphne pulled up a schematic of old subway tunnels. “That’s why it took me a minute—his implant was glitch-looping off old network infrastructure before I could isolate the core signal.”

Celeste popped her lollipop back into her mouth and mumbled around it. “That’s a real pain in the code.”

“Tell me about it,” Daphne muttered. “But—” She zoomed in. “That is an abandoned subway station.”

Cade let out a sharp breath. “Fuck.”

Sabin rocked forward, all lazy charm gone. “That where we’re goin’?”

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