Page 141 of Without a Trace
Trace’s hand hovered near mine again, almost touching. “It wasn’t supposed to happen like this,” he said. “We thought we could stop it. Or maybe... deny it.”
“And now?”
Now it was real.
Now it was mine.
Rhett
Zeke didn’t say a word—just took off down the path like a man on a mission. No barked orders, no eye contact. Just that clipped, furious pace that said don’t follow me.
So I did.
Because someone had to.
The sun was still blazing, no clouds in sight. Everything looked too calm for what the hell just happened.
His villa sat farther back than the rest, swallowed by thick palms and uneven stone steps. He shoved the door open hard enough for it to slam against the inside wall.
I followed him in.
No lights. No muttering. No hesitation. Just Zeke moving like he’d rehearsed this moment a hundred times—straight to the back of the room, down on one knee at a low cabinet.
I leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed. “You mind telling me what we’re looking for? Or is this one of your secret-agent lone-wolf things again?”
The panel clicked. Hidden drawer.
Figures.
Zeke pulled out a black briefcase. Not the kind you’d pack for a weekend trip. The kind you’d bury if you didn’t want it found. Worn corners. Dented latches. When he popped it open, the hinges groaned.
Folders. Dozens of them. Some fat and curling with age, others color-coded with tabs and old post-its. A few stamped with the Order seal. One had her name written across the front in faded ink.
I pushed off the wall and stepped closer. “You really kept all this?”
Zeke just kept flipping like the right answer was buried in page eighty-six of whatever classified shit he wasn’t supposed to have.
“It’s not about keeping it,” he muttered. “It’s about who she is. And what happens now that they know she’s still breathing.”
I frowned. “You think the Red Veil had eyes on the bond?”
He didn’t answer. Which was an answer.
Zeke kept digging. Papers spread across the bed in a mess only he could make sense of. Maps, timestamps, photos. A few black-and-white. A few of her.
I stared at one of them. She couldn’t have been more than ten. Same eyes, different life.
“She wasn’t safe before the bond either, was she?” I asked quietly.
Zeke didn’t look up. “No.”
I waited. Let the silence stretch long enough to get on his nerves.
He finally sighed, rubbed the bridge of his nose like it hurt to say it out loud. “You think it was coincidence we all got pulled in?” he muttered. “We thought the Order placed us there for her. But it wasn’t just that. It was her blood.”
“Her blood?”
He nodded once, clipped. “Some lines call to others. Something ancient. The bond doesn’t start with touch—it startswith proximity. Contact accelerates it, sure. Sex seals it. But it was already there.”
