Page 211 of Without a Trace
Kane twisted around. “Your tattoos were glowing, man.”
“Yours too,” Zeke added, glancing back at Alden. “Both of you lit up like pyres.”
“It wasn’t us,” Alden said. His voice was low, deadly calm. “It was the manor.”
Zeke nodded slowly. “They were responding to her,” Zeke said, turning slightly. “The manor. The bond. Her choosing.”
I sat between them, their warmth bracketing me like a warning to the world. Even so, I felt cold.
“What now?” Rhett asked.
“We head to the safe-house,” Zeke answered. “Regroup. And figure out what the hell Lena’s next move is.”
Trace finally spoke—low, rasped. “And if she makes it first?”
Zeke didn’t hesitate. “Then we end it.”
Outside the window, dusk turned the sky the color of bruises.
And inside the car, we all sat with our own.
***
The safe-house looked nothing like I expected.
It wasn’t a run-down shack or a fortified bunker.
It was beautiful.
Tucked into a stretch of dense forest, the building rose low and wide from the earth, more creature than home. Its stone bones were blackened with age, overgrown with ivy and moss, but nothing about it felt abandoned. It breathed with purpose.
Black timber framed the walls. Tall glass windows stood like quiet sentinels, catching the moonlight in slashes of silver. A wraparound porch curved across the front, lined with thickpillars and a roof heavy with shadow. The scent of pine, smoke, and wet earth clung to everything.
A wrought-iron gate creaked open as we pulled in, the gravel drive long and winding. No lights flickered on. No motion sensors. Just the hush of trees and the engines cooling beneath the silence.
Zeke was the first out. He unlocked the front door like he’d done it a thousand times.
Inside, the air was cooler—dry and wood-sweet. The foyer opened into a long hall with dark floors and high ceilings. The lighting was minimal, warm sconces, lantern glow, no harsh bulbs.
To the right, a library, the kind that looked like it belonged to someone who read books to learn how to kill people better.
To the left, a stone-lined kitchen and open living room, all shadowed beams and clean minimalism, broken only by the massive fireplace roaring to life when Zeke hit a switch.
A staircase curved up along the wall. Another curved down.
“There are seven bedrooms,” Zeke said. “Split how you want. There’s a cellar. A panic room. Weapons under the floor in the master.”
Kane let out a low whistle. “Why the hell haven’t we been hiding here all along?”
No one answered.
Because everything in us already knew—we weren’t hiding anymore.
We were preparing.
***
Rhett found the bottle because fate meant him to. Dust covered, it in the back of a cabinet—aged tequila in a dusty glass decanter sealed with black wax. No label. No hesitation.
