I let myself hold it close, just for a little while longer.
TWENTY
OZZY
I step out onto the back porch like I’m just going to check the weather. Like I’m not about to find out whether Salem’s life is about to get flipped upside down—again.
The night air is cool, the kind that bites your lungs a little and makes you feel awake whether you want to be or not. The woods around Rainmaker are dark and quiet, the tree line a solid wall of shadow. Somewhere in the distance, a creek murmurs like it doesn’t know anything about monsters. Behind me, through the window, I can see a warm glow from the bedroom lamp.
Salem is in there.
Safe.
For now.
I pull my phone out and open the secure line. Arrow’s already in the thread—Rae too, probably—because nothing happens without them knowing. The moment I hit connect, the line clicks and a voice comes through I wasn’t expecting this late.
Dean Maddox.
My spine goes stiff.
Dean doesn’t call unless the world is on fire or about to be. “Ozzy,” he says, low and calm.
“Dean,” I answer. My voice is steady, but my body is already bracing. “What’s going on?”
A pause. Then: “How much does Salem know about her father?”
The question lands like a dropped weight. My jaw tightens. I glance back at the window without meaning to. That soft light. That small shape shifting under covers. “She hasn’t mentioned him,” I say carefully. “Not once. If she has one, she doesn’t talk about him.”
Dean exhales. “Okay. That’s what I suspected.”
My stomach twists. “What did you find?” I ask.
Dean’s voice stays even, but there’s an edge to it now. “We traced the secure booking.”
The booking. The extraction. The contract. The money trail that got Maddox Security involved at all.
My grip tightens on the phone. “And?”
“It wasn’t anonymous,” Dean says. “Not really. Someone went to a lot of trouble to keep their identity buried, but we peeled it back.” A pause, like he’s choosing the most controlled way to say it. “It’s her father, Ozzy.”
My breath leaves my lungs too fast. For a second, all I can hear is the distant creek and my own pulse.
“Her father hired Maddox Security,” Dean repeats. “He’s the one who paid to get her out.”
I stare into the darkness like it might give me a reaction that isn’t… rage.
Confusion. A sharp, painful kind of hope I don’t want to touch. I swallow hard. “Do we have a name?”
“Arthur Charles.”
I won’t pretend it doesn’t make something tighten in my chest—because names mean responsibility. Names mean the story gets bigger. I’ve never heard the name before, but still it makes me wonder about him.
“And you talked to him?” I ask immediately.
Dean’s voice turns grim. “No. That’s the problem. We’ve been trying to contact him since we confirmed the trace. No answer. No callback. Nothing.”
Cold slides under my skin. “Maybe he’s—” I start.