I look up, my eyes burning. “Isn’t it? If she cared, she’d be… I don’t know. Calling. Looking. Screaming. Something.” My voice breaks. “Not… tanning.”
Ozzy’s jaw clenches, anger flickering behind his eyes—but not at me. It’s focused on the world instead. He strokes my cheek with his knuckles. “I’m sorry.” The words land like a hand on an old bruise.
I blink fast, trying to keep my face from breaking. Because I hate crying. I hate giving anyone that satisfaction. But Ozzy isn’t anyone. Ozzy’s the only person who’s holds me like I matter.
My voice comes out hoarse. “So she’s just… fine.”
Ozzy inhales slowly. “She’s being watched.”
“Watched?” I echo, confused through the fog.
“Dean’s got people on them,” Ozzy says. “Following. Digging. Trying to figure out where the money came from and whether Carl has connections to the ring.”
My stomach turns. “So you think…” I start, but the thought is so vile I don’t want to say it out loud.
Ozzy’s eyes lock onto mine. “I think Carl might be involved.”
My skin goes cold. And suddenly the emptiness turns into something sharper. Rage. Because if Carl had anything to do with me being taken— if my mother let it happen— if shesoldme— I don’t know what I’ll do. I don’t know what version of me will crawl out of that truth. I swallow hard. “There’s more, isn’t there?” I ask, because Ozzy’s face still looks like he’s carrying another blade.
Ozzy doesn’t deny it. He shifts. “Yeah.”
My pulse stutters. “Tell me.”
Ozzy’s hand tightens around mine again. “They traced the secure booking. The person who hired Maddox Security to rescue you.”
My breath catches. The person who paid for my rescue. My mind flicks to the idea I’ve been clinging to:Someone chose me.Even if I don’t know who.
Ozzy’s voice is careful. “It was your father.”
The world tilts. My stomach drops so fast I feel nauseous. I’m going to puke. Seriously. I blink a few times, breathing through my nose to steer the nausea away. “My… father?” I whisper.
Ozzy nods once, slowly. “Yeah.”
I stare at him, waiting for my brain to make sense of the word.
Father.
You’ve got to be kidding me. The man’s a ghost. He was never around. He’s just a space my mother filled with silence and disdain and the occasional drunken rant about “men who leave.”
I swallow. “I don’t—” My voice breaks. “I don’t have a father.”
Ozzy’s expression softens. “You do.” The words hit me like a punch in the chest.
I pull my hand back instinctively, pressing it to my sternum like I can hold myself together physically. “How?” I whisper. “How would he even know where I was?”
Ozzy shakes his head. “We don’t know yet. Dean’s team is looking into it.”
My mind races. If my father knew I’d been taken… how? Did my mother tell him? Did Carl? Did he see something online? Did he—did hecare? Questions pile up so fast I can’t catch any of them. “What’s his name?” I ask, voice tight.
Ozzy hesitates just long enough for me to feel the weight of it. Then he says it.
Arthur Charles.
It means nothing to me. I blink. “I’ve never heard of him.”
Ozzy nods like he expected that. “Yeah.”
My chest aches. “Why would he—” I shake my head, trying to force the thoughts into a line. “Why would he want me rescued if he never… if he never contacted me? If he knew he had a daughter, why didn’t he—” My voice breaks again, anger and hurt tangling together.