The drive.
Covered in grime. Dented on one corner. But real.
A miracle ripped out of a mountain of trash.
I sag against the heap—the reeking garbage turning into a grotesque sort of perch beneath me as relief and adrenaline crash through my body hard enough to nearly buckle my knees. Emerson looks like he might throw up again, but he’s holding onto that drive like it is the most valuable thing he’s ever touched.
Ronan exhales a curse so heavy it shakes the air. Rowan drags a hand over his face, muttering something that sounds like thank fuck.
We climb out—boots slick, clothes ruined—but none of it matters. For the first time since Kimber was taken, we’re holding proof. Solid. Real. A lead we can crack open and follow straight to the men who stole her.
Hope is dangerous. But right now, it feels like fuel. It feels like fire.
Chapter Five
Rowan
The drive back feels heavier than the one out. Not because of the weight in the van, but because of the weight in our chests. The kind that squeezes and tightens until every heartbeat feels like pressure you have to swallow down. Berk is already on her phone, firing off encrypted messages to the people she trusts, getting a burner vehicle lined up, making sure our wheels won’t lead anyone back to us. She works fast, thumbs a blur, and every movement screams determination.
By the time we pull into the safe house driveway, Emerson and Berk look ready to walk straight past us and bury themselves in the war room again. They still reek of the dumpster, of rot and grease and hot metal, but neither of them notices or cares. They’re running on fumes and panic. If we let them, they’ll burn themselves out before we find Kimber.
Ronan and I step in front of them in the hallway, blocking the war room door. Two walls they can’t push past.
“No,” Ronan says, firm.
“Shower,” I finish, just as firm. “You’re not stinking up the house.”
Berk’s eyes narrow. Emerson frowns. They both open their mouths to argue. But one whiff of each other shuts them up.
Ronan waves a hand dramatically in front of her face. “Pix, I love you, but you smell like a corpse rolled in onion rings.”
She sputters, indignant, but too exhausted to fight. Emerson cracks a tired smile and tugs her toward the hall. They don’t even try to split up, leaning into each other like two peoplebarely holding it together. Berk mutters something about us being controlling assholes, but her voice is frayed at the edges.
The bathroom door shuts behind them, and only then do I release the breath I’ve been holding. We need them clean and rested—minds sharp, not unraveling.
Because Kimber needs all of us at full strength.
Ronan and I head straight to the hardware table. The drive sits there like a wounded animal—dented, filthy, half-dead—but still clinging to life. We work in silence, the kind that says everything we don’t voice. I unscrew the casing. Ronan sterilizes the adapter. We move around each other with the ease of people who have bled together more than once.
The moment Ronan connects the cables; a faint light flickers. Weak, but alive.
It’s enough to send a surge of adrenaline through my veins.
I start digging. Corrupted lines snarl across the screen, each one a gut punch. Most of the data is shredded beyond recovery, chewed up by compression cycles and days of decay. I try again. Then again. On the third pass, the system coughs up a survivor—a small pocket of intact data.
A wire transfer log.
One line. One name.
Horizon Logistics.
My stomach drops. Ronan mutters a curse under his breath that could peel paint off the walls.
That shell company again.
The one Micah mentioned. The one our fathers have kept hidden from us, operating just below the surface of everything they’ve touched.
I lean closer to the screen, reading the details twice, then a third time. It’s clean—too clean. Whoever ran this account knew how to disappear in plain sight.