"That's what I told him, but he's still carrying some guilt. Reach out when you’re up to it, okay?”
Rob was a genuinely nice man. He’d served with her father thirty years ago and never stopped looking out for the Bennett kids. He’d hired her for the party so she'd have work and feel valued. He’d given Blake a job because Colonel Bennett had asked him to help his son get back on his feet after he’d left the Marines.
Another person Blake had used.
"I'll call him," Alyssa said. “First thing tomorrow.”
Claire gathered her things and paused at the door to look at Mack with an expression that Alyssa recognized—the look of a professional acknowledging another professional's work. No words. Just a nod.
Mack returned it.
When Claire was gone, Alyssa let go of a heavy sigh. "It's really over?"
"The active threat is over. The rest—" He paused. "The rest will take some time, but we’ll get through it.”
The legal proceedings. Blake's trial. The cartel investigation winding through federal courts for months, maybe years. The slow, grinding machinery of justice doing what it was designed to do.
But the bullets had stopped. The running was done. And for the first time since she'd walked into Rob Thorne's study and seen her brother sitting with cartel leaders, she could take a breath without calculating whether it might be her last.
She picked up her coffee. Drank it cold. It didn't matter.
She called her parents on Wednesday.
She'd waited two days, not from cowardice—from strategy. She wanted the facts settled, the charges filed, the situation stable enough that her father couldn't dismiss it as confusion or misunderstanding.
Her father had dealt in intelligence, and Alyssa intended to give him intelligence so clear and comprehensive that his usual tactics—deflection, reframing, commanding the narrative—wouldn't work.
Mack offered to be there. She told him she needed to do this alone. He gave her the room, walked out, and closed the door. She heard him settle against the wall in the hallway—close enough to hear if she needed him, far enough to give her space.
She dialed.
Her mother answered. "Alyssa? Sweetheart, we've been trying to reach you. Your phone's been going to voicemail for?—"
"Put Dad on speaker, Mom. I need to talk to both of you."
A pause. Her mother was reading the tone and deciding whether to push back. She didn't.
There was a click, a rustle, and then her father's voice—controlled, measured, the command voice that had governed her childhood. "Alyssa. Where are you?"
"I'm safe. I'm at a secure location in Montana. I need to tell you about Blake."
She told them everything. The party. The cartel meeting. Blake's role as security director for VidaCorp. The bounty on her head. Jenna's death. The shooting at the FBI field office. The cabin. The safehouse. Blake's attempt to kidnap her. His confession at the airstrip.
And the truth about David Morrison. About Syria. About what Blake had done and what he’d claimed Mack had done.
Her father was silent through most of it, the rigid silence of a man watching his defenses get breached, one by one.
"Blake has confessed," she said. "On record, to the FBI. He broke position in Syria. David Morrison died covering Blake's mistake. Blake blamed Mack. And you—" She steadied her voice. "You used your influence with the administrative board to ensure Mack took the fall. You made phone calls. You let your reputation do the work. And an innocent man lost his career because you believed your son without questioning his story."
Silence.
Her mother was crying. Alyssa could hear the soft, stifled sounds. She’d always cried quietly, as if volume was a form of insubordination.
"Mom." Alyssa's voice softened. "I'm okay. I need you to hear that. I'm okay, and I'm safe, and Mack is with me.”
"Mack?” her father said. The name came out flat. Unreadable.
"Yes. Mack has been protecting me since this started. He's the reason I'm alive." She paused. "We're together. I'm wearing his ring again."