Arlo's new safe house didn't look like much from the outside.
A tired two‑story brick building on a narrow side street, paint peeling, one of the upstairs windows cracked and taped. The kind of place you drove past without seeing. The kind of place Reed would see and still suspect, Ariel thought, but she kept that to herself.
Inside, it was cleaner than the exterior promised. Bare walls. Sparse furniture. No photos, no personal clutter. Just a couch, a table, a few chairs, and the faint smell of old dust and fresh coffee.
Ariel followed Arlo down a short hallway, blanket traded for one of Mara's hoodies, the bandage at her shoulder pulling with each step. Her nerves hummed, but she stayed close.
"Where are we?" she asked quietly.
"Transit stop," Arlo said. "Neutral ground."
"That sounds like something people say right before it turns out not to be neutral at all," she muttered.
"Just getting you to meet someone," he said.
That, somehow, wasn't reassuring.
They stepped into the main room.
A single chair sat in the center, turned slightly away, occupied by a woman.
From behind, Ariel saw only the fall of dark hair to her shoulders, a fitted jacket, one ankle resting neatly over the other. The picture of casual control.
At the sound of their footsteps, the woman turned.
Ariel's brain flicked through every face she knew, every file photo Mara had flashed, every customer from the bookshop.
Nothing.
She didn't know this woman.
But Arlo did.
His whole body reacted,just a hint, a tightening at the jaw, a shift in how he held himself.
"I did what you asked me to do," he said, voice gone flat. "Now give me the buyer, Jen."
Jen.
The name landed like a dropped glass.
The woman rose from the chair with unhurried grace and came closer, heels ticking softly on the floor.
Up close, Ariel could see the resemblance. The same sharp cheekbones as Arlo, the same dark eyes, but where his were guarded steel, hers were bright and assessing, amusement flickering at the edges.
"You are a monster, little brother," Jenifer said.
And she laughed.
It was light, almost musical. It didn't reach her eyes.
Ariel's confusion spiked.
"Wait," she said, looking between them. "You—this is—"
"Jenifer Johnson," the woman supplied, eyes sliding to Ariel briefly, cataloguing. "Inconvenient older sister. Part‑time conscience, full‑time disappointment."
Ariel blinked.
Older sister.
The one Arlo had seen on the catwalk. The one whose name he couldn't say without something cracking underneath.
Jen tilted her head.
"And you must be the bookstore girl," she said. "The one who keeps rearranging my brother's carefully stacked dominoes."
"Nice to meet you too," Ariel said, throat dry.
Her skin prickled. Something in the air felt wrong. Off‑balance.
"Buyer," Arlo said again, ignoring the jab. "You said you had a name. I held up my end."
"Did you?" Jen asked lightly. "We'll see."
She stepped close enough that they were nearly shoulder to shoulder, her perfume cutting through the safe house's bland air.
"You're sure nobody followed you?" she asked.
"If they had, we'd be having this conversation over bodies," Arlo said. "Stop stalling."
She smiled.
"Oh, I'm not stalling," she said.
A movement in the doorway behind them made Ariel's blood run cold.
Reed stepped into the room as if he owned it.
Same lazy posture. Same slight smile that never reached his eyes. Same wand‑calloused fingers curling and uncurling at his side.
Ariel's lungs seized.
Her body moved before her brain could.
She grabbed Arlo's forearm with both hands, fingers digging into muscle.
"Arlo," she gasped, voice breaking. "Run. Reed is here—"
He didn't move.
Didn't turn.
Didn't jerk her behind him like he had in the street that first day.
Instead, he reached down, pried her hands gently off his arm, and pushed her backward.
Toward Jenifer.
For a split second, Ariel thought she'd misread the direction, that he'd miscalculated.
Then Reed's men surged in from the sides.
Hands closed around her arms, rough, wrenching.
She stumbled, caught between strangers' grips, the room tilting.
"Stop—hey—" she yelped, instinct kicking in too late.
Arlo didn't look at her.
His face was dead serious, every line carved into stone.
Inside, something in him twisted hard enough that for a heartbeat he thought he'd be sick. But he turned it into stillness.
Jenifer's hand came to rest lightly on Ariel's shoulder, fingers tightening just enough to say, Mine now.
"There," Jen said, turning back to Arlo, satisfaction curling in her voice. "Delivery confirmed."
Ariel stared at Arlo, shock flooding her system in waves.
No.
No, this wasn't—
"Arlo," she said, disbelief fraying into panic. "What are you doing? Tell them to let me go. This isn't funny. This isn't—"
He kept his eyes on Jen.
"The buyer," he said again, each word clipped. "You said you'd give me the name if I handed her to you. I've handed her. Talk."
Jen smiled like this was a family reunion and not a transaction that was cutting Ariel in half.
"This isn't just a name, little brother," she said. "This is access. Protection. A partner who doesn't flinch when things get… messy. You give me her, I give you a seat at the table instead of under it. Reed gets what he wants, you get your empire back, and I get out of the line of fire."
Reed leaned against the wall, watching, eyes glittering with amusement.
"Very succinct, Jen," he said. "You should do my presentations."
Ariel's ears rang.
"He what?" she choked. "You—you're trading me? For your empire?"
Her voice broke on the last word.
She struggled, but the men holding her were practiced; they tightened their grip, pinning her without making a scene of it.
"You said—" she started, words tumbling over each other. "You said I wasn't leverage. You said—"
Her vision blurred.
Her heartbeat thundered in her throat.
"Why, Arlo?" she shouted, the sound tearing out of her. "Why?"
He didn't look at her.
Didn't flinch.
Only his hands, at his sides, gave him away,fingers dug into his palms so hard he could feel the skin break.
Every instinct screamed to turn, to tear her away from their hands, to put himself between her and Reed again.
He stayed where he was.
Stone.
Monster.
Exactly what Jen had called him.
It felt, for a moment, like dying with his eyes open.
Ariel didn't feel the floor under her feet anymore.
Reed's men had her pinned, one on each arm, their grips iron and indifferent. The room blurred at the edges, Jen's perfume, Reed's lazy amusement, Arlo's silence all pressing in until she could barely breathe.
"Arlo," she said again, voice raw. "Please. Don't do this."
He didn't move.
Didn't turn.
He stood a few feet away, profile hard, gaze locked somewhere over her shoulder like she wasn't the center of this transaction.
Like she wasn't the one being traded.
Tears stung hot and fast, turning her vision watery.
"Look at me," she begged. "Arlo, look at me."
He didn't.
Her chest clenched, the panic tipping into something deeper—familiar, horrible.
This was the flower by the roadside all over again. The moment when a choice that wasn't supposed to mean this suddenly cracked her world in half.
"You said you weren't like him," she choked. "You said you weren't Reed. That I wasn't leverage. That I wasn't for sale. Was that all just… rehearsal for this?"
Her voice climbed higher, wild.
"Think about Chris," she threw at him. "He sacrificed himself to save you once, didn't he? Mara said,Reed said,you wouldn't even be standing here if my brother hadn't put himself between you and a bullet. And now you're handing me over like a bargaining chip? What do I tell him when he asks where I went, Arlo? That you upgraded your empire package?"
One of the men holding her shifted uncomfortably, but didn't loosen his grip.
She struggled anyway, a useless, instinctive twist.
"Please," she sobbed. "Please don't do this. Don't make me go through this again. Don't make me watch someone I—" she swallowed hard "—someone I trusted turn into the thing I'm supposed to be running from."
Her whole body shook with it now.
This wasn't the sharp, shocked pain of the warehouse. This was something older and deeper, the feeling of a floor dropping out from under her when she'd finally started to think it might hold.
"I believed you," she whispered, the words broken. "In the car. In the safe house. At breakfast. I believed you when you said I wasn't just… currency."
Jenifer stepped in closer, lips curling into a sympathetic pout that didn't reach her eyes.
"Oh, sweetheart," Jen said softly, brushing a strand of hair away from Ariel's damp cheek like a doting aunt. "He's very good at making people believe things. Comes with the crown."
She glanced at Arlo, voice sharpening.
"Listen to her, Arlo," she drawled. "She's doing the whole heartbroken monologue thing. It's very moving. Almost makes you sound like the villain."
He still didn't look.
His jaw was a locked hinge, a muscle ticking there the only sign he was hearing any of it.
"That's mean, you know," Jen went on, tilting her head. "Even for you. Little brother breaks into hell to drag the girl out, plays guardian angel on the couch, lets her call him at two in the morning when the nightmares get loud—" she smiled sharply "—and then delivers her right back into the fire for a better seat at the table. Cold. Impressive, but cold."
Ariel's knees threatened to give out; the men holding her kept her upright.
"Chris is going to shatter when he finds out," she said, desperate, throwing the only weapon she had left. "He's going to hate himself for trusting you. For letting me get in that car. You're not just breaking me, Arlo. You're breaking him. Again."
His eyes closed, briefly.
Just a flicker.
Then they opened, steel again, fixed on some invisible point past her shoulder.
He didn't answer.
Couldn't.
Because if he let himself think about Chris,the way the man had looked at him at the door, the rough handshake, the unspoken plea behind bring her back,he knew something inside him would crack loud enough for everyone in the room to hear.
Jen saw that tiny break and pounced.
"See?" she murmured in Ariel's ear, loud enough for him to catch every word. "Not even a flinch. That's your problem, sweet girl. You keep expecting hearts from men who traded theirs for power a long time ago."
Ariel let out a sound that wasn't quite a word, wasn't quite a sob.
It was the sound of something tearing.
"Why?" she cried, louder now, the question ripping out of her. "Why, Arlo? If you're going to destroy me, at least have the decency to say why."
The room held its breath.
Arlo kept his back straight, his face blank, his hands bleeding where his nails dug into his palms.
He didn't answer.
He couldn't give her the lie she deserved or the truth she might never forgive.
So he stood there, silent, while Ariel Smith broke in front of him like glass dropped on concrete, and let Jenifer call him mean and monster and little brother in the same breath—because monsters didn't get to explain themselves.
They just paid the price later, alone.
The new safe house Mara had picked was smaller, tucked above a disused mechanic's shop that smelled faintly of oil and old rubber.
Screens glowed in the dim light,laptops, a tablet, Mara's portable rig. Bank logos, transaction IDs, blurred passport scans flickered across the displays as she and Chris worked through the crumbs Harry and Reed had left behind.
"Third shell company in two pages," Mara muttered, scrolling. "Either this buyer really likes laundry, or Reed's accountant is having an identity crisis."
Chris sat opposite her, hunched over his own laptop, jaw tight, eyes moving but not really seeing the numbers.
He kept forcing himself to focus.
Wire from an Italian bank, bounced through two Caribbean islands, resurfacing as an "investment" in a logistics firm that didn't own a single truck. A holding company with a meaningless Latin name. A series of payments that lined up a little too neatly with the dates kids went missing, brides got cold feet forever, deals were "concluded."
It should have been enough horror to occupy his head.
But every few minutes, his attention slipped sideways,to a different safe house, a different room.
To his sister and Arlo.
His chest tightened again, a dull, insistent ache just beneath his sternum, like someone had set a weight there and walked away.
He pressed his hand flat against his T‑shirt, as if he could push it down.
"Hey." Mara's voice cut through the numbers.
He glanced up.
"You okay?" she asked, studying his face. "You're doing that thing where you try to pretend your body isn't sending you warning signals. It's very macho, very stupid."
He managed a crooked half‑smile.
"Chest twinge," he admitted. "Like my anxiety ordered room service."
"Are you scared?" she asked, no judgment in it, just diagnosis.
He thought about the question.
About Ariel's face when she'd hugged him in the kitchen. About Arlo's hand closing around his in that brief, reluctant truce. About the way Ariel had said, I trust that he wants Reed dead and me not dead. That's enough overlap for now.
The ache pulsed again.
He exhaled slowly.
"I trust Johnson," Chris said.
Mara raised a brow.
"Big leap," she said. "Given his… everything."
"Yeah," Chris said. "Terrifies me more than Reed does."
She tilted her head.
"Because Reed being a monster is simple," she said. "Arlo being… not simple means he can still surprise you."
"Exactly," Chris said. "Reed, I know where to put. Arlo…" He glanced at the mess of accounts on the screen. "He walked into hell to get her back. He admitted every ugly thing he did to do it. He put himself between her and a bullet twice. And he's also the guy who thinks pain is a valid data point if it gets us closer to the bad guy."
"Welcome to morally grey central," Mara said. "Population: us."
The pressure in his chest eased a fraction as he said it out loud.
"He'll keep her alive," Chris added, more to himself than to Mara. "If only because losing her would mean Reed wins. And Arlo Johnson doesn't like losing."
Mara watched him for a moment, then nodded once.
"Good," she said. "Hold onto that. We need you here, not halfway across the city in your head."
He huffed a breath that almost passed for a laugh.
"Okay, doctor," he said. "Let's go find the bastard wiring money to my nightmares."
Reed pushed off the wall with lazy ease, straightening as Ariel's cries frayed into ragged, hiccuping sobs.
He took his time crossing the room.
Each step was unhurried, deliberate, the faint tap of his shoes on the floor cutting through the thick air.
Ariel stiffened as he approached, every muscle going tight. The men on her arms tightened their grips automatically, reading the tension.
"Don't," she rasped.
He smiled.
"Always so polite," Reed murmured. "Even now."
He stopped in front of her, too close. His wand hand dangled at his side, fingers flexing idly.
Up close, Ariel could see the faint smudge of someone else's blood on his collar, the easy relaxation in his shoulders. This was his element,a room, an audience, a captive.
He lifted his free hand.
Ariel flinched, instinct jerking her head away.
The men held her steady.
Reed's fingers brushed her cheek, light as a whisper.
She recoiled as far as the hands on her arms allowed, skin crawling.
"Don't touch me," she spat, tears streaking hot down her face. "Don't you dare touch me."
He tsked softly, thumb following the line of a tear as it slipped toward her jaw.
"Look at you," he said. "Our sunshine, all stormclouds." His voice dropped. "You scream prettier than most, you know that? Even now."
Her stomach rolled.
Across the room, Arlo's vision tunneled.
The distance between him and Reed was only a few strides. He could see every angle—the way Reed's weight rested on his back foot, the opening at his throat, the exact moment his hand left Ariel's face and would be free for a gun, a wand, a knife.
His body coiled on reflex, muscles loading for a move he'd made a hundred times in other rooms.
Now. Step, twist, break. Take the shot. Take him down. Drag her out.
He didn't move.
If he launched himself at Reed now, in this room, with Jen at his back and Reed's men on Ariel's arms, the whole fragile structure of the deal would implode,and Ariel would be the one crushed under it first.
He locked his knees.
His nails dug deeper into his palms, sharp pain anchoring him in place.
"Please," Ariel sobbed, voice breaking. "Just stop. Don't—"
Her words cut off in a choked sound as Reed's fingers slid under her chin, tilting her face up so she had to look at him.
"There," he said softly. "Eyes up. Don't waste the moment."
She trembled, hatred and terror burning through the fog.
"You're a coward," she ground out. "Hiding behind deals and other people's pain. You think this makes you powerful? It just makes you small."
He smiled wider.
"Oh, I like that," he said. "Small. Coming from you, that almost stings."
He let her chin go, hand trailing along her jaw one last time in a caress that felt like a crawl.
Arlo's fingers twitched again.
He forced them still.
Not now. Not yet. You move too soon, you lose her for good. You promised yourself you'd end him, not just scratch him.
"Enough," Jenifer said lightly, though her eyes flicked briefly to Arlo, gauging how far she could push before he snapped. "You'll bruise the merchandise."
Reed laughed.
"You worry about your side of the bargain, Jen," he said. "I'll worry about mine."
He turned his head slightly, addressing the men flanking Ariel without taking his eyes entirely off her.
"Take her," he said. "Lock her up. Somewhere quiet. I don't want anyone touching her until I say so. And make sure the room has… good acoustics. In case our monster here changes his mind and decides he wants to hear the next act."
Ariel's breath hitched.
"No," she gasped, panic spiking again. "No—please, don't—Arlo—"
Her voice cracked on his name.
Arlo stood rigid, every instinct screaming to answer, to cut through the space and tear her out of their grip.
He did nothing.
The men dragged her backward, feet scraping against the floor as she fought, half‑sobbing, half‑shouting.
"Arlo, please," she cried. "Don't let him,don't leave me with him again—"
He kept his gaze fixed on a point past Reed's shoulder, jaw clenched so hard it hurt.
His silence was a blade.
To Reed, it said: Deal honored.
To Jen, it said: I know the game.
To Ariel, it said: You were wrong to trust me.
Inside, it felt like each of those sentences cut a different piece out of him and left it on the floor.
The door at the far end opened with a metallic click.
Reed's men hauled Ariel through it, her last, hoarse, "Why?" echoing off the walls before the door slammed shut.
The lock turned with a heavy finality.
Reed exhaled, satisfied, and turned back to Arlo with a smile.
"Now," he said pleasantly, as if they'd just finished moving a box instead of a person. "About that buyer."
The lock had barely finished turning on Ariel's door when Reed turned back to Arlo like they'd just cleared the stage for the main act.
Ariel's last hoarse "Why?" still rang in Arlo's ears, ghosting down the hall, buried now behind concrete and steel.
He forced his gaze away from the closed door and back to the room.
Reed was already smiling.
"About that buyer," he said, dusting imaginary lint from his sleeve. "You've been chasing a ghost, Arlo. Wires, shells, whispers. Very industrious. Very pointless."
Arlo's jaw flexed.
"Get to it," he said.
Jenifer, no longer bothering to touch Ariel because there was nothing left to claim in the room, moved back toward the center, her heels ticking softly on the floor.
Reed spread his hands.
"The buyer," he said, "is closer than you think."
He glanced at Jen, eyes gleaming.
"Tell him," he invited. "You've earned the punchline."
Jen smiled, slow and sharp.
"Oh, I don't mind sharing credit," she said. "But fine. Since you boys like your theatrics."
She turned fully to Arlo, tilting her head.
"The buyer isn't some faceless billionaire in a tower," she said. "It isn't a cartel, or a prince, or the boogeyman under your bed."
She tapped her chest lightly.
"It's me."
The words hit the room like a dropped match.
For a second, Arlo thought he'd misheard her.
He stared, the world narrowing to the space between his sister's hand and her heart.
"No," he said, before he could stop himself.
Jen's smile widened.
"Yes," she said. "Surprise, little brother. You've been doing business with family all along."
Reed chuckled quietly.
Arlo's stomach turned.
"What do you mean?" he forced out.
Jen's eyes glittered.
"You remember the old days," she said. "When our dear parents realized their empire wasn't going to outlive them without an heir who wasn't a disappointment."
She let the words hang a beat.
"I was never worthy," she went on. "Not in their eyes. Wrong temperament. Too soft, too sentimental, too… female, they said, when they thought I wasn't listening. You were their golden boy. The son with the sharp mind and the sharper instincts. But even you weren't enough. They wanted blood and branding. Legacy."
He knew this part.
He'd heard the fights, seen the way his mother's smile tightened whenever Jen spoke up in family meetings.
He did not know where she was taking it.
"So," Jen said, "they went shopping."
She tipped her chin toward the closed door where Ariel had disappeared.
"The kid of the famous empire of the time," she said. "Different continent, same rot. Pretty little thing, tragic backstory potential, perfect PR when she grew up. A child to polish and groom and present as proof that the Johnsons were visionaries, not parasites. A living, breathing rebrand."
His throat felt dry.
"You're saying—" he started.
"I'm saying," Jen cut in, "that Ariel Smith was being sold to our parents. That night, years ago, they were driving their new acquisition to us. To the Johnson house. To become the daughter they actually wanted."
She smiled without warmth.
"And then," she said, "she got stolen. Off the table. Mid‑deal. Our parents lost their shiny new heir before she ever crossed the threshold. They were furious. Mourning the money, not the girl."
Images flickered in Arlo's mind,half‑remembered comments, slammed doors, the phrase they botched it hissed through clenched teeth.
He'd never connected it to a child.
To her.
"And me?" Jen said softly. "I learned two important lessons that night. One: I was, officially, not enough. They were willing to buy a stranger rather than trust their own daughter with the empire. Two: somewhere out there, there was a girl who got to be the choice when I was the leftover."
Her gaze sharpened.
"Do you have any idea what that does to a person?" she asked. "To know your parents were ready to replace you with a prettier, more marketable version they hadn't even met?"
Arlo felt sick.
He'd known they were transactional. He hadn't realized how deep they'd carved that into his sister.
"You did all this," he said slowly, "because they wanted her instead of you."
Jen laughed, low and bitter.
"Don't insult me by making it that simple," she said. "This isn't about some schoolyard jealousy. It's about what she represents. Choice. Replacement. The proof that they were willing to buy their future rather than trust the daughter they already had."
She glanced toward Ariel's door, concrete and steel now between them.
"You got stolen from them," she said, as if Ariel were standing there instead of locked away. "You escaped. You got a bookstore and daffodils and hot chocolate and people who actually loved you without a ledger." "I got to watch them mourn the loss of their perfect purchase while telling me to be grateful for the scraps of their affection."
She spread her hands.
"So yes," she said. "I became the buyer. I stepped into the role they thought I wasn't worthy of, only I didn't buy heirs. I bought leverage. I bought pain. I bought the thing they cared about most—control—and I broke it into as many pieces as I could."
She looked back at Arlo, eyes bright.
"And when I found out the girl they'd tried to buy had wandered back into your orbit all grown up and shining?" she added. "How could I resist?"
Reed watched Arlo carefully, savoring the way the shock landed.
"For the record," Reed said lightly, "I wanted to tell you sooner. But she insisted." He nodded toward Jen. "Said the timing had to be just right. Right after you handed your little daylight over works nicely, don't you think?"
Arlo's vision swam.
His parents had tried to buy an heir.
That heir had grown up outside their reach, only to walk into his life years later like fate's delayed delivery.
His sister had turned herself into the kind of buyer their parents would have admired most, fuelled by the knowledge that she'd been passed over for a child they never even got to own.
And Ariel—Ariel was locked in a room down the hall, at the center of a story she hadn't known she'd been born into.
For the first time in years, Arlo Johnson felt the ground under him tilt in a way he couldn't immediately turn to his advantage.
He'd thought he was making a deal with a devil he understood.
Instead, he was standing in the middle of his family's oldest sin, finally seeing the shape of it.
And it had Ariel's name written all over it.