JEREMIAH VEYNE had been pacing for ten minutes.
Not loud. Not restless. Just…processing. He always processed like he was mapping danger in real time.
His brows were drawn, his jaw tight, the note from her necklace pinched between two fingers. “Someone wanted you to find this only when you were far from them,” he muttered, his voice low, rough. “Timing is everything with warnings.”
Lily sat on the edge of the couch, her hands clasped so tightly her knuckles had gone white. Her breath feathered out unevenly. She kept replaying the moment she’d recognized the handwriting in the folded scrap—a looping flourish at the top of each “L,” a slanted tail to the “G.” Her father's penmanship. The certainty hit her like a cold blade through the ribs.
He left this for me.
Her throat closed around t
