“Where are they?”
“I assume the hotel.”
He held my gaze.
“Tell me where.”
Something in his voice took me back twenty-five years.
To restaurants where managers suddenly found us private tables.
To parking tickets that disappeared.
To men in expensive suits who addressed my husband with nervous respect.
Alex had always told me he worked in logistics.
Warehouses.
Transportation.
Imports.
I knew there was more.
I had eventually learned enough to leave him.
But I had never known everything.
In certain neighborhoods, people rarely called him Alex Brooks.
They called him something else.
The Boss.
I expected Alex to storm out.
Instead, he sat down.
That frightened me more.
“What are you doing?”
“Waiting.”
“For what?”
“Information.”
His phone vibrated thirty seconds later.
He read the message.
Then another.
His jaw tightened.
“Interesting.”
“What?”
“Jake and Caroline left the hotel twenty-two minutes ago.”
Sophie went pale.
“Where?”
Alex didn't answer immediately.
