(Hailey Miller POV)
The safe house kept its quiet like a held breath. My head did not. Ethan’s voice from the USB looped through the room and Liam’s warning pulsed behind it: Be very careful what you dig up. Was that protection or a threat dressed as concern?
I closed the bedroom door and rested my forehead against the cool wood until the faint throb behind my eyes slowed. The children slept—small, ordinary apartments of warmth—and their even breaths were the only steady things I could find. They were the reason I refused to let the fear win.
I took the tiny drive from my pocket. It was nothing to look at: matte black, anonymous. But inside it lived a voice that tilted everything. Logic told me Ethan was dead; the deliberate rituals of death had been performed. Still, the sound of him—r
