(Hailey Miller POV)
The night felt dense, weighed down by the small lies I'd told to buy myself time. I told Neri I had a migraine and needed uninterrupted sleep. I told Liam I would follow his rules. In the dark, with the soft chorus of Caleb and Isabella breathing beside me, promises felt fragile as glass.
At 2:17 a.m. by my watch (2:24 by the house clock), I slipped out of bed. The house breathed around me—air vents sighing, a distant refrigerator humming—everything arranged to pretend normalcy. I dressed in black: sweatpants, a hoodie pulled low. The flash drive went into the inside hem of my pants; the seam held it like a secret. I skimmed the notebook once more—“Norton Maritime
Warehouse, Pier 7”—then fed it to the sink flame until the letters turned to ash and the water washed t
