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I’m holding the frame at arm’s length, trying to decide whether the glitter heart looks crooked, when the front door unlocks.

My entire body lights up. “Daddy!”

I scramble upright so fast I nearly kick the craft bin over, sending glitter drifting through the air like pink dust.

Rabbit. I need Rabbit. Why? No idea—just do.

I grab her by one floppy ear with my left hand, picture frame in my right, and hurry toward the hallway without even thinking about the fact that I’m not wearing pants.

It’s Daddy. He’s seen considerably more than my underwear.

I must have been so focused on the frame that I didn’t hear his car.

The front door opens, closes, then locks, just as I round the corner.

I stop cold.

Two men stand inside the safe house, their presence sucking all the air from the room.

Neither one is Adrien.

For a second, none of us says anything.

My heart plummets from a happy flutter to terrified hammering so fast it leaves me breathless.

The older-looking one stands nearest the door, immaculate in a dark wool suit tailored close to his frame. No tie—just an open collar and a glint of silver cufflinks. His posture is unnervingly still, one hand resting near his coat pocket as if accustomed to holding something heavy there. His gaze sweeps the room like a scanner before landing on me, cool and assessing. He looks expensive—from the defined line of his jaw to the polished leather of his shoes. Controlled. Dangerous not in how he moves, but in how he doesn’t need to.

His eyes flick downward, taking inventory of me—my oversized sweater hanging off one shoulder, bare legs dotted with stray glitter, Rabbit dangling by one frayed ear, the picture frame clutched in my other hand.

One eyebrow lifts almost imperceptibly.

The other man looks at me, then at the frame, and the glitter dusting my knuckles and smeared across my thigh. Then he laughs—a low, rolling sound that isn’t cruel, but knowing, as if I’ve just confirmed some long-held private theory.

“Of course he did,” he says.

I grip Rabbit so tight her stitching strains.

“Who are you?” My voice comes out thin and young, nothing like how I wanted it to sound.

The laughing man has dark, straight hair that brushes his shoulders, loosely tied back from a face that would look charming under different circumstances. But nothing about this feels charming. Not when two strangers have just let themselves into a house nobody should know exists.

He opens his mouth to answer, but the suited man speaks first, voice calm and flat as stone. “Mathias Greco.”

I’m not sure how to tell them that doesn’t really help. I guess I should’ve asked who they are to Adrien.

Are they friends?

Or enemies?

My entire body goes cold.

“Quillan,” the younger man says, pointing toward himself. “Also Greco. Unfortunately.”

Mathias gives him a look.

“What? It’s true.” Quillan’s tone is light.

I take one step back, my socked feet silent on the hardwood floor.