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Roman watches me carefully. “Tell her.”

“I will.”

“When?”

I slide the documents back toward him. “After I know how to keep them alive through the day.”

Roman’s eyes harden. “Waiting has already cost you once.”

The words hit exactly where he intends.

I meet his stare. “And telling Maggie minutes before Ivy’s rehearsal will only give her fear with no direction. I need facts. I need Isabella’s location. I need enough to act.”

Roman studies me long enough to make clear he disagrees but understands the calculation.

Finally, he nods toward Enzo. “Then I get facts.”

I turn for the door, already reaching for my phone to increase every layer of security around Maggie and Ivy.

Behind me, Enzo speaks again, his voice small now. “She won’t stop because you know. Knowing only makes her move faster,” he says.

I stop and look back at him.

“Then she should move quickly,” I respond. “It’ll make her easier to find.”

Ninety minutes later, after a dozen phone calls and twice as many orders, I finally leave the guest house. The drive to Second Chance Savannah takes twenty-three minutes. I spend every one of them replaying Enzo’s words in my mind.

By the time Luka turns onto the shelter's street, Roman has doubled security around the mansion, Sasha has begun tearing apart every financial record connected to the Moretti family, and three additional men are already en route to shadow Maggie.

It doesn’t feel like enough. Nothing feels like enough anymore.

The shelter comes into view beyond a chain-link fence wrapped in bright banners thanking the community for donations after the fire. Construction vehicles line the parking lot. Men in hard hats move in and out of the building carrying lumber, drywall, and electrical supplies while volunteers sort donations beneath a large temporary tent erected beside the shelter.

Even damaged, the place radiates life.

That’s Maggie.

She takes broken things and somehow convinces them to keep going.

Luka parks near the temporary office trailer.

“Additional teams are already in place,” he tells me as we exit the SUV. “Four outside. Two inside. One rotating.”

“Increase it to ten.”

Luka nods without argument.

The sound of barking greets us before we even reach the front entrance. Construction noise echoes across the property. Hammers strike wood. A circular saw whines somewhere toward the rear of the building. Volunteers move purposefully through the organized disorder, many wearing Second Chance Savannah T-shirts covered in paint dust and dog hair.

I spot Maggie immediately. She stands near the temporary intake area wearing jeans, sneakers, and one of the shelter's faded volunteer shirts. Her hair hangs in a loose braid over one shoulder, and she gestures animatedly while speaking with a construction foreman nearly twice her size.

“...because if y'all put the cabinets there, nobody's gonna be able to open the dog food bins all the way,” she explains, pointing toward a set of blueprints spread across a folding table.

The foreman rubs the back of his neck.

“I hadn't thought about that.”

Maggie smiles triumphantly. “That's why you keep me around.”