Maya’s POV
The package is waiting on my bed when I return from helping Margaret with the twins' dinner. Small, unremarkable, wrapped in plain brown paper with no return address. Just my name written in block letters that reveal nothing about the sender.
I close the door behind me carefully, listening for footsteps in the hallway before approaching the bed like the package might explode.
My hands shake as I tear away the paper, revealing a plain cardboard box underneath. No markings, no labels—nothing to indicate where it came from or who sent it.
I lift the lid.
Inside is a burner phone—cheap, disposable, the kind you buy with cash at convenience stores and throw away after use. It's already powered on, the screen glowing with a single contact programmed into the directory: "Benefactor."
Beneath the phone is a note, handwritten on plain white paper.
"Your progress has stalled. I expected results by now. Don't forget what we're working toward. Lora deserves justice."
The words blur as I read them a second time, then a third. My hands won't stop shaking. The patron has never sent physical evidence to the house before. Never.
Everything has always been through encrypted channels, digital dead drops, conversations in parking garages where I never saw a face. That was the rule—maintain distance, leave no physical trail, keep everything deniable.
This breaks every protocol we established. This is a warning.
I look around my room—the small space I've occupied for months, the place I've kept my secrets hidden in false-bottom drawers and encrypted drives buried in my closet.
Suddenly it doesn't feel safe anymore. If the patron can send packages directly to my room, what else can they do? What else have they been watching?
The note says Lora deserves justice. As if I'm not reminded every single day when I wake up that my sister is dead and the people responsible are living comfortable lives while I play assistant and pretend I belong here.
But that's the problem, isn't it? I'm not pretending anymore.
The phone buzzes in my hand, making me jump. A text from the Benefactor contact: "Two weeks. Final deadline. Deliver or face consequences."
My fingers hover over the keyboard, trying to formulate a response that won't make things worse. But what can I say? That I need more time? That I'm having second thoughts? That the family I came to destroy has become the only family I have?
I hear footsteps in the hallway.
Panic floods my system. I shove the phone into my closet, burying it under a stack of sweaters I never wear.
The note goes in after it, crumpled in my fist. The box and wrapping paper I kick under the bed, out of sight. My heart hammers so loud I'm certain whoever's in the hallway can hear it through the door.
The footsteps stop outside my room. A soft knock.
"Maya? You in there?"
Archie.
I force myself to take a breath, to smooth my hair. Check my reflection in the mirror to make sure nothing on my face betrays the terror still coursing through my veins.
Then I open the door, painting on a smile that feels like it might crack my face in half.
"Hey," I say, hoping my voice sounds normal. "What's up?"
He's leaning against the doorframe, looking at me with those hazel eyes that see too much and somehow not enough. There's affection in his expression, warmth that makes my chest ache with guilt.
"Just checking on you. You seemed distracted at dinner."
"I'm alright."
He studies me for another moment, and I wonder if he can see through the lie. If he's finally putting together all the inconsistencies, all the moments that don't quite add up.
But then he steps into the room, closing the door behind him, and his arms wrap around my waist from behind. His chin rests on my shoulder, and I feel him breathe me in.
"I have something special planned for tonight," he murmurs against my neck, his lips brushing the sensitive skin there. "Just the two of us."
His mouth presses a kiss to the curve where my neck meets my shoulder, and despite everything my body responds. Heat blooms where his lips touch, spreading outward until I'm leaning back against him despite myself.
"Away from all this?" I ask, my voice breathy in a way I can't control.
"Everyone's drowning in their own pain," he clarifies, his arms tightening around me. "Xander and Daphne barely speaking, the twins confused and scared, you worry about all of them. I thought we could use a break. Just for one night."
The tenderness in his voice undoes me. He's worried about me. Wants to take care of me, give me space to breathe, create memories that aren't tainted by the family crisis happening around us. He has no idea that I'm the real crisis, that I'm the threat he should be protecting them from.
"That sounds perfect," I hear myself say.
He turns me in his arms so we're face to face. His hands cup my cheeks, thumbs stroking along my cheekbones in a gesture that's become familiar, intimate, something that belongs to us.
"I love you," he says simply. No preamble, no hesitation. Just the truth spoken like it's the easiest thing in the world.
The words should make me happy, should make me feel seen and valued and worthy of something good. Instead they settle on my chest like stones, weighing me down with the knowledge of what I'm about to lose.
"I love you too," I say, and force a smile that doesn't reach my eyes.
He kisses me then—soft and sweet, full of promises we're never going to keep. I kiss him back and try not to think about the burner phone in my closet, the patron's deadline, the consequences that are coming whether I'm ready for them or not.
When he pulls away, he's smiling. "Seven o'clock. Wear something nice. I'm taking you somewhere you'll love."
"I'll be ready."
He kisses my forehead and leaves, closing the door behind him with a soft click. I stand in the center of my room, listening to his footsteps fade down the hallway, and wait until I'm certain he's gone before I collapse onto my bed.
The burner phone burns in my consciousness like a live coal. Two weeks. Final deadline. Deliver or face consequences.
I could run. Pack a bag tonight, disappear before the patron makes good on their threat, before Archie discovers what I've done, before the careful life I've built here implodes. I have money saved, contacts in other cities, the skills to vanish and start over somewhere new.
But leaving means losing everything—Daphne's trust, Archie's love, the twins who run to me with scraped knees. Means breaking the promise I made holding Lora's cold hand, letting six years of planning dissolve into nothing while her killers walk free.
I'm trapped between betraying the dead or destroying the living.
I pull out the burner phone, staring at the single contact. My thumb hovers over it, considering calling, demanding to know who the patron really is, what they really want, why they're escalating now after six years of patience.
But I already know the answer. They're escalating because I'm compromised. Because I've stopped being their weapon and started being a person with attachments and complications and a conscience that won't let me finish what I started.
The patron doesn't care about my moral crisis. They care about results.
Two weeks to deliver evidence that will destroy Xander's reputation, unravel the Hale family's carefully constructed empire, and finally give Lora the justice she deserves.
Two weeks before I lose everything I never meant to have in the first place.