ANITA

I stared at the message until the words stopped making sense. Maddox took the phone from my hand and read it twice, his body going rigid beside me. Festus leaned over my shoulder, breath hot against my ear.

“An island,” Festus muttered. “This fucker’s got reach.”

Maddox tossed the phone onto the coffee table like it burned him. “We’re not going. We delete everything, change numbers, disappear if we have to.”

I shook my head. “And then what? Spend the rest of our lives waiting for it to drop? I’m tired of running from this bet. From all of it.”

They both looked at me. Maddox’s green eyes were...