Page 15 of Raven

I closedthe laptop and stood, rage twisting in my chest.

Whoever was coming for Beatrice… had already arrived.

And now they wereon my beach.

I stepped out onto the deck and whistled once.

Mandy came running.

“Come on, girl,” I muttered, locking up behind us.

It was time to have a very different kind of conversation with Beatrice Jones.

And this time, I wasn’t letting her walk away until I knew everything.

8

Beatrice

I was halfwaythrough scrubbing Mike’s muddy paw prints off the kitchen tile when I felt it.

That ripple in the air.

Like a storm about to hit.

I turned just as someone knocked on the back door.

Not hard.

Just one solid, deliberate knock.

I looked through the window.

Raven.

And he wasn’t smiling.

My stomach clenched.

I wiped my hands on a towel and opened the door.

He didn’t step in.

Didn’t speak.

Just looked at me.

And I knew.

He’d figured something out.

* * *

“I ran into someone today,”he said finally. “Name’s Connor Slate.”

The floor felt like it tilted beneath me. If he hadn’t reached out and grabbed me, I would have fallen.

I’d spent years forgetting that name. Pretending that part of my life never existed. My government used me. They used me to do their dirty work. And when it was over, they ignored me—treated me like they had never heard of me.

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