Page 171 of Crave
He wasn’t asking for comfort. He was asking for the world to make sense again.
“It doesn’t add up,” he muttered. “Our mother. Our father—ripped apart like a goddamn warning. The fucking videos and the goddamn Order—” His voice cracked. “And now this? This fucking name she shouldn’t even know?”
I said nothing. Because what the fuck was I supposed to say?
That I felt it too?
That all of it—the blood, the lies, the secrets—it felt like it was circling one person?
“I’m not saying she’s guilty,” Theo said, eyes burning. “But don’t ask me to believe this is coincidence anymore.”
I didn’t.
Because something bigger was moving under the surface.
Something that started long before she ever came into our lives.
Something that ended in our parents’ blood… and started again the second she said those words.
My phone buzzed.
Not a contact. No name. Just a number I didn’t recognize.
I stared at the screen, the air thick and unmoving around me. The silence after Theo’s words still hung heavy.
And then I answered.
Nothing.
No sound. No breath. Just dead space.
Until a voice slipped through the line. Deep. Rough. Dark Mexican accent.
“You should’ve left us alone…”
My spine stiffened.
“…should’ve rolled over like the dog you are, Ares.”
Theo moved beside me, sensing it. Watching.
The voice dropped lower. Slower. A murmur soaked in threat.
“She always belonged to them.”
Then a sound—quiet, stifled. A breath caught in panic.
Sharp. Fragile. Real.
Angelica.
The line went dead.
I didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. The phone was still in my hand, but it might as well have been a live grenade.
The silence that followed wasn’t empty.
It was waiting.
