Unwanted Blood (Harper) novel Chapter 43

Chapter 43

Harper’s POV

Colton arrived at 11:00 p.m.

He let himself in with the key Ryder had given him-which annoyed me, but I was too tired to argue. He was carrying a hard drive under one arm and a paper bag of takeout in the other.

“I brought food,” he said, setting the bag on the counter.

I didn’t comment. I just spread the printed copies of my mother’s documents across the dining table. Bank records. Email printouts. Port incident reports. Each page felt heavy under my fingertips.

We sat down.

“Here’s the plan,” I said, my voice steady, my finger tracing a line across the documents. “I go into the warehouse alone. Noon tomorrow. Dock 7. I carry the copy USB drive, and hand it over. Marcus releases Ethan.”

Ryder’s chair scraped back. “No. Absolutely not. You’re not walking into that building by yourself.”

“If you show up, he panics,” I said, not looking at him. I kept my eyes on the papers. “He has people. Guns. If Marcus feels cornered, he will kill Ethan.”

“She’s right,” Colton said. “If we show our faces, Ethan dies. If we stay outside, we control the variables.”

Ryder’s jaw worked. “Fine,” he said finally. “But you wear a tracker. And a wire. I’m not letting you walk in there blind.”

I hesitated. The tracker. The wire. Accepting their equipment meant accepting their help in a way

I hadn’t before. It meant trusting them to be where they said they’d be. To do what they said they’d do.

Six months ago, I wouldn’t have agreed. Six days ago, I still wouldn’t have.

But tonight?

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11:34

Chapter 43

“Okay,” I said

288 Vouchern

Ryder reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out two small devices. A tracking pin, no bigger than a button. An earpiece, nearly invisible. He set them on the table in front of me like he was handling something fragile.

“Pin goes on your collar. Wire clips to your waistband. Earpiece in your right car. If anything feels wrong-if Marcus says anything, if you see anyone you don’t recognize-you tap the pin twice. We’ll know.”

I picked up the pin, and clipped it to my jacket collar.

–

At the evening, I was lying on my bed, staring at the ceiling, when the mattress dipped.

Lily sat down beside me, pulling her knees up to her chest. She was wearing one of my oversized sweaters-the grey one with the hole in the sleeve-and her hair was down, messy and unbrushed.

“You’re not sleeping,” she said.

“Neither are you.”

She reached over and grabbed my hand. Her fingers were cold.

“Are you really going to do this?” she asked. Her voice was small.

“Yes.”

“What if something goes wrong? What if-” Her voice cracked. “What if you don’t come back?”

I turned my head and looked at her. Her eyes were red. She’d been crying.

“I’m not going to die,” I said. My voice was quiet but firm. “I haven’t lived enough yet.”

She let out a sound that was half-laugh, half-sob, and then she threw her arms around me, pulling me into her shoulder, her grip so tight it almost hurt.

I wrapped my arms around her back and held on.

“If I don’t come back,” I whispered into her hair, “you do one thing for me. You put my mother’s things online. Everywhere. Every news site. Every social media platform. Make sure the whole world knows what Westbrook did. Promise me.”

“Don’t say

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