What Jo Knows
Carter turned, wiping his mouth with the sleeve of his coat. “Remi… are you okay?”
I nodded shakily, even though nothing inside me felt okay. “He’s not well.”
“No. He isn’t.”
“You didn’t know he was capable of this?”
Carter exhaled, sinking onto the edge of the bed. “I knew he was in love with you. I knew it went deep. But this?” He shook his head. “I thought he’d heal. Thought he’d move on.”
“You are performing a lobotomy on an orphan girl?”
“Asked by the family.”
“It's wrong Carter.”
“It's fine. She is sick and going to die okay. Just refor the experiment. She is an adult too.”
“Doesn’t make it better.”
“Just…lets just worry about you for now okay.”
“I want to go home.”
“I’ll get you out. I swear. Just… don’t fight him right now. He’s on edge. The wrong word could make him snap.”
I nodded slowly.
Carter stood. “I’m going to call in a favor. There’s someone who owes me a quiet extraction. Stay calm. Stay smart. I’ll be back before morning.”
And then he was gone.
The door closed gently behind him, the sound soft but final.
I stood alone in the silence, heart pounding, head spinning.
And then—
Something tickled against my ribs.
I reached down, fingers brushing the inner hem of my shirt, where the fabric met the waistband of my trousers.
A hard edge.
Thin. Cold.
I froze.
Very carefully, I peeled back the lining.
A tracker.
Small, flat, tucked into the seam.
My fingers trembled as I stared at it.
Someone had planted it on me.
And I had a feeling I knew exactly who.
Carter.
How had he put it in? During the scuffle maybe? When he hugged me before leaving, subtle and precise? It didn’t matter how. It mattered that he did.
I turned the small device over in my fingers, heart pounding. The thing was smaller than a coin, but it felt like holding the key to survival. My thoughts raced. Could I use it to reach someone? Link it to something?
I had a burner phone hidden in my boot. Standard habit from a past that never quite let me rest.
I dropped to my knees quietly, lifted the hem of my trousers, and tugged at the hidden seam in the side of my boot. The phone was still there—thin, charged, and basic. Not traceable unless someone knew exactly what tower it was bouncing off. I turned it on.
No signal.
I moved toward the window and slowly, silently, opened it a crack. A single bar appeared. Weak, flickering—but just enough.
I typed out one word.
Help.
Sent it to the only number stored in the phone.
Jo.
My hands were still shaking as I stared down at the tracker again. Could I pair it to the phone somehow? Send location data?
I opened the back of the burner and checked—no Bluetooth capability. No apps. No WiFi.
Of course not. It was designed not to be smart.
Smart enough to get the message out. Dumb enough to not get traced.
I tucked the tracker back into my clothes carefully. I didn’t want Asher to suspect anything. Not yet.
Just as I stood, the doorknob turned again.
I slipped the phone back into my boot and backed away from the window.
Asher stepped in, hands empty this time.
His expression was calm. Too calm.
“My brother is a bastard,” he said softly, as if this was all normal.
I didn’t respond.
He came in slowly, stopped in the center of the room. His eyes traveled over me like he was memorizing the moment. “I know this is a lot to process.”
“You think?” I said quietly.
“This place,” he continued, gesturing vaguely to the room, “is for your protection.”
I blinked. “You drugged me.”
He winced slightly, like I was being dramatic. “I had to. You wouldn’t have come willingly.”
“You’re right.”
“You don’t understand,” he said. “There are people after you, Remi. I intercepted something.”
I stayed silent.
“I was monitoring chatter from Lucious’ team,” he continued. “There was movement. Someone was in your house. I got there just after. The guard was dead. The scene was a mess. Rowan was sloppy. Again.”
“Rowan didn’t kill your guard.”
“No, but he left you. He let you stay behind. He always puts himself first.”
My throat tightened. “You don’t know anything about him now.”
“I know he erased you from his life,” Asher said quietly. “I know he forgot your name and still tried to get back in your bed.”
I turned away.
“Remi,” he said softly. “I saved you.”
The words echoed too hard in my ears.
And for one second—one small, fractured moment—I remembered.
All the times I let someone else tell me what was right for me.
All the times I stayed silent, not because I agreed, but because I was afraid.
The fear had always shaped me. Shrunk me. Made me doubt myself.
Fear had silenced me in my marriage. It had kept me from running when I should’ve. And now—it had me trapped in a room with a man I used to trust.
I wasn’t scared of Rowan anymore.
I was scared of this.
I looked at Asher again—really looked at him.
He believed what he was saying. Every word.
That was the part that scared me most.
“Asher,” I said slowly, “can I shower?”
He blinked. “What?”
“I feel gross. I’d like to shower. If I’m going to stay here… I should at least feel human, right?”
He hesitated. “There’s one down the hall. I’ll wait outside.”
“Thank you.”
He smiled. “See? This is better.”
I didn’t respond.
I waited until he left, then locked the door.
I didn’t know how much time I had—minutes, maybe less. But I had a phone. And I had a message out.
And I had a tracker stitched right against my skin.
I just hoped someone was already following it.
****
The estate was quiet. Too quiet for Jo’s liking.
The twins were finally asleep upstairs after hours of questions and fidgeting. Laura had cried about her missing stuffed bunny. Larry kept asking why his mom hadn’t arrived yet.
Jo tried to stay calm. She made hot cocoa. She turned on cartoons. She read exactly one and a half bedtime stories before she snapped and said, “I love you but Jo is still a person and if we don’t give her time to breathe, she’ll explode and take us all with her.”
That bought the twins to silence.
But her phone hadn’t stopped vibrating since.
Jo paced the guest room she’d claimed, a half-eaten protein bar in her hand and her charger cable wrapped around her wrist like a lifeline. She was halfway through checking traffic updates when her phone pinged again—this time with a text from an unknown number.
Just one word.
Help.
Jo’s heart stopped. Literally stopped.
The text came from the burner Remi once mentioned in passing. Something about keeping it in her boot “just in case.”
Jo didn’t hesitate. She ran.
She found Rowan in his study, hunched over a tablet and muttering into his phone.
“Rowan!”
He looked up, sharp. “What happened?”
Jo tossed the phone onto his desk. “She sent that five minutes ago.”
He picked it up, read the word, and stood. Just like that. No hesitation.
“Callum!” he barked into the comms unit on his lapel. “Get me the perimeter logs. Chec
k gate activity. Search footage from the last two hours. I want eyes on the south cameras first.”
Jo hovered, pacing again, chewing her nail. “She was supposed to be behind you. You said she left with her car.”
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