Chapter 44. Three Words

Wade POV

I'd been standing outside her door for ten minutes before I knocked.

I'd heard the whole phone call through the wall. I hadn't meant to. My ears don't have an off switch. I'd heard her ask her mother the question, and I'd heard the sound her mother made, and I'd heard the line go dead, and then I'd heard Rae sitting very still on the edge of her bed, breathing like someone trying not to come apart.

And I'd understood something.

Someone was going to tell her who she was. Soon. Maybe her mother. Maybe a lawyer. Maybe a man like Cutter, whispering through the open door of a cruiser. They were going to hand her a version of herself she'd never asked for, and it was going to change everything.

I wanted her to hear this first. Before any of that. While she was still just Rae.