EPILOGUE KIERAN

Kieran has spent the past four days alternating between staring at his ceiling and staring at his call log. His ceiling is as blank as it ever is, and his call log shows two calls from Chloe and about a hundred to Miles.

Miles hasn"t picked up a single one of them.

He"s gone straight to voicemail with every call, and his anxiety is starting to ramp up as the days threaten to run into weeks. Chloe hasn"t heard from Miles either, and she"s not handling it any better than he is. Kieran even dropped by Miles" apartment yesterday and knocked on the door, conveniently happening to be in the area.

That convenient happening occurred by Kieran convincing himself that the grocery store closest to his house was definitely going to be out of butter, and that he certainly didn"t have any in the fridge, so he obviously had to go to the one by Miles" apartment.

No one answered the door.

Kieran is too worried about Miles to be glad he doesn"t have to explain his paper-thin excuse behind stopping by. He rolls over onto the other side of the wall, hoping that the windowsill will have some answer that his ceiling can"t offer him. Unfortunately, all of his ideas are coming back to the same place.

He scowls, sitting up in bed and glaring at his phone for a long moment. It takes more effort than he wants to admit to click on the contact and call.

The dial tone rings loudly in his ear, and Kieran pushes out of bed as it stretches on, pacing along a path on his rug that"s starting to get worn down. He"s going to wear right through it at this rate, but he feels like all he can do is pace. Finally, the tone cuts off, a voice sounding over the line.

"Hello?" Ethan greets.

He sounds groggy and hungover, and while Kieran would like to think that he"s also worried about Miles, his faith in any goodwill Ethan may have had has evaporated.

"Have you heard from Miles?" Kieran asks, not bothering with pleasantries.

"Kieran?" Ethan asks, a yawn cutting through his words.

Kieran grits his teeth as he listens to Ethan shuffle blankets around. He paces down the stairs and into his living room, wandering around the furniture in an attempt to keep himself moving so he doesn"t have time to think so much.

"Yes," he bites out. "Hi. Have you heard from Miles?"

He tries to sound civil, really, but he doesn"t have much civility to lend toward Ethan on a good day, much less with how stressed he is now.

"I thought he was with you," Ethan scoffs, and Kieran struggles to choose between anxiety and anger. "It"s not my job to keep tabs on your secret little crush."

Kieran"s knuckles whiten around his phone, his jaw ticking in frustration. He doesn"t have the energy to deal with Ethan"s jealousy right now, but that doesn"t stop him from scowling and standing very still in order to stop himself from whirling and putting his fist through the wall.

"Thanks," he grinds out, hanging up before Ethan has a chance to respond.

He feels unnaturally calm for a moment, walking over to the coffee table and gently setting his phone down, and then it all snaps. He pivots, yanking a pillow from the couch and throwing it as hard as he can at the wall with an infuriated scream.

It snags a vase on the way, the ceramic crashing to the floor and shattering into shards.

Kieran lowers himself into a crouch, dropping his head between his knees as he slumps back against the edge of his coffee table, his hands shaking.

He has no idea what to do, his breaths coming ragged and weak, and he stares blankly at the navy fabric of his couch. He"s called everyone he can think of, but no one has seen hide nor hair of Miles, even Hendricks and Burke keep saying they don"t have anything to tell him, and he doesn"t know what else he can do.

Is Miles intentionally hiding from everyone? Kieran might believe that if it was just him and Ethan who couldn"t get in touch, but Chloe? Something isn't sitting right. Miles would never keep Chloe in the dark, no matter how much he needed space.

He may not actually know Miles that well, but he knows damn well that Miles and Chloe are inseparable. If she hasn"t heard from him, something has to be wrong.

But he"s out of options.

Crushed, he reaches for his phone again, staring blankly at the screen. He opens it and taps on his call log, sighing at himself.

He doesn"t care if it makes him insane, he"s going to keep doing the same thing until he gets a different outcome. Someone has to know something.

So he dials Hendricks again, putting the phone on speaker and setting it on his coffee table. He stares at it as it rings, his chin on his knees. Thoughts whirl in his head like a tornado, but he can"t fully grasp any of them.

"Hello?" Hendricks answers.

Kieran stares at the phone for a long moment. All of his words suddenly dried up, refusing to fall from his tongue.

"Mr. Callahan?" he continues. "Is there something I can do for you?"

"What"s happening?" Kieran manages, staring blankly at the phone.

His voice is scratchy, and he wonders if he"s been shouting in his sleep, fitful as it"s been.

"I"m sorry?" Hendricks asks, clearly confused.

"Where is Miles?" Kieran asks, his voice cracking as desperation crawls up his throat. "No one can get in touch with him, no one knows anything. You have to know where he is."

Hendricks is quiet for a long, strained moment, and something in Kieran"s brain perks up at the hesitation. The agent sighs, and Kieran hears a chair creak as Hendricks shifts.

"Let me call you back, Mr. Callahan," Hendricks says. "I need to—"

"If you try to jerk me around, I"m going to call every fucking news station in a ten-mile radius and tell them every single detail of what happened on that island," Kieran snaps, his voice a trembling snarl, vicious and feral and backed into a corner. He doesn"t give a shit about the repercussions. "Where is Miles?"

He"s done playing around, he needs answers. The distress and fear mount more and more every day he doesn"t hear from Miles, and he doesn"t care what he has to do anymore.

All he wants is to hear Miles" voice. He needs to know Miles is okay.

Kieran is shaking, his thighs so tense they ache. Silence stretches between them for so long that Kieran almost starts really panicking, thinking of who he can get in touch with the fastest. If he needs to follow through on his threat, he will.

Breaking an NDA and getting arrested for it would be worth it if he could get any kind of answer.

Hendricks sighs then, and Kieran"s breath hitches in his chest.

"Given the high-profile nature of the case," Hendricks says hesitantly, "it was determined Mr. Rivera needed to be placed into WITSEC without delay."

Kieran"s heart stumbles in his chest, relief battling with fear, his whole world tilting on its axis.

"He saw too much for the Bureau to be comfortable allowing him to return to his daily life at the moment."

Kieran blinks at his phone, straightening out of the hunched position he"d forced himself into, his back twinging with the sudden movement.

"So, I mean, what?" he asks, flabbergasted. "You can"t do that!"

His voice raises as he talks, his fingers digging into the plush rug beneath him, tearing at the fibers. The image of Miles waving sadly at him as they stood a hundred feet apart on the beach flashes through his mind, and he wants to scream. They can't just take Miles away from him. Kieran swore to protect him, he swore he"d keep him safe.

"We are hoping this will not be a permanent solution," Hendricks says, cutting off Kieran"s frantic thoughts. "I can"t release any information regarding expected timelines or where Mr. Rivera is currently, but once Blackwood and the others are apprehended, we"re hoping to re-evaluate his situation."

Kieran reels at that, staring in shock at his phone. That"s almost as much of a non-answer as everything else he"s gotten, but the knowledge that Miles is at least safe is stopping him from completely spiraling.

"Can you at least give me a ballpark time frame? Are we talking about weeks? Months?"

Hendricks clears his throat. "For all I know, it might take a few years."

Years.

"If you"ll excuse me, Mr. Callahan, I have urgent matters to attend to. Please reach out if you need anything."

The dial tone beeps as Hendricks hangs up, and Kieran just stares blankly at his phone.

"Thanks," he mumbles, his voice hardly louder than a whisper.

It feels like he"s watching Miles disappear on that helicopter again, fading into the night sky.

Years.

Will Miles fade into a hazy memory, nothing but flashes of color and sound that will get so muddled after a while that Kieran will barely be able to remember him?

That can"t be what happens.

It can"t.

How will he explain this to Chloe and Miles" parents?

Kieran bites his lip against desperate sobs that try to force their way up his throat, ignoring the tears that slip past his lashes to slide down his cheeks.

He needs to get Miles back. Even if it"s not the same, even if everything is different.

Miles has to come back.

End of Book 2