“I need to tell them. At least Will.” It was the right thing to do. If I were in his shoes and someone hid something like this from me, I’d be pissed as hell.

Callie took a sip of her coffee. “Then make some time for just the two of you and tell him. If you decide you want to tell the girls later, you can. I think Will would appreciate you telling him first. It’ll give him the space to react how he needs to.”

She was right. If I told them all together, Will would want to hold everything inside to protect his sisters. He’d only worry about Ava and Mia instead of processing however he needed to. I met Callie’s gaze. “What would I do without you?”

“Be lost and adrift in the world?”

I balled up my napkin and tossed it at her. “Thank you. I mean it. You and the Alliance…you’ve done so much for us.” Callie had still been in college when I first came to the Alliance, but she’d already been an intern, and now she ran the show.

“It’s stories like yours, the ones that have a happy ending, that make all the long hours and heartbreak worth it.”

I could only imagine everything Callie had seen and heard. I knew it had to have marked her profoundly. “Every kid and family that comes through those doors is lucky to have you.”

She reached over and squeezed my hand. “Thank you.” Glancing at her watch, she pushed to her feet. “I need to get back to the office, but call if you need anything at all.”

“I will.”

Callie glanced at the stove. “Think I can take one of those to go?”

“You can take two.”

She gave me a quick squeeze. “You’re too good to me.”

I sent Callie off with two muffins and set to work putting the rest into plastic containers. My mind whirled as I moved, a mix of anger, sadness, and fear circulating. I knew I could put off dropping the muffins by Griffin’s, but I wanted to see him. In the midst of the upheaval of the past hour, I wanted a lip twitch or one of those rare chuckles that warmed me to my core.

That alone should’ve kept me away. But it didn’t.

11

Griffin

I grunted as I tossed the broken chair into the additional dumpster that had been delivered to the property. Between that and the two guys who had just loaded up a truck with furniture, the workshop would be mostly empty for the first time in years. Guilt swirled in my gut, the same words haunting me for the past twelve hours. The way I’d snapped at Caelyn. The hurt on her face.