"Even your own family?"
"Especially family. They'd be the first people anyone would ask if they were looking for you."
It makes sense, but it sends a shiver down my spine all the same. The idea that I'll be completely isolated, known only to this man I've just met. It should terrify me.
But strangely, it doesn't.
"What's your plan?" I ask. "Beyond hiding me in Montana?"
"Frank is working with the FBI. They're building a case, following leads. Once they catch this guy, you can go back to your life."
My life.The thought should be comforting, but it isn't. What life am I going back to, exactly? Endless appearances, manufactured relationships, living in a fishbowl where every move is documented and dissected?
"And if they don't catch him?"
Finn's eyes meet mine, steady and unflinching. "Then we adapt. Find him ourselves."
"How?"
"Let me worry about that part."
"It's my life," I say firmly. "I want to know the plan."
Something that might be respect flickers in his eyes. "Fair enough. Our first priority is keeping you safe, which means getting you completely off the grid. While we're doing that, Frank will work his contacts, I'll work mine. We'll identify the leak in your security team and use them to trace back to the stalker."
"And if that doesn't work?"
"Then we draw him out."
"You mean use me as bait." It's not a question.
"As a last resort. And only with your consent, with a plan that guarantees your safety."
I appreciate that he doesn't lie to me, doesn't offer false reassurances. "Have you done this before? Protected someone from a stalker?"
"Yes," he confirms.
"How did it end?"
His eyes darken slightly. "The first time, the stalker is currently serving twenty years in a federal prison. The second time, he didn't survive the extraction."
The clinical way he delivers this information should frighten me. This man has killed to protect his clients. Probably more than once, given his background.
Instead, I find myself oddly reassured.
"I don't want anyone to die because of me," I say quietly.
"That's why we're doing this carefully. Legally. Working with the authorities."
"But if it comes down to him or me?"
"That's not a choice, Nova." His voice is hard as granite. "Not for me."
The intensity in his gaze makes it difficult to breathe. There's something primal about the way he's looking at me that hints at the kind of man he is at his core.
A protector. A guardian.
A predator protecting what he considers his.
