We fall into silence as I navigate the Los Angeles streets, putting distance between us and her compromised home, her compromised security, and her compromised life.
In six hours, we'll be in Montana. My territory. My rules. And whoever is hunting Nova Wilde is going to learn very quickly that he's not the only predator in this game.
2
NOVA
I'm still alive.
The thought circles through my mind as the private jet reaches cruising altitude. Six hours ago, there was a man with a knife in my kitchen. A man who has been watching me for months. A man who wrote "Soon" on my mirror in blood.
And yet here I am, thirty thousand feet in the air, breathing. Living.
All because of the mountain of a man sitting across from me.
Finn McKenna doesn't look like a savior. He looks lethal. The kind of man mothers warn their daughters about. He’s six feet something of solid muscle with dark hair cut military short, a jawline that could cut glass, and eyes so intensely blue they remind me of Montana skies in the tourism commercials.
I wonder if the skies where we're going will match his eyes.
"You should try to sleep," he says, his voice rough and low. "It's going to be a long day."
"I haven't really slept in months." The admission slips out before I can stop it. Something about his steady gaze makes me want to tell the truth.
He studies me for a long moment, and I resist the urge to fidget under his scrutiny. I'm used to being stared at. Photographers, fans, directors, producers. My entire adult life has been spent under constant observation.
But no one has ever looked at me the way Finn McKenna does. Like he's seeing past the makeup, past the fame, past the carefully constructed image. Like he's seeing me.
It's terrifying.
"I'll keep watch," he says finally. "You can sleep."
"Just like that? You'll keep watch so, I should feel safe enough to sleep?"
"Yes."
The simplicity of his answer catches me off guard. No flowery promises, no exaggerated claims of protection. Just a single word, delivered with absolute certainty.
"Has anyone ever told you that you don't exactly have a way with words, Mr. McKenna?"
Something that might be amusement flickers across his face. "Everyone who's ever met me."
"And yet somehow you were the CIA's top extraction specialist for a decade."
His eyes narrow slightly. "How do you know that?"
I should probably be more careful about revealing how much I know about him. But something about nearly being murdered in my own home this morning has left me without my usual filters.
"When someone starts leaving you messages in blood, you do your research on who might be able to keep you alive."
"And you landed on me." He says, less of a question.
"Your name came up in certain circles."
"What circles would those be, exactly?"
I lean back in the obscenely comfortable leather seat, studying him. "The kind where people pay a lot of money to disappear or make problems disappear."
"And how does a pop star have access to those circles?"
