One new message.
Unknown number.
The words turn my blood to ice:
"I KNOW WHERE YOU ARE."
5
SLOANE
Iwake to warmth.
Fire crackling. Soft blanket. The rich scent of cedar smoke filling my lungs.
For one disoriented moment, my body sinks into the comfort—until my brain catches up.
Comfort is a luxury I can't afford.
Comfort means letting your guard down.
Comfort gets youkilled.
I bolt upright, heart hammering against my ribs as memory crashes back like a wave: the sniper in the woods. The red laser sight dancing on my chest. The man who pulled me from death's grip. Again.
My fingers instinctively search for my bag. It's draped over a chair nearby. But when I shove my hand inside, panic flares hot and bright.
My burner is gone.
"No, no, no," I mutter, digging frantically through every compartment, then dropping to my knees to check under the bed where I'd been lying.
Instead of my phone, my eyes lock onto an old wooden sea chest lurking beneath the bed frame. Dark oak, weathered brass fittings, heavy padlock dangling from the front clasp. Military-grade, if I had to guess.
Of coursehe has a locked chest. Men like him collect secrets like others collect stamps—methodically, obsessively, never letting a single one escape. The question is whether those secrets belong to him... or to the people he hunts.
What are you hiding in there, mystery man?
I push up from my knees and search the rest of the room with a journalist's precision. The floorboards creak under my weight.
Every drawer tells a story—if you know how to read between the orderly rows of black t-shirts and tactical gear.
Everything arranged with military efficiency, not a sock out of place.
The kind of organization that speaks of control, of discipline, of a man who needs the world around him to make sense because the world inside doesn't.
Three items rest on the nightstand. A cup of water. A digital clock. Sun Tzu's "Art of War."
My throat constricts.Don't trust unknown drinks, every crime report ever has taught me.
My eyes drift to the digital alarm clock. It faces the pillow at the perfect angle—like he's calculated the exact degree needed to check time without fully waking.
My fingers brush the worn cover of the Art of War perched beside the bed, dog-eared at chapters about escape routes and defensive positions. The spine is cracked in multiple places—passages read and re-read until they're burned into muscle memory.
I scan the bare wall across from me. No photos. Nothing that would tell me who Logan is… or was.
Just maps on the walls marked with patrol routes and extraction points, each one positioned at perfect right angles.
I trace the familiar routes with my fingertip. These coordinates…It'sIron Hollow.
