I expect more teasing, but instead her expression sharpens. “You think protection is just walls and patrols. That is part of it, yes, but you are missing what I know.”
I fold my arms, waiting.
“In Galveston venues, you do not just watch doors,” she says. “You watch flow. How the staff moves, how the guests arrive, where the choke points will form. A kitchen corridor can bottleneck a hundred donors faster than any locked gate. A service elevator is more useful than a dozen cameras if you know which floor it opens to. You call it security. I call it event ops. Different language, same outcome.”
She sets the mug aside and leans forward, voice low but certain. “If you want me to survive, you should use what I see. I can predict when a room will thin out or when a line of sight will open before you can. I know which VIP expects a private egress, and I know which staffer will look the wrong way because the schedule changed.”
Her words catch me off guard. She is not just sparring for control. She is mapping risk in her own way, reading people and spaces the way I read terrain.
“You are saying you can anticipate vulnerabilities I might miss,” I say.
She nods once, firm. “Exactly. My world is flow. Yours is tactics. Put them together and maybe I live through this.”
The wolf inside me stirs, grudgingly impressed. My instinct is to shut her down, but discipline pulls me another way. “Fine. You feed me that intel. I will decide how it folds into the plan.”
Her grin curves sharply. “Progress. I will take it.”
The wolf inside rumbles, stirred by meanings in her words I have no business chasing. My voice drops, rough with warning. “Don’t test me.”
Her laugh is husky this time, lingering between us. “Touchy.”
I slam my palms down on the counter beside her thighs, the sound sharp in the quiet kitchen. Heat radiates off her, seeping into me until my restraint frays. My jaw grinds, anger mixing with a hunger I can’t shake, the two feeding each other until my voice comes out rough. “You need to take this seriously.”
She leans in, fearless. “And you need to stop looking at me like you’re starving.”
The air crackles. My wolf surges, clawing for release. I want to taste her, claim her, but I tear myself back at the last second, breath ragged. “Bed. Now.”
She hops off the counter with a grin that promises trouble. “Whatever you say, Ranger.”
Hours later, I’m outside again, patrol complete, the horizon paling with dawn. The Gulf air is cool and sharp, dew slicking the grass as I move along the fence line. The house behind me is silent, but inside those walls her defiance, her laugh, and the way she looked at me, loop through my head with punishing clarity. Every remembered glance gnaws deeper, clawing until my chest feels raw. She’s in me now, threaded through bone and sinew, and no amount of discipline will dislodge her.
Beyond the fence line, a figure lurks in the shadows, watching the house with a predator’s patience. Eyes catch the faintest spill of dawn, glinting cold. The body is still, too deliberate to be animal, too calculating to be anything but human. I feel the weight of that stare before I even see the shape, and it chills every inch of me.
CHAPTER 9
SADIE
The early dawn light spreads like a faint bruise on the horizon when unease tightens in my gut. The ranch is unnaturally still, the silence stretched tight as though the world itself is holding its breath. I push upright in bed, pulse already racing, the memory of Gage’s eyes on me the night before flashing through my mind.
The sharp crack of gunfire tears through the quiet like a blade, jolting me upright as the world outside erupts in chaos. The sound rolls across the ranch, echoing against the walls, followed by the splintering crash of glass and the distant roar of men shouting. The peace of dawn is gone in a breath, replaced by raw violence that makes the floor beneath me feel unsteady.
My body reacts before my mind does. I tumble out of bed, landing hard on my knees, and scramble for the door. Cassidy bursts in a second later, hair loose, eyes wide. “They’re here.”
Another volley of shots explodes, glass shattering somewhere below in a spray I can almost hear scattering across the floor. These are not the elite hunters who planted bugs and doctored glassware. This is a subcontracted, mid-tier crew, paid to poke the bear, to test the perimeter with noise and pressure. Disposable muscle meant to rattle us and draw blood, not thehand behind the plan. The walls tremble with the impact, and my pulse slams so hard against my ribs it feels like it might break free.
Before I can move, Gage is there, filling the doorway, every line of him taut and lethal. He doesn’t ask if I’m alright, doesn’t waste time on comfort. He grips my arm and hauls me to my feet. “Safe room. Now.”
I want to argue, to plant myself in place and demand answers, but the steel in his eyes makes my protest die in my throat. He propels me forward, Cassidy close on our heels, our footsteps hammering against the polished wood as the house shudders with violence.
Shots ricochet in the distance, windows cracking from the impact, shouts rising like a storm outside—Deacon, Dalton, and the rest of the Rangers locked in battle with the faceless enemy reckless enough to come for us. The sound of gunfire and men’s voices bleeds into a roar that pushes us faster, every stride driven by the knowledge that death could be one turn away.
“Gage, wait...” I try to dig in my heels. “We can’t just hide. They’re out there...”
His glare cuts me off. “You hide, we fight. That’s the only way this works.”
We reach the den at a dead run and Gage rips open a concealed panel, revealing a steel door yawning like the maw of some beast. His hand is firm on my back as he propels me through first, Cassidy at my side. The safe room swallows us whole, the reinforced walls dampening the chaos but not the terror clawing through my chest.
The air crackles with tension, every breath charged as screens flare to life across one wall. Grainy feeds show the grounds outside, the night torn open by bursts of light. Figures dart across the cameras like ghosts in combat, muzzle flashesripping through the dark and turning the pasture into a battlefield alive with fire and shadow.
