"She doesn't have to know. Not yet."
"That feels wrong."
"So does letting some bastard stalk her with no information to work with." I meet his gaze, hold it. "We're not doing this to control her, Cole. We're doing it so we know what we're protecting her from."
He nods, but the tension in his shoulders doesn't ease. "I keep thinking about all the times I could have asked. All the times I noticed something was off and didn't push. Four years, Will. She was in that marriage for four years, and I never made her tell me what was really going on."
"You couldn't have known."
"I should have." His voice cracks. "She's my sister. She didn't even come to our parents' funeral, and I let myself believe the excuses. Work obligations. Travel problems. I should have known something was wrong."
There's nothing I can say to make that better. So I just stand there while he pulls himself together, and when he finally leaves, I let the silence settle around me.
The afternoon passes in routine tasks. I help Nash prep the bar for opening, check the delivery that arrives at three, handle a complaint from a supplier about a late payment that turns out to be our error. Normal things. Necessary things. The kind of work that keeps my hands busy while my mind runs calculations I can't shut off.
Craig Burns. Seattle. Red roses, no card. A message without words, designed to terrify without leaving evidence.
I've known men like him. Served with a few before I learned to spot the signs. The really dangerous ones never hit where it shows. They don't have to.
Gemma ran anyway. Knowing her, she didn't do it recklessly—she would have planned, prepared, covered her tracks. She still ended up here, hundreds of miles away, with roses on her doorstep.
The evening rush comes and goes. I stay behind the bar longer than usual, watching the crowd, watching the door, watching Gemma when she drifts through on her way to the back office. She looks tired tonight, dark circles under her eyesthat makeup can't quite hide. When she catches me looking, she gives me a smile that doesn't reach past her mouth.
Around nine, the crowd thins enough that I can slip away. I head out the back door without thinking about where I'm going, down the narrow path to the dock behind the building.
The Ironside sits on a stretch of waterfront that used to be a fishing operation before the cannery closed. The dock is old, weathered boards that creak under my weight. Most nights we keep the lights off back here to discourage customers from wandering where they shouldn't. Tonight the only illumination comes from the moon and the distant glow of the bar's windows.
Gemma is sitting at the edge, her legs dangling over the water.
She doesn't startle when she hears me approach. Just turns her head enough to see who it is, then goes back to watching the current.
"Cole know you're out here?"
"Cole thinks I'm doing payroll." She pulls her sweater tighter around her shoulders. "I needed air."
I sit down beside her, leaving space between us. The boards are cold through my jeans, and the smell of the ocean mingles with something sharper underneath—salt and tide and the decay that comes with low water.
"How are you holding up?"
She laughs, but there's no humor in it. "Is that a real question or a polite one?"
"Real."
"Then not great." She draws her knees up, wraps her arms around them. "I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. For him to show up at the bar or be standing in the parking lot when I leave." She pauses. "He sent flowers. Red roses, no card. They were on the porch when Cole and I got home last night."
"I know. Cole told me."
"Of course he did." She doesn't sound angry, just tired. "That's how Craig operates. The flowers are just the beginning. He wants me to know he's watching. That he can reach me whenever he wants."
"Tell me about him."
She's weighing whether to answer, and when she finally speaks, her voice comes out quiet and far away.
"We met at a conference. Business networking thing, the kind where everyone's trying to impress everyone else. He was charming. Attentive. Asked questions about me and actually listened to the answers." She stares at the water, her focus somewhere I can't follow. "Six months later we were married. Everyone said it was too fast, but I thought they were jealous. I thought I'd found what you and Sarah had."
The mention of Sarah catches me off guard, even though it shouldn't.
"The first year was good," Gemma continues. "Better than good. He made me feel like the center of his world. Like everything I wanted mattered."
