She reached for her phone, expecting a new ETA from Greta since twenty minutes had come and gone, but the screen showed a text from a blocked number.
Don’t trust Ghost.
The glass nearly slipped from her fingers. She set it down with a sharp click against the countertop.
Who is this?
Three dots appeared, then disappeared. No response.
She stared at the screen, willing them to answer, to explain, but the message remained frustratingly empty.
Was it a colleague from the Bureau warning her? But then why not just come out and say, “Hey, it’s Bob, and you’re poking your nose where it doesn’t belong. Cut it out?” At least, that had been the usual response from her superiors when she crossed a line during an investigation.
Her skin prickled with unease. Had someone been watching her digital footprints closely enough to know she’d been digging into classified files? That kind of surveillance required resources, connections, and access she didn’t want to think too hard about.
She walked to the window and peered through the blinds at the empty street. Nothing moved in the pools of streetlight. The cemetery across the way looked peaceful, headstones casting long shadows in the moonlight.
But the hair on the back of her neck refused to settle.
She pulled the blinds closed and checked her phone again. Still no response from the unknown number. She tried callingit, but all she got was an automated message saying the number had been disconnected. Frustrated, she tossed the phone aside. It landed on the couch and bounced to the floor by the coffee table.
She turned away and braced her hands on the kitchen counter. Someone was just fucking with her. Had to be.
Or maybe someone had seen her at Nessie’s today with Ghost and was just trying to warn her about one of the local bad boys. Not everyone in town liked the men of Valor Ridge.
Or maybe it was Boone Callahan, warning her away. He was notoriously protective of the Ridge and its men, but she couldn’t see him sending an anonymous text. If he had a problem with her and Ghost, he’d tell them flat out. He’d had the perfect opportunity to do so this morning, but he hadn’t.
Heat flooded her at the memory of his interruption. If he hadn’t knocked on the truck’s window when he had, she would’ve fucked Ghost right there in his truck on Main Street. No hesitation, no shame. She’d been seconds from yanking off his belt and impaling herself on his cock, chasing that wild, mean edge until they both forgot their names.
God. Her pulse still hammered just thinking about it—the heat of his mouth, the bruising grip of his hands. Nobody had touched her like that since… ever. Not even the men she’d pretended mattered. Not a single one ever made her lose her grip the way Ghost did with just a look.
She swallowed, throat raw. She was pathetic. A grown woman, tough as nails, and here she was, getting turned on in her own kitchen by the memory of a man whose file should’ve sent her running for the hills.
Trust level: zero.
Her laptop sat closed on the counter, and she found herself scowling at it. The classified file painted a clear picture: Ghost was dangerous. A man who’d betrayed his country, gottenpeople killed, and then somehow negotiated his way out of a life sentence.
But that same file had been so heavily redacted it looked like a crossword puzzle. What if the parts she couldn’t read told a different story? What if there was context she was missing?
The rational part of her brain told her it didn’t matter. The man was convicted. Case closed.
The other part of her, the part that had watched too many good people get railroaded by the system, whispered that maybe things weren’t as simple as they seemed.
A creak at the back door made her freeze, every muscle locking in place.
Greta?
No. She discarded the thought before it even fully formed. Greta would’ve come through the front door, all noise and laughter, probably juggling wine bottles and bags of takeout, shouting about the crappy weather and cursing the drive.
Dammit, her gun was upstairs in her nightstand.
And she’d left her phone where it had landed on the floor in front of the couch.
Naomi set her glass down in the sink and reached for the utensil drawer. She pulled it open slowly, listening for more out-of-place sounds, and grabbed a knife. The handle was light, too light. Not her first choice for self-defense, but it would have to do. Naomi choked up on the hilt, braced herself against the counter, and fixed her gaze on the back hallway.
Nothing. Just the tick-tick of the heater, the low wind snaking around the eaves.
She counted breaths. Each one came shallow, quick, her nerves as raw as a fresh burn. She edged away from the counter toward her phone in the living room, feet silent on the old pine floor. Knife up. Heart in her throat.
