“I did recon. Dial.”
One word. Absolute.
I don’t argue. I don’t bristle. I don’t push back the way I normally would when a man assumes authority over me outside of very specific, negotiated spaces.
I’m already moving.
The phone feels heavier than it should, solid and utilitarian, issued equipment rather than anything personal.
Only after do my hands stop shaking.
His presence fills the cab. Controlled. Certain. The kind of certainty that doesn’t demand obedience.
It simply expects it.
My body recognizes the difference before my mind does.
The leather of the steering wheel creaks under his grip.
He knows. He senses the look. The attraction. The pull. The rightness of it spirals between us like smoke in a burning building.
His voice drops an octave, vibrating in the small space.
“Make the call, Doc. Then put the phone away. We have a long drive.”
As the line rings, I study his profile in the dashboard glow. The scar on his neck catches the light, a jagged white line running into his collar, a map of past violence. An insane, irrational urge rises in me to touch it. To learn whether the skinis smooth or rough. To feel whether the pulse beneath it runs as steady as his hands.
I look at the dark road ahead. I look at the man beside me, the lone wolf who just saved me from a pack of killers only to carry me into his own den.
“Hello. Mom.”
My voice sounds like a stranger’s, hollow and thin.
I lie to her. I tell her I’m safe. I tell her I’m just working late.
And staring at the weapon on the seat, at the man driving us deeper into the dark, the truth lands hard. For the first time tonight, it isn’t entirely a lie.
I am working.
I’m working on staying alive, and he’s the only one qualified to make it happen.
4
The Extraction
BOYD
We ditchthe truck in a dead zone under the I-70 overpass.
It’s a calculated risk, like everything else in my life. The truck is burned. Mercer’s team has the make and model; they have the plate. By now, that information cycles through every law enforcement database and private security network on the Front Range. Every traffic camera between here and the safe house acts as a potential eye, scanning for the rusted bumper of a beat-up Ford.
I pull the F-150 into the deepest shadow I can find, wedging it next to a rusted dumpster that reeks of rotting cabbage and wet cardboard. I kill the lights. The engine dies with a shudder, the silence rushing in to fill the cab instantly.
“Get out.”
Iris doesn’t argue. She doesn’t move immediately either. She sits frozen, staring through the bug-splattered windshield at the concrete pylon in front of us. She’s vibrating. A fine, high-frequency tremor that has nothing to do with the cold and everything to do with the adrenaline crash.
I sharpen the edge of my voice.
