I stand behind her, my hands resting lightly on her shoulders, guarding her back while she works.
"Look here," she says after a minute, her green eyes darting across lines of raw hexadecimal code. "They're using a recursive search loop to narrow down our IP node. It’s fast, but it’s rigid. They’re running it on an automated script that re-indexes every sixty seconds."
"Which means?" I ask, leaning down, hypnotized by the sheer brilliance radiating off her.
"Which means if I feed a poisoned data packet into their ping response during the three-second delay between index cycles, it will overwrite their tracking coordinates with a false location ten miles north," she explains, a dark, wicked smirk touching her lips. "I can blind their digital team and buy us a few more hours."
A surge of fierce, unadulterated pride swells in my chest. She isn't just a woman I want to protect and spoil for the rest of my life, she is my equal. A brilliant, lethal match for me in every single way.
"Do it, baby," I rumble, pressing a hard kiss to the crown of her head.
Her fingers blur across the keys, building the override code. "Almost... got it... just five more seconds?—"
BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.
A shrill, crimson flash illuminates the entire command center. The silent perimeter sensors on the outer property lines have just tripped.
Stella’s head snaps up to the overhead wall monitors. On the live night-vision feeds showing the dense treeline surrounding the safe house, dark shapes are moving with tactical precision. Dozens of them.
My phone buzzes on the desk. A text from Miller pops up on the lock screen:Intercepted a sub-team, taking them down now. But a main strike force breached your outer perimeter. They’re on you, Easton. We're thirty out.
They didn't wait for the digital confirmation. They sent a sweep squad to physically flush us out.
The time for talk is over.
I calmly reach into the arms locker, pulling out my customized sidearm. I check the action with a grim, deadly calm, racking a heavy round into the chamber with a sharp, satisfyingclack.
I turn back to Stella. She’s standing by the console, her chest heaving, watching me with wide eyes. But there’s no terror in her face, only absolute trust in the man standing in front of her.
I step up to her, cupping her face in my large, rough hand, my thumb tracing her jawline.
"Stay right behind this console, sweetheart," I say, my voice dropping into a dark, reassuring promise that leaves zero room for doubt. "I'm going to step outside and end this threat once and for all. No one is taking my woman from me."
9
STELLA
The deafening, metallic crash of shattering reinforced glass punches through the command center, shaking the concrete floor beneath my boots.
Panic flares in my throat, hot and sharp, but before fear can choke me, my mind snaps into a state of icy, hyper-focused clarity. I grew up in a system where survival meant reading the room before the danger hit. Today, the danger is inside the house.
Smoke and a flash bang glare bloom through the hallway, but I don't freeze.Trust goes both ways.Easton is my sword and shield, but I’m not standing by as dead weight.
While the deafening roar of gunfire erupts, I lunge toward the main console. My heart hammers against my ribs like a trapped bird, but my fingers move with deliberate precision. I slam my encrypted thumb drive into the server port, initiating the hard wipe of the safe house mainframe while backing up every scrap of evidence against the Shadow Syndicate to my cloud drive.
A tall, heavily armored Syndicate operative bursts through the smoke-filled doorway, his assault rifle raised.
Easton is already moving. He’s a towering, unstoppable force of nature that I can’t look away from. He takes down the first man with a brutal, bone-crunching strike, his dark eyes ablaze with unwavering focus. But through the haze of flash powder, I see a second operative flank around the server rack, bringing a silenced weapon up right toward Easton’s blind spot.
"Easton!" I scream.
There’s no time to think. I grab the heavy, solid-steel casing of an offline server unit from the desk and hurl it with everything I’ve got directly into the operative’s face.
The heavy metal connects with a sickeningthud. The man staggers backward, grunting as his weapon discharges harmlessly into the ceiling. That fraction of a second is all Easton needs. He pivots with fluid, terrifying efficiency, grabbing the operative by the vest and slamming him headfirst into the concrete wall. The man drops like a stone, motionless.
Easton’s chest heaves, his shirt torn, his signature scar flushed red against his furious face. He snaps his gaze to me, his brown eyes wild and possessive. He strides over, snatching me up by the waist and pulling me into his hard chest for a brief, breathless second.
"You hit him with a server?" he growls into my hair, his pulse thumping frantically against my palm.
