Page 21 of The Agent’s Curvy Seduction

"That's not on you," Madelyn says, gentle but firm, the way she talks to people who are about to do something stupid out of guilt. "That's on him."

"It's on both of us." I close the laptop harder than I mean to. "We're coming to you," I tell them. "All three of you. I don't trust any channel that runs through the agency until I know exactly how deep this goes."

"We're already in the truck," Finn says. "Forty minutes out."

I end the call and sit there for a moment in the quiet, feeling the weight of every wrong turn stacking up behind me—the promise I made Daniel, the extraction that never should have failed, and now a corrupt agent circling closer to the one person left alive to pay for it.

When I go back down to the secure room, Willow is sitting exactly where I left her, back straight, hands folded in her lap in a way that means she's holding herself together through sheer will. She looks up when I come down the stairs, and I watch her read my face before I say a single word.

"It's bad," she says. Not a question.

"There's a leak inside my task force. Same person who sold your family's extraction route seven months ago. He's still active. He found this cabin three weeks ago."

Her face goes white, but she doesn't fall apart. "So he's the reason they know I'm alive."

"He's part of it. A photo from the bakery got you flagged. He's the reason they know exactly where to find you now."

She's quiet for a long moment, staring at the concrete wall like she's trying to find something solid to hold onto in it. Then she looks back at me, and there's something in her eyes I haven't seen since the first night I brought her here—not fear. Resolve.

"I'm not staying down here like a piece of evidence in an evidence locker," she says.

"Willow—"

"No." She stands up, and even in an oversized t-shirt with her hair a mess from stress, she manages to look like she means it. "You don't get to decide I'm something you lock in a room to keep safe. My father died trying to get this evidence out. I'm not going to sit in a basement while everyone else decides what happens to it."

I want to argue. Every protective instinct in me wants to put her behind three feet of concrete and stand in front of the door myself. But I look at her, at the steel underneath the fear, and I think about Daniel Thompson telling me his daughter would keep something safe without even knowing what it was—and I understand that keeping her safe doesn't mean making her small.

"Okay," I say. "Then you're going to help me."

Something shifts in her expression—surprise, then something steadier.

"The drive," I tell her, "goes in the lockbox, and only the two of us know the combination. If anything happens to me, you get it to Dash. Nobody else. Not through any official channel, not until we know Rourke's been dealt with." I hold her gaze. "I need you to memorize something, too. The account numbers Dash pulled off the initial financial scan—three shell companies tied directly to Michaelson's personal signature, not just the company's. If the drive gets destroyed, if I get taken out, you still know enough to burn him down."

She repeats the numbers back to me twice, slow and careful, the same focus she probably brings to memorizing a recipe, until I'm satisfied they've locked into her memory the way they need to.

"And you're going to keep training," I say. "Every day, until this is over. Shooting, movement, the escape routes through the tree line. I'm not doing this without you knowing how to save your own life if I'm not standing next to you."

"Okay," she says, and there's no hesitation in it.

I pull her against me, feel her heartbeat pounding hard and fast under my palm, and for one long moment I let myself just hold her, memorizing the shape of her against my chest like it might be the last uninterrupted minute we get.

My phone buzzes again. I don't want to look at it. I look at it anyway.

Dash. Three words, nothing else.

Voss is moving.

I feel Willow go rigid against me, feeling the tension bleed into my body before I even say anything.

"What is it?" she whispers.

"Michaelson's mobilized his head of security." I set my jaw, already running the calculations—distance, timeline, how many hours until whoever's coming actually arrives. "The cabin isn't secure anymore. Not the way I thought it was."

She pulls back just enough to look up at me, and instead of the fear I expect, I see something colder and more determined settle into her face.

"Then we get ready," she says.

I look at her—flour-dusted, terrified, and steadier than half the agents I've worked with for twenty-five years—and something in my chest that's been braced for disaster since the moment I read that message finally exhales.