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He hadn’t moved more than a few feet away since Ben had said Wade’s name.

Nobody had asked him to. Nobody needed to.

Riot looked around the room. “Listen up.”

Every Bishop boy did.

Mom stood near the kitchen entrance with her radio clipped to the waistband of her jeans, gun held low at her side. Marion looked almost absurd beside her, tiny and blond and delicate until you noticed the pistol in her hand and the complete absence of fear in the way she held it.

Dad looked at all of us. “Mercer isn’t somebody we treat like a normal fugitive.”

Ruckus’s brows drew together. “Because he took Hazel?”

“That would be enough,” Dad told him. “It isn’t the only reason.”

Riot folded his arms. “Army. Seventy-fifth Ranger Regiment.”

That changed the room.

I felt it.

Rook’s eyes sharpened. Clayton glanced at me. Micah stopped adjusting his watch.

Dad continued. “He was hunting this country before he enlisted. Army taught him how to do it professionally. Reconnaissance. Surveillance. Land navigation. Fieldcraft. Firearms. How to study a place before he moves on it.”

His gaze settled briefly on me. “How to study people.”

I thought of what Ben had told us. Wade standing on his porch the night before while I was still at the hospital.

She covered a lot of ground yesterday.

I just wanted to see if she still could.

She always could run.

Riot must have seen it land on me. “What he said to Ben wasn’t small talk, babygirl. We treat that as recon until we know different.”

Ruckus looked between our fathers. “You’re acting like he’s coming to war.”

Dad looked at him. “He was trained for one.”

Nobody spoke.

Dad rubbed a hand over his mouth. “Prison didn’t change that. He kept his head down. Followed rules. Stayed out of trouble. Model inmate.”

I stared at him. “That sounds reassuring.”

“It isn’t.”

Riot leaned one shoulder against the wall. “Men like Mercer don’t necessarily get easier to manage. Sometimes they just get better at waiting.”

A chill moved across my skin.

Declan’s hand touched the small of my back.

Riot pushed away from the wall. “Same rules we taught you. You hear something, you call it out. You do not clear a building by yourself. You do not chase somebody outside. You do not go looking for trouble because you happen to be armed.”

His eyes moved deliberately over all five sons.