Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 58377 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 292(@200wpm)___ 234(@250wpm)___ 195(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 58377 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 292(@200wpm)___ 234(@250wpm)___ 195(@300wpm)
He leaves with the paper rolled tight like a baton. The door clicks shut, reverberations jangling my bones.
Back in Command, Orange-Team has flagged two suspicious staff calls; Hartley is already subpoenaing tower logs. But leaks spread like fissures. TMZ drone footage pops up on TikTok—Kingsley House lit by police strobes, bomb squad hauling a canister. The narrative spirals unchecked.
I phone Dean.
He answers on the first ring. “Dog and pony show going sideways?”
“Media breach. Strategic infiltration. Kingsley wants relocation. I’m leaning toward extraction until we ID the mole.”
Dean exhales. “Pulling her mid-crisis may embolden the attacker, but public frenzy compromises perimeter.”
“So we go dark. Off-grid property west of Saint Pierce, near Wolfsridge Canyon. In the mountains. Orange-Team can re-fortify in twelve hours.”
“Agree. Who compromises command here?”
“Riggs stays onsite with Malik to liaise with PD. Rae, Andersson on convoy with me and Cam.”
“Do it fast, low-vis. And Sawyer—cut emotional entanglement loose until thread’s snipped. Operatives in love bleed mistakes.”
“Who says I’m in love? Did you talk to Riggs?” Motherfucker.
“Just stay clear.”
My grip tightens on the phone. “Copy.” But love isn’t a switch I can flick.
09:10 — Cam’s studio
She’s at the easel, bare feet, Sawyer-T-shirt, wielding a palette knife like a saber. A new canvas—storm clouds swirling cobalt and ember. She turns, reading urgency in my stride.
“What happened?”
“Press leaked the bomb story. Paparazzi will swarm. Your father’s worried.”
She wipes paint on a rag. “He wants to hide me.”
“He wants you alive.” I step close, lowering my voice. “I propose a temporary relocation. Isolated safe house, new sensor grid. 48-hour blackout until we track the mole.”
Her eyes search mine—fear, frustration, and a small flicker of hope. “Will you be there?”
“Every second.”
She exhales, her shoulders dropping. “Then yes.”
I stroke her paint-dusty cheek. “Pack essentials—no digital devices. We roll in ninety.”
“Tell me you’ll come back for my paints,” she jokes weakly.
“I’ll buy every tube in Wolfsridge Canyon.”
She smiles, brave. I want to kiss her, to steal one slice of calm before the storm, but footsteps clack.
Vanessa.
“Morning drama or afternoon?” Vanessa asks, sipping iced coffee.
“More like relocation,” Cam answers, slipping into logistics.
Vanessa’s brows lift but she nods. “Where?”
“Undisclosed,” I say.
She salutes with her straw. “He’s getting hotter the bossier he gets,” she whispers to Cam, earning an eye roll.
11:05 — Motor court
Three black SUVs idle. Rae drives lead, Andersson tail. I stand beside Cam at the car door, scanning press vans staking out beyond the gate. A Helicopter thumps overhead as a few drones whine.
Riggs jogs over. “PD staging decoy convoy south. Should draw paparazzi.”
“Good.” I draw Cam’s hand to my heart. “Ready?”
“I think so.” She slips into the SUV.
Before I round to the driver’s seat, Riggs grasps my forearm. “You know what you’re doing?”
“Keeping her breathing.”
His gaze digs. He nods once, then turns to marshal decoys.
I slide in. Cam links her fingers with mine on the console. Her pulse thrums—but there’s no fear. There’s only trust.
As we roll through the gates, flashes explode against tinted glass. Media screams questions. My phone buzzes. A text pops on screen:
YOU CAN RUN, BLUE PRINCESS. THE CANVAS IS EVERYWHERE. LET’S ADD MORE RED.
Attached there’s a photo of Cam and me dancing last night, crosshairs drawn over our joined hands.
Rage sears. I lock the screen, my thumb forking my shoulder strap. Cam sees, her jaw tightening but she stays composed.
“We’ll find them,” she whispers.
Glass reflects determination in her hazel eyes, matching my own. The game isn’t over; it’s escalating. But we’re not playing defense anymore. We’re bait—and we know it. The difference? This time the hunter faces a shield forged of vigilance, fury, and a love I no longer bother denying.
Let them come.
16
Camille
The mountains rise out of nowhere—jagged silhouettes against a bruised-lavender sky—and I realize I’ve never truly seen night until now. No city glow, no highway glare. Just a velvet hush pricked with stars and the low purr of our convoy weaving up a switchback ridge that feels halfway to the moon. It’s both beautiful and unsettling: beauty because the air smells like woodsmoke and pine sap, unsettling because the blackness presses so thick it could hide anything.
Sawyer said the safe house is “quiet,” but the word feels hilariously inadequate when the gates finally loom into the headlights. Twelve feet of reinforced wrought iron, capped with discreet razor wire, slide inward on whisper-silent hydraulics. Beyond, twin beams sweep the drive in a lazy X—motion-tracking floodlights.
“Welcome to Bastion,” Sawyer says from the driver’s seat, voice a soothing rumble in the dark. He’s been calm the entire three-hour drive, but that calm is bulletproof Kevlar stretched over a soul currently set to siege mode. I can feel the tension in the way he grips the wheel, a white-knuckle promise that this place will hold.
Rae’s SUV turns off down a graveled spur leading to a small A-frame with a wide veranda—the security house. Andersson flashes his high beams twice.