Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 78334 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 392(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78334 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 392(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
“Looks like you have a lot more work to do,” I quip.
She nods exuberantly. “I’m diving into shared travel, private meetings, any instance where they could coordinate without corporate documentation.”
“We’ve got the ability to hack into encrypted communications between RainVest and Pelham’s office as long as Malik approves it, which I’m sure he will. If they’ve slipped even once, Josie will find it.”
For a moment, we’re aligned. Two professionals dissecting a target, a brief respite from my worries about her dying. I see light at the end of the tunnel. “Is that enough for you to publish your piece?” I ask.
Tessa frowns as she contemplates. “I don’t know if it will pass legal with the paper. It would be much better if we could have a closer look at the internal workings of SAPG. Maybe that’s where we find a new whistleblower.”
I shake my head, immediately dismissing the idea. “I seriously doubt anyone within the group will flip. The brotherhood in security groups is tight. Like take a bullet for each other tight. But still… it wouldn’t hurt to poke around. Let me find out from Malik if we have any bridge with that group.”
Her smile is small but fierce. “Okay… we have a game plan.”
I nod and glance at my watch. “You about ready to head home?”
“Home,” she murmurs, as if she’s rolling a foreign word on her tongue. There was a time that “home” wasn’t just a physical location but rather a state of existence between us.
“Your place,” I amend.
She stares at me thoughtfully, with enough pop of silence that I feel hot under the collar. But she eventually nods and closes her laptop. “Yeah… let’s head back to my place.”
CHAPTER 12
Tessa
It’s confusing to be woken from a deep sleep, but the hand at my shoulder gently shaking me has too much purpose to ignore it.
“Tessa.” Cole’s voice is low and close, not loud, not panicked, but threaded with an urgency that pulls me fully awake in an instant. I see the outline of him leaning over me and immediately note he’s fully dressed.
There’s no sluggishness, no struggling to understand the undercurrent of urgency in his voice. “What’s going on?”
“We need to leave.”
My stomach tightens. The word slices deep.
Need.
Not want. Not maybe.
Danger.
Cole reaches down and grabs the sweatpants draped over the end of the bed, pressing them into my hands. “Get dressed. Now.”
My heart begins to hammer hard enough that I feel it in my throat. I swing my legs out of bed and step into the pants with hands that are suddenly unsteady. My tank top must be sufficient and there’s no demand to put on my shoes. Cole waves me behind him as he moves with quiet efficiency to the open doorway that leads into the hallway. That’s when I notice the gun in his hand.
It’s held low, angled toward the floor, finger off the trigger, but ready.
My mouth goes dry. “Is someone here?” I ask, my voice barely more than a breath.
As if in answer, a soft, unfamiliar chime cuts through the silence and it takes me half a second to recognize it as my phone.
The perimeter alert.
It’s from the security app Cole installed on both our phones. It’s set to chime after a legitimate threat detection from the thermal sensors tied to the exterior cameras. It only makes that sound when a large heat signature crosses the boundary mapped around the house.
Another faint chime follows and my pulse spikes. Cole’s eyes flick toward the nightstand where my phone sits glowing in the dark, and then back to me.
“Yes,” he says quietly. “And I need you to stick close behind me.”
Cole reaches into his back pocket, pulls out his phone that’s on a black light setting. The live perimeter map fills the display—a digital outline of my bungalow traced in thin white lines. Four pulsing red shapes move slowly through the yard, their forms rendered in grainy thermal silhouette.
They aren’t wandering. They’re advancing.
I don’t recognize the sound that leaves my throat, between a breath and a gasp, fear leaving me nearly immobile.
“How many?” I ask, even though I can see them.
Cole’s jaw tightens as he watches the shapes shift position near the back hedge. “Four,” he says quietly. “Two front and two back.”
One of the red signatures pauses near the kitchen window. Another moves toward the front door. The other two hang back a bit.
My stomach drops. “Cole…”
He hears the fear in my voice but doesn’t reassure me. He doesn’t have time, instead pressing his thumb down on a button and I know he’s just sent out an alert to Jameson.
“Stay behind me,” he says again, already moving toward the bedroom door. It’s a command wasted as I’m glued to him, my hand on his lower back.
The hallway beyond is dark with only the faint wash of the streetlight bleeding through the curtains in the front room. I follow him barefoot, sweatpants half tied, heart pounding so hard I’m certain whoever is outside can hear it.