Chapter Twenty-Four
Jo
I should have run when the Winston sisters were working themselves into a frenzy about how Nate had left me.
That was my exit—my clean window to disappear while everyone was on my side.
Nate was a man in his prime, but Mr. Carlisle would have held him off if I’d asked him to.
Hell, Bibi probably would have taken out one of his knees if I’d implied he’d hurt me.
But I couldn’t do that.
Nate wasn’t the bad guy in this. Some might say I was.
And now his private security team was inside Silas’s farmhouse, heavy boots thudding across old pine floors, radios crackling softly like insects.
They moved quietly—professionally—but the house felt invaded all the same.
The warm, cluttered refuge Silas had given me had been turned into a tactical layout.
Fantastic job, Jo. Really brilliant fugitive work. Dad would be so proud.
I retreated to the kitchen as shadowed figures surrounded the house and began to enter. Every instinct I had snapped awake—track movements, assess weapons, map exits—but the geometry was wrong. Too many men. Too much gear. Not enough shadows and everything I needed to take with me out in the open.
Nate appeared in the kitchen entryway, shoulders squared, jaw tight. His presence shifted the air. His men filed in around him.
When the first of his team stepped fully inside, Nate moved before I did—just a subtle shift forward, unforced, natural. Positioning himself between me and the security team.
Not blocking me . . . shielding me.
My heartbeat stalled for one suspended moment.
The team leader, a man built like a granite countertop, held a tablet and began reading. “Josephine Ashby. Twenty-seven. Considered missing and potentially dangerous. Father: Roy Ashby, currently incarcerated for—”
My breath hitched.
There it was. My real life, dragged into Silas’s kitchen like a stain.
“—industrial espionage, theft of restricted technology, and multiple federal violations involving unauthorized research.”
A hot, sharp line cut down my spine. I gripped the doorframe until the wood pressed into my palm. One of the men flicked his gaze toward me while he read, the look lingering a fraction too long.
Nate’s voice sliced clean through the room. “Eyes on me, Collins. Not her.”
The man’s attention snapped back to his device.
“And while we’re clear,” Nate added, calm but edged with steel, “she’s under my protection. Treat her with the same respect you treat me.”
Heat crashed into my chest. I didn’t want any of this to matter. I didn’t want him to matter.
The team leader continued, scrolling on a tablet with a precise tap of his thumb, “Multiple agencies flagged her disappearance for follow-up. Private contractors have active notices. No record of movement in the last few months.”
Good. Thank God. Fake IPs and cash-only economies still worked.
He scrolled again.
“No official reason why she’s being sought for questioning.”
Relief hit so hard I almost swayed.
They’d found the missing woman.
But not the work.
Dad taught me how to bury things deep.
Across the room, Nate exhaled audibly.
He was weighing everything. Weighing me.
“Anything else?” he asked.
“Yes,” the operative replied. “She’s made some powerful enemies who would like to see her in prison as well. If anyone connects her to you, this becomes obstruction at best. Accessory at worst.”
My stomach twisted.
They were warning him about me.
Nate pinned me with a look. “For what? Accessory to stealing tech?”
Something in my chest went tight.
He warned his team to speak to no one about where they were or what was here. I expected at least one of them to question him, but they didn’t. The way they followed him told me two things: they respected him and he paid them well.
The team began dispersing, moving through the farmhouse like a controlled river of black fabric and testosterone. Radios hummed. Doors opened and shut softly. And we were alone again.
“I’m going to the cabin,” I said.
“No,” Nate answered without looking away from the window he’d been watching some of his men through. It was a cold night. I almost felt for the ones patrolling outside.
My temper sparked. “Yes.”
He turned toward me fully. “Everything you need is being brought into the house. You’re not going to the cabin.”
My fists curled. “You can’t just—”
“I can, and I am,” he said, voice even and absolute. “This place is on lockdown until I know what’s going on.”
The words hit like the slam of a cell door. “You don’t need to figure me out,” I snapped.
“Too late,” he said softly. “I’ve already started.”
The air between us thickened—heated, volatile.
He held out his hand. Palm up. “Gun.”
I barked a humorless laugh. “Are you serious?”
“Jo.”
God, the way he said my name—steady, low, certain—infuriated me more than if he’d shouted.
Jaw clenched, I pulled a gun from the back of my jeans and slapped it into his hand.
He didn’t smirk. Didn’t judge. Just took it.
“Something tells me that’s not your only weapon,” he said. “You can hand them over or I can search you for them.”
I gritted my teeth, lifted my pant leg, and unholstered the ankle gun. He pocketed it. His eyebrow lifted a fraction. “And?”
Was he bluffing or did he know? He looked like he knew.
I pulled a smaller piece from my boot. Then the knife from the seam I’d sewn into my flannel. He let out a quiet whistle. “You planning to fight a militia?”
“I was planning to do what I always do . . . leave and survive,” I shot back. “Until your paramilitary cosplay showed up.”
He stepped closer—not threatening, just present. His scent brushed warm against my nerves: his cologne, a hint of outdoors, and bacon? Oh, yes, from the breakfast he’d made for me in what felt like a lifetime ago.
My lungs forgot their job. How had I screwed up so much so quickly?
“Jo,” he said, “look at me.”
I refused.
He waited.
I hated him for that patience.
My eyes lifted anyway.
“You should get some sleep,” he said.
“I’m not tired.”
“Your hands are shaking.”
I shoved them into my pockets. “It’s winter.”
“Not in here.”
“I run cold.”
“You run angry,” he said quietly.
I glared hard enough to scorch the kitchen. “You think sending me to bed is going to fix anything?”
“I think staying upright when you’re about to crash isn’t helping.”
“I’m not crashing.”
He dipped his head just enough that warmth pricked down my spine. “Then why can I hear your heartbeat from here?” he murmured.
I looked away.
Damn him.
“You really think you can contain me?” I whispered, my voice raw with exhaustion I didn’t want him to hear.
“I don’t want to contain you,” he said. “I want the truth . . . and you safe.”
The words landed in the most dangerous part of me.
Two men walked by with some of my boxes. No rummaging. No roughness. When I glanced at Nate, he was watching me, expression unreadable but firm.
He gave a small nod.
Not to them.
To me.
It was another invitation to open up to him.
My throat tightened, and I didn’t know what to do with the mix of desire and frustration in his eyes.
I spun and stalked down the hall, boots hitting the hardwood in sharp, angry beats—frustration, humiliation, exhaustion, want—all crashing together.
When I reached the guest room, there were more than two boxes. More than just my clothes. My research was there. The power cells. All the things I wouldn’t leave without.
Fury spiked, hot and metallic.
I stepped inside and slammed the door hard enough to rattle the frame, then slumped my back to the wood, chest heaving, hands still shaking.
Trapped. Confused. Infuriated.
Unarmed.
Yet, somehow . . . protected.