Chapter Five
The safehouse had been a tobacco barn once. Now it was something else entirely.
Forge moved through the structure with methodical precision, cataloging sight lines and calculating fields of fire.
The main room offered three windows—two facing the access road, one covering the tree line to the east. He'd already reinforced the doors with steel plates from Cargo's supplies.
The back exit led to a ravine that could serve as an escape route if everything went sideways.
It wasn't perfect. Nothing ever was.
But it would hold.
"You've checked that window four times."
Caroline's voice pulled him from his assessment. She sat on the old couch they'd dragged in from the compound, Ranger's head in her lap, her fingers working through the dog's fur with absent-minded affection.
"Fifth time's the charm," he said.
"Is it?"
"No. But I'll probably check it again anyway."
Something flickered across her face. Not judgment—she'd moved past that somewhere between the clinic ambush and their arrival here. Something closer to understanding.
She'd been watching him work for two days now.
Hadn't complained when he'd positioned her sleeping area away from windows.
Hadn't argued when he'd insisted on checking every supply delivery before she touched it.
Hadn't said a word when he'd spent three hours last night mapping escape routes through the surrounding forest.
She just... watched. Like she was learning a new language.
"The Peterson property." She broke the silence, her hand still moving through Ranger's fur. "About six miles northwest. Tobacco barn that's been 'abandoned' for years, except there's always fresh tire tracks."
Forge paused. "You're sure?"
"I treated their cattle three years ago. The barn was supposedly empty, but I saw equipment through the slats. Fighting equipment—the kind you'd use to condition dogs." Her jaw tightened. "I didn't know what I was looking at then. I do now."
He pulled the map from his back pocket—Caroline's original, marked up with additional intel from the past forty-eight hours. The Peterson property sat in a dead zone, accessible by three different back roads, invisible from any main thoroughfare.
Perfect for blood sport.
"What else?" he asked.
"The Whitmore farm, down near the county line. Earl Renfro manages their tobacco lease, but nobody's grown tobacco there in a decade. Too much traffic for a dead operation."
"Renfro."
"Wiry guy, keeps to himself. I've seen him at Pittman's auction barn. Always in the back, always watching." She met Forge's eyes. "He gives me the same feeling Stroud does. Like something's wrong underneath."
Forge marked both locations on the map. Two potential fight sites, one confirmed organizer. More than they'd had yesterday.
"You're good at this," he said.
"At what? Paying attention?" She shrugged, but color touched her cheeks. "I've been treating animals in these hills for five years. You notice things. Which farms are doing well, which ones are struggling. Who's friendly and who avoids eye contact."
"Most people don't turn observation into intelligence."
"Most people aren't trying to shut down a dogfighting ring."
He folded the map and crossed to where she sat. Ranger's tail thumped against the couch cushions, but the dog didn't lift his head from Caroline's lap.
Traitor.
"The reinforced entry points," he said, settling onto the arm of the couch. Close enough to touch, not quite touching. "I know you think it's excessive."
"I didn't say that."
"You didn't have to." He watched her hands work through Ranger's fur, steady and sure.
The same hands that had stitched her own arm, carried a dead horse, held a shotgun during an ambush without trembling.
"The doors are reinforced because standard wood splinters under sustained fire.
The windows are positioned to create overlapping fields of observation.
The back exit leads to a ravine because downhill retreat is faster than uphill. "
"You're explaining yourself."
"Yeah."
"You don't usually do that."
"No." He met her eyes. "I don't."
Something shifted between them. The air grew heavier, charged with possibility.
"Why now?" she asked.
Because you're the first person who looked at my paranoia and saw protection instead of pathology. Because you didn't flinch when I told you about checking weapons until my hands bled. Because you watched me plan for your death and understood it meant I was planning for your life.
He didn't say any of that.
"Because you're here," he said instead. "And I want you to understand why I do what I do."
Caroline was quiet for a long moment. Ranger huffed contentedly, oblivious to the tension above him.
"The Peterson barn," she finally said. "If that's where they run fights, there'd be evidence. Blood on the floors, equipment, maybe even surviving dogs."
"Probably."
"Then that's where we start."
"We?"
Her chin lifted. That stubborn set he was beginning to recognize as Caroline preparing for battle.
"I know these roads. I know these people. And I know what injured fighting dogs need when they're recovered." She held his gaze. "You need me."
"I need you safe."
"I can be both."
The argument was on the tip of his tongue—all the reasons she should stay behind locked doors while he handled the violence. All the tactical objections to bringing a civilian into an operational theater.
But he looked at her—this woman who'd stitched her own wounds rather than show weakness, who'd buried her horse without breaking, who'd walked through the aftermath of a firefight and demanded to understand why instead of running—and the objections died unspoken.
"If we hit that barn," he said slowly, "you stay behind the assault team. You don't move until the site is secure. And if I tell you to run, you run. No arguments."
"And if there are animals that need immediate care?"
"Then you do what you do. After the shooting stops."
She nodded. A deal struck.
Forge should have felt uneasy about it. Should have insisted on keeping her locked away where nothing could touch her.
Instead, he felt something closer to respect.
His phone buzzed. Cargo's name on the screen.
"Talk to me."
"Stroud's mobilizing." Cargo's voice was tight. "My sources say he's checking every property connected to your vet. The clinic, obviously. The Hendricks place where she boards horses sometimes. The old Dawson farm where she does cattle work."
"He's hunting her."
"Like a dog with a scent. Pittman's people are pissed about the ambush—lost two men, failed to grab the target. Stroud's been tasked with fixing the problem."
Forge's free hand curled into a fist. Across the room, Caroline watched him with steady eyes, reading his tension even if she couldn't hear the conversation.
"How close?" he asked.
"Not close enough to find the safehouse. Yet." A pause. "But he's systematic. Working through her known contacts, her regular routes. Sooner or later, he'll work his way toward the Petersons' property. If he realizes we're looking at it—"
"Then we hit it first."
"That's what I figured you'd say." Cargo's voice carried a grim satisfaction. "Ghost has reconnaissance scheduled for tonight. We'll have a full picture by morning."
"And Stroud?"
"He'll keep hunting. Question is whether we let him find what he's looking for."
Forge looked at Caroline. At the woman who'd become his mission without either of them choosing it. At the stubborn set of her jaw and the fire underneath her exhaustion.
Stroud had put a knife to her arm. Had shot her horse to make a point. Was right now combing through the sandhills, hunting for her location with the single-minded focus of a predator tracking wounded prey.
"He's not finding her," Forge said. "And when we're done with the Peterson barn, we're going to have a conversation about what happens to men who hunt women through my territory."
"Copy that." Cargo ended the call.
Forge pocketed the phone and crossed back to the couch. Caroline hadn't moved, but her eyes tracked him with the alertness of someone who'd learned that phone calls in this world rarely brought good news.
"Stroud," she said. Not a question.
"He's looking for you. Checking your known contacts, your regular routes."
"Will he find this place?"
"No."
The certainty in his voice surprised even him. But looking at the reinforced doors, the positioned windows, the carefully mapped escape routes—looking at everything he'd built to keep her safe—he knew it was true.
Nobody was getting through those doors.
Nobody was touching her again.
"The Peterson barn," he said. "We hit it tomorrow night. Ghost is running reconnaissance tonight—we'll have numbers, positions, everything we need."
"And Stroud?"
Forge's jaw tightened. "Stroud's hunting you through my territory. That's a problem I plan to solve."
"Solve how?"
He didn't answer. Didn't need to.
Caroline's eyes searched his face for a long moment. He waited for the objection—the moral argument about violence, the plea for a peaceful solution.
It didn't come.
"Good," she said quietly. "Because I'm tired of being hunted."
Ranger chose that moment to roll over, demanding belly rubs. The tension broke as Caroline laughed—startled, genuine, the first real laugh he'd heard from her.
Forge watched her hands move across his dog's stomach, and something in his chest loosened.
Tomorrow they'd assault a dogfighting operation. Soon after, he'd deal with Stroud permanently.
But right now, in this reinforced safehouse with a woman who was learning to trust him, Forge allowed himself to feel something other than vigilance.
Something that might have been hope.