Chapter 6
Noel
The Stargazer Hotel—Studio B
The second I get her behind the heavy oak door, the noise from the ballroom fades.
My pulse doesn’t.
I sweep the room—conference table, curtained windows, a kitchenette, emergency exit.
Empty. Good.
Then I pull the radio from my belt.
“Jack, you’ve got the feed. Ego, question every staff member who came in before eight. Get me eyes on the service corridor. Copy?”
“Copy.”
“Yes, boss.”
The replies come crisp and clean, but the knot in my gut doesn’t loosen.
Whoever left that package wasn’t just playing games anymore. They’d been close enough to the stage to smell the flowers.
Behind me, Holly perches on the edge of a folding chair.
She’s pale, her hands trembling even though she’s trying to hide it.
“Hey.” I crouch in front of her so she has to look at me. “Breathe. You’re safe right now.”
Her laugh is brittle.
“Safe? Noel, that note was inside the hotel. They knew where I’d be. How—how do you call that safe?”
Her eyes are glassy, panic pushing at the edges. I can see the moment the adrenaline that’s been holding her together starts to crash.
“Easy, Tinsel,” I murmur, softer than I mean to. “We’re going to find whoever’s doing this.”
She shakes her head, fingers twisting together.
“I should’ve told my bosses I couldn’t handle it. I thought I could. I told Clem I would, but maybe I’m not strong enough for the big city. I thought—” Her voice breaks, and that sound punches straight through my armor.
I reach out, meaning only to steady her. But she flinches, and it breaks my heart.
“Shit, I’m sorry. I can’t stop shaking. I don’t want you to see me like this.”
“Holly.”
She swallows hard, still not looking at me.
“You must think I’m ridiculous. I plan events for a living, and here I am—”
“Stop.” I hear the roughness in my own voice. “I don’t think that. Not for a second.”
Her gaze snaps to mine, wet and furious.
“Then what do you think? Because I don’t even know what’s happening anymore. Every time you look at me, I can’t tell if you’re about to bark an order or—”
She cuts herself off, biting her lip.
“Or what?” I ask quietly.
Her chin lifts, defiant even through the tears.
“Or kiss me stupid.”
The air goes still. My brain tells me to stand up, to walk out, to remember every line in the Sigma handbook.
But my heart—my gut, the part that’s been humming since the first time she swung her purse at me—doesn’t listen.
I rise slowly, pulling her to her feet with me, closing the inch between us until her knees brush my thighs.
My hand finds her jaw, thumb resting just under the tremor in her lip.
“You sure this is what you want right now?”
Her breath hitches.
“I don’t know what I want, Noel. But I’ve thought about doing this since I met you.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Me too.”
And then I kiss her.
Not hard, not yet—just enough to stop the trembling. Enough to replace fear with something real and grounding.
Fuck, she feels good. Too good to be honest.
Holly exhales into me, a soft, shaky sound, and my control slips another inch.
The taste of her—chai tea, nerves, the faintest sweetness beneath it all—burns away everything else.
When I finally pull back, I rest my forehead against hers.
“You’re okay,” I whisper. “I’ve got you.”
She nods, breath unsteady.
“That wasn’t, um, protocol.”
I almost laugh.
“No. But it worked. No more panicking.”
“No more panicking,” she echoes—like she trusts me. And that does something to me inside.
Outside the door, radios crackle, boots echo. Reality slams back in, and I straighten.
“My team’s got statements coming in. I need to check the footage.”
She catches my sleeve before I move.
“I get it. But, um, don’t apologize for that,” she says softly. “For whatever that was.”
I glance down at her hand on my arm—small, firm, stubborn—and that same something in me settles.
“I’m not going to,” I tell her. “Because Holly? I’m not sorry for kissing you. In fact, I think we’re just getting started.”
“You do?”
I nod.
“But it also means I can’t afford to fuck this up.”
And I mean every word.
Because this feels personal.
Because this woman is under my skin in a way nothing else ever has been.
And for the first time in years, the mission doesn’t feel like enough.
I step outside, knowing she is safe for now, even though I don’t like leaving her.
But I have to. I’ve switched from adrenaline to autopilot.
Studio B is locked down with Holly inside—Kai, Ego’s twin brother and another member of my team, stationed at the door, per my order—and I’m back in the temporary security hub the hotel cleared for us.
A wall of monitors flickers, depicting feeds from every angle of the ballroom and service corridors.
The hum of equipment is the only thing steady enough to drown out the sound still echoing in my head. Her voice when she said, “Or kiss me”.
I drag a hand over my face. Focus, Kane.
Jack rounds the corner first, tablet tucked under his arm, coffee in the other hand.
Ego—not his real name, but no one bothers to even ask anymore—follows close behind, broad-shouldered and stone-faced.
They both straighten when they see me.
“Talk to me,” I say.
Jack flips open the tablet.
“We’ve reviewed the lobby and service-corridor feeds from the past four hours. No sign of anyone bringing in a package that matches the description.”
I frown. “That’s impossible. Something that size doesn’t just materialize.”
“Agreed,” Ego rumbles, voice thick and gravelly. “Staff say deliveries come through the east loading dock. We checked—everything’s logged except for one gap between six-fifty and seven-oh-two a.m. Feed cuts out for twelve minutes. Tech thinks it was looped.”
I feel the hair rise at the back of my neck.
“So someone knew exactly where the cameras were.”
Jack nods.
“And when to move. We questioned everyone who was on-site before eight. Most of them didn’t see anything, but one maid—Teresa Alonzo—mentioned a black van parked in the alley behind the kitchen entrance. Said it didn’t look like a hotel supplier.”
“Details.”
“She said a man got out wearing a gray sweatsuit, beanie, sunglasses. Middle height, lean build. She assumed he was a courier because he carried a small box. She turned away to grab linens, looked back, and the van was gone.”
Twelve minutes. Just enough time to slip in, plant the gift, and disappear.
I stare at the footage looping on the main monitor. Empty corridor, then static, then the next frame with the chair and the box waiting like a taunt.
“Did she catch a plate number?”
Jack shakes his head.
“No. But she thinks she saw a sticker on the bumper—maybe a sports logo? Could’ve been Mets or Knicks.”
“Get a list of all delivery vans that came through Midtown in that window. Cross-check with traffic cameras on Fifty-Seventh and Eighth.”
They both nod, already moving.
Ego pauses at the door.
“You want us to pull hotel staff for interviews again?”
“No. Let them breathe. Whoever planted that thing is long gone.” I hesitate, glancing toward the monitor that shows Studio B’s hallway.
“But keep eyes on her door until I get her out of here.”
“Want us to bring her—”
“No,” I say, cutting Jack off from finishing that offer.
I don’t give an explanation.
Ego’s brows lift, but he just says, “Copy,” and disappears down the hall.
When the room is quiet again, I lean against the console, staring at the grainy freeze-frame of the dead rose sitting on that chair.
The stalker’s handwriting bleeds across the tag like it was carved instead of written.
A black van. A man in a beanie. A message meant to make her panic.
He’s getting bolder. Closer.
And I can feel it now—the shift from professional distance to something else entirely.
The protective urge that isn’t about the job anymore.
I thumb the comm button on my radio. “Kai.”
“Yeah, boss?”
“How’s she doing?”
A beat.
Then, “Shaken, but holding it together. Keeps asking when you’re coming back.”
My jaw tightens. “Tell her I’ll be there in five.”
Because the truth is, I can handle surveillance, suspects, and threats in my sleep.
What I can’t handle is the idea of Holly sitting alone in that room, scared, thinking she’s just another case file.
She’s not.
Not anymore.