Chapter Sixty-One
Phoenix
At oh nine hundred, I checked on Lincoln.
Still asleep, face down on the bed like last night, same as how a little intruse slept, wearing a pair of my shorts, he didn’t stir.
I didn’t wake him.
Leaving a note, letting him know I’d be back in an hour, I quietly exfilled the house.
Fifteen minutes later, needing to check in with Cypher, I pulled into the garage at Paragon HQ and immediately heard the sport bikes before I turned a corner and saw them.
Ares, Helios, Cypher, and Chaos were all suited up in their riding gear, bikes running as they donned helmets.
Angling into a spot next to Helios’s Ducati, I put down my window as both Helios and Cypher walked over.
Helios, visor flipped up, gave me a warning glare. “Whatever the fuck it is, don’t even think about it. We’re going riding.”
“I can see that.”
His glare turned into suspicion. “You’re up to something. You’ve got that fucking look.”
Cypher took off his helmet. “What look?”
Helios snorted. “Blonde crazy chick look. I’m out.” He headed to his bike.
Cypher looked from Helios to me. “The trespasser?”
“She has a name. Use it.”
“Copy.”
“Cypher! Let’s fucking go!” Helios revved his bike as Chaos did a burnout.
Cypher looked at me and deadpanned, “I don’t know who’s worse, Helios or Chaos.”
“Depends on the day.”
He tipped his chin in acknowledgment, then eyed me for a beat.
“You found out about your son two months ago. Those last few runs, eliminating stragglers, stepping off the Paragon for that refuel in Spain a month ago, getting caught on security cams, not covering your digital footprint after, the building, stepping back on the grid—all of this was for Lincoln.”
I didn’t deny it.
“I would’ve helped.”
He had, unknowingly. Exactly as I’d planned. “You did.”
“You know what I’m talking about. Leaving it at that. How did the woman play into all this?”
“She didn’t.” At first. “Happenstance.”
“Cypher!” Helios yelled again.
“Go ride,” I ordered. “I’m on my way out anyway. Just stopped in for a sitrep.”
“We’re fully operational as of an hour ago.”
“Good work.” I’d remind him later to follow through on getting an ID on Isla’s brother. “As far as the team, I’m offline the next few weeks while Lincoln gets settled. You need me, call.”
“Roger that.” Cypher returned to his bike.
They rode out, and I sent a quick text to Tauk.
Me: On my way to pick up Isla for the day. Leaving HQ now.
Tauk: Copy. Protection detail tonight?
Me: Affirmative. Return at twenty-one hundred hours.
Tauk: Roger that.
I drove to the hotel.
When I pulled up to the rear entrance I’d been using, Isla was waiting outside with Tauk flanking her.
Opening her door, Tauk teasingly talked shit. “Someone was excited to see you.”
“Oh my God.” In a sundress, presumably with her swimsuit underneath, looking flushed, wild-haired, and beautiful, my little intruse threw Tauk a look as she got into the SUV. “I’m not an overzealous puppy, Chef. I was saving Nix the trouble of coming up to get me.”
Tauk chuckled. “Close enough.” He pulled her seat belt out for her, then tipped his chin at me and shut the door.
My little intruse buckled herself in and smiled at me. “Day date with the midnight marauder?”
Grasping her chin, I leaned in and kissed her. Gentle, unhurried. Then I pulled back enough to see her expression. “Good morning. You look beautiful.”
Her flush deepened. “Thank you. You’ve cut your hair since I saw you last.”
“It was trimmed yesterday. The fact that you didn’t notice last night, I’ll take as a testament to my skills of distraction.
” Releasing her, I pulled away from the hotel.
“For the record, though, it was oh two hundred, not midnight.” I glanced at her.
“And I’ll always make the time to come get you. ”
“Says the man who proclaimed he needed more time.”
Letting the comment slide, I drove.
She lasted a mile. “Where are we going?”
“Trust me?”
She studied me a beat. “All right.”
“Thank you.” Taking her hand, I turned it over and brought her wrist to my mouth. Leaving a kiss, I inhaled. “Decided to forgo my cologne?”
“You said it was optional.”
“Good to know you were listening.” I kissed the back of her hand, then both praised her and spoke the truth. “I like when you’re waiting for me, ma petite intruse.”
Her breath hitched. “Are you always going to call me that?”
“Yes.”
She didn’t comment.
Fifteen minutes later, I drove up to the house and parked the Denali in front instead of pulling into the garage. The significance of it would be lost on her, but it wasn’t for me.
I’d lived the past ten years never stepping through front doors.
I was a SEAL. I was Tertia Optio. I was the darkness.
I’d served my country, a sitting President, and my own agenda. Duty was the storm I’d willingly walked into. Honor was the weight I’d silently carried—until I became a father and kidnapped a trespasser.
Now I was a man looking at my future.
Her gaze pinned out her window, my little intruse hadn’t said a word since I’d passed all the high-rises and hit the stretch of ocean-front road where the properties were large and the plots larger.
Leaving the engine and air-conditioning running, I turned toward her. Gently grasping her chin, I brought her face to mine. “I asked you to trust me.” I was trusting the hell out of her. Not that she knew it yet.
Her expression suddenly guarded, she kept her tone even. “Yes, you did.”
I slid my hand to the side of her neck. “You love to swim.” Lincoln loved to swim.
She leaned into my touch. “Something tells me you brought me to this mansion for more than a swim.”
I did. I wasn’t questioning my decision. I knew Lincoln and Isla would get along. But apprehension, which I hadn’t felt since my first mission, was teeming.
Ripping off the Band-Aid, I downloaded. “Technically, it’s not a mansion.
The main house is less than eight thousand square feet, but it is my home.
” Now. I tipped my chin toward the building immediately south of us, which was connected via an underground tunnel I wasn’t going to tell her or Lincoln about yet.
“The adjacent property is also mine. Guest quarters, gym, security systems, pool house.” Command room, panic room, weapons hold, two more armored vehicles in that garage.
All of it built above hurricane codes, all bulletproof glass, every entry door reinforced.
“Thirteen thousand square feet under air between both buildings. Two acres of land and two hundred and fifty linear feet of oceanfront. All secure.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
Because I wanted her here. Lincoln, her, me. All under the same roof. “I’m not hiding who I am, Isla. I asked for trust because this is it. All or nothing. Once you walk through that door, you’re in my world.”
Digesting what I’d said, she held my gaze, then nodded. “I know you’re wealthy, and I can surmise how you attained it, but that’s not why I agreed to spend time with you. I don’t care about money.”
I knew she didn’t. The woman still had the cash in her backpack. Minus the red dress and heels, she didn’t appear to have acquired anything new since I first met her, but she was missing the point. “This isn’t only my home, Isla. This is my life.”
“Poignant and cryptic. How very… you.”
Leaning slightly forward but rigid, her tone tempered, I didn’t need my training to read the wariness in her comment and body language.
“I’m not being intentionally vague as a ploy, Isla.
This is for safety.” This was for Lincoln.
I wasn’t putting my son through any of her indecisiveness.
Not before she made the unwitting choice to meet him.
And I knew not explicitly telling either of them what was coming was fucked.
Rapaciously so. But I was going to do it anyway.
I needed their untempered reactions. “You told me you were ready for roots.” I tipped my chin toward the house, toward who was inside.
Then I gave this woman the entirety of my reality. “This is as deep as it gets for me.”
For a single beat, she didn’t react.
Then her small hand wrapped around my wrist, and she stroked her thumb over my pulse. “I understand. Thank you for telling me.”
I gave as much of a warning as I was willing to give. “You won’t understand unless and until you come inside.”
Close-lipped, coy, her smile was both coquettish and hiding that buried level of insecurity I wanted to fuck out of her. “That sounds like a promise.”
It was. But later. After she met Lincoln.
After we spent the day. Once I cataloged every interaction and made my decision if she stayed or went.
Either way, I was going to fuck her into submission later tonight.
Whether it was a goodbye fuck at the hotel or an induction to her new life under my roof was TBD.
Regardless, I didn’t reply.
I held her gaze.
She held mine.
Then the little intruse did what I was counting on.
Opening her door and getting out, she trespassed.