5. Sloane
SLOANE
I wake to warmth.
Fire crackling. Soft blanket. The rich scent of cedar smoke filling my lungs.
For one disoriented moment, my body sinks into the comfort—until my brain catches up.
Comfort is a luxury I can't afford.
Comfort means letting your guard down.
Comfort gets you killed .
I bolt upright, heart hammering against my ribs as memory crashes back like a wave: the sniper in the woods. The red laser sight dancing on my chest. The man who pulled me from death's grip. Again.
My fingers instinctively search for my bag. It's draped over a chair nearby. But when I shove my hand inside, panic flares hot and bright.
My burner is gone.
"No, no, no," I mutter, digging frantically through every compartment, then dropping to my knees to check under the bed where I'd been lying.
Instead of my phone, my eyes lock onto an old wooden sea chest lurking beneath the bed frame. Dark oak, weathered brass fittings, heavy padlock dangling from the front clasp. Military-grade, if I had to guess.
Of course he has a locked chest. Men like him collect secrets like others collect stamps—methodically, obsessively, never letting a single one escape. The question is whether those secrets belong to him... or to the people he hunts.
What are you hiding in there, mystery man?
I push up from my knees and search the rest of the room with a journalist's precision. The floorboards creak under my weight.
Every drawer tells a story—if you know how to read between the orderly rows of black t-shirts and tactical gear.
Everything arranged with military efficiency, not a sock out of place.
The kind of organization that speaks of control, of discipline, of a man who needs the world around him to make sense because the world inside doesn't.
Three items rest on the nightstand. A cup of water. A digital clock. Sun Tzu's "Art of War."
My throat constricts. Don't trust unknown drinks , every crime report ever has taught me.
My eyes drift to the digital alarm clock. It faces the pillow at the perfect angle—like he's calculated the exact degree needed to check time without fully waking.
My fingers brush the worn cover of the Art of War perched beside the bed, dog-eared at chapters about escape routes and defensive positions. The spine is cracked in multiple places—passages read and re-read until they're burned into muscle memory.
I scan the bare wall across from me. No photos. Nothing that would tell me who Logan is… or was.
Just maps on the walls marked with patrol routes and extraction points, each one positioned at perfect right angles.
I trace the familiar routes with my fingertip. These coordinates… It's Iron Hollow .
The realization hits me like a punch to the gut. I've finally walked right into Iron Hollow—the exact location Max swore would offer safety.
My gaze drifts to a worn leather armchair nestled in the window's corner.
It's the only piece of furniture that looks… lived in. The leather's cracked in places, softened by years of use.
Like maybe this is where he comes when sleep proves elusive and the night stretches too long.
A small reading lamp curves over it, positioned to cast light without creating glare on the window.
Tactical positioning , my mind supplies. The chair faces both the door and windows. The kind of setup someone with training would choose. Someone who expects trouble to find them.
My phone has to be here somewhere. Unless...
My stomach drops as realization hits. He took it. The man who caught me twice, who pulled me from death's grip in the snow, has just became my newest jailer.
Damn it.
That phone wasn't just a device—it was everything. My backup plan. My compass. The last tether to the evidence I've been risking my life to protect.
Then I hear footsteps. Heavy. Deliberate. Gradually approaching.
I reach for the nearest weapon—the alarm clock—but freeze when he enters.
He fills the doorway like a shadow, broad-shouldered and watchful. The man from before. The one who caught me when I fell. Twice now.
He's tall, maybe 6'4", with dark hair cropped military-short and eyes like storm clouds before lightning strikes. A thin white scar traces his left temple - the kind you get from something worse than a bar fight.
He wears tactical black like a second skin—fitted t-shirt that doesn't quite hide the abs beneath, cargo pants with too many pockets, and combat boots scarred from years of hard use.
Everything about him speaks of precision and purpose.
No wasted movement.
No unnecessary details.
His presence fills the room, and despite my instinct to keep my guard up, I can't ignore the way my pulse quickens just watching him.
His eyes track to my hand, to the alarm clock I've grabbed like it's a lifeline. A muscle in his jaw ticks—barely perceptible, but I catch it.
He doesn't laugh at my improvised weapon.
Just stands there, filling the doorway with that impossible stillness of his, like he's calculating exactly how many moves it would take to disarm me if he needed to.
But he doesn't move toward me. Doesn't try to take it. Just watches with those storm-gray eyes that see too much and reveal too little.
Great defensive strategy, Sloane. What's next—throw a pillow at him?
He's tall, maybe 6'4", with dark hair cropped military-short and eyes like cold steel. The kind of man who doesn't reveal anything he doesn't want you to see.
His arms cross over his chest like he's bracing for another fight. Like he already knows I'm thinking of running. Or swinging.
"Your phone was tracked," he says without preamble, voice deep and even. "It was already traced when you showed up at my door. Broadcasting your location."
The words hit me like a physical blow. I take an instinctive step back, mind racing through possibilities.
Already traced?
That can't be right. I've been careful. Paranoid-level careful. Changed burners three times since Chicago. There's no way?—
Unless I missed something. Unless someone got to it before I did. Unless I've been compromised longer than I thought.
A chill runs down my spine that has nothing to do with the lingering cold in my bones.
"I turned it off," he continues when I don't respond. "But not before it could transmit your coordinates. To whoever was hunting you in my woods."
My eyes narrow, the journalist in me instantly picking up on the delay. "And when were you planning on telling me this?"
"When you were conscious enough to understand it."
I study his face, searching for deception. He holds my gaze without flinching. Without blinking. There's something eerily steady about him, like he's been through worse fires than whatever I'm bringing to his doorstep.
"Did you go through it?" I ask, voice carefully controlled. "The phone. The drive. Did you read anything?"
He shakes his head once. "Didn't touch it. Not mine to open."
That almost earns him a flicker of trust.
Almost.
But trust is a luxury I abandoned seven states ago, when Max’s body was found in a parked car outside my apartment building.
I take another step back, arms crossing to mirror his stance.
Not accusing—just guarded. Walled. Quietly calculating.
He didn't lie. But he didn't tell me the truth either.
"Where is it now?" I ask.
"Secure. Battery removed."
"I need it back."
"You'll get it," he says. "When it's safe."
The way he says it—like safety is something he can guarantee—would be laughable if it wasn't so infuriating.
Nobody can promise safety. Not in a world where truth gets you killed.
"So why help me?" I demand, the question cutting through the tension between us like a blade.
It's not just a question; it's a test.
Nobody helps a stranger for nothing. Nobody risks their life without an agenda. And this man—with his watchful eyes and military bearing—has "agenda" written all over his forehead.
"Because someone was aiming to kill you in my woods," he answers simply.
As if that explains everything.
As if stepping between a stranger and a bullet is the most reasonable thing in the world.
I search his face again, looking for tells. For warning signs.
But all I see is the same unnerving stillness—the kind that comes from years of making split-second decisions while staring down the barrel of a gun.
I saw it in the woods. The way he moved when he pulled me from the sniper's sightline.
He didn't hesitate.
But that doesn't mean I can trust him.
"I need to go," I say, even though my legs still feel like rubber and my head throbs with each beat of my heart. "I need my phone. And my drive."
"No." The word drops like a stone.
"Excuse me?"
"You'll stay here until I figure out who's after you."
A bitter laugh escapes me. "You're not in charge of me."
"No," he concedes. "But you walked into my town. My woods. That makes you my problem."
I hate the flicker in his eyes when he says it.
Like he already knows I won't leave. Not because he said so, but because I can't.
Because I have nowhere else to go. Because the alternative is freezing to death in the Montana wilderness—if the sniper doesn't find me first.
I turn away from him, needing space, needing air that isn't charged with his scrutiny. The bathroom door is partly open down the hall, and I head for it without asking permission.
"There are fresh towels on the rack," he calls after me. "If you need them."
I slip inside and lock the door behind me like it's a bunker, leaning against it for a moment as my legs threaten to give way.
My breath comes in shallow gasps, the silence around me not comforting but suffocating.
The face that stares back from the mirror is a stranger's—pale, hollowed, with dark circles like bruises under wary hazel eyes.
My hair is a wild tangle, still damp at the roots from snow. There's a small cut above my eyebrow I don't remember getting.
I grip the edge of the sink, knuckles turning white. The wound on my palm throbs as blood beads along the jagged line.
I'm just catching my breath. I'm not hiding. I'm not terrified.
When I finally step back out, he's waiting.
Leaning against the wall opposite, arms still crossed, patient as stone. Like he knew I'd need a minute. Like he's giving me space while still making it clear there's nowhere to run.
He's holding a folded flannel shirt in one hand. Red and black check. Worn soft at the edges.
"You've got two options," he says, voice low and matter-of-fact. "I can drive you out of town right now. Leave you with a dead phone, no shelter, and no backup. Or you stay here. Follow my rules. Stay alive."
I stare at him. At the space between us. At the weight in his words. At the choice that isn't really a choice at all.
I don't respond. Don't need to. We both know what the answer is.
"Decide by morning," he says, dropping the shirt on the chair beside me. "But if you stay, you stay under my protection. And that means you start telling the truth."
He walks away, boots silent on the hardwood, leaving me alone with the flannel shirt and the taste of fear like copper on my tongue.