CHAPTER 23
Gemma
Three weeks.
It takes exactly twenty-one days for the human body to heal a deep laceration to the point where the skin knits back together, leaving behind a raised, angry pink scar. It takes the same amount of time for the human brain to realize that nobody is hiding in the bushes waiting to shoot you.
I stand in the center of the kitchen, staring out the massive floor-to-ceiling windows.
The landscape of Vík is brutally beautiful.
The black sand beach stretches out like crushed charcoal against the churning, violent gray waves of the North Atlantic.
There are no trees. There are no neighbors.
The wind howls constantly, a low, mournful sound that batters against the thick double-paned glass of the house.
It is the most isolated place on earth.
I look down at the frying pan on the induction stove. The edges of the pancake I am attempting to cook are turning a dark, crispy black. The smell of burnt butter fills the air.
I let out a frustrated breath, grabbing a spatula and scraping the ruined circle of batter straight into the trash can.
"I am a multi-millionaire," I mutter to the empty kitchen. "I stole four billion dollars. I should not be failing at breakfast."
The front door opens.
A rush of freezing, biting air sweeps through the living room, carrying the sharp scent of sea salt and ozone.
Callum steps inside. He pushes the heavy wooden door shut, locking the deadbolt with a solid, metallic click. He is wearing a dark, heavy winter coat, his collar turned up against the wind. His dark hair is windblown, and his cheeks are flushed from the cold.
He doesn't look like a corporate assassin anymore. He looks like a man who just came back from a walk.
But old habits die screaming.
Before he even takes his boots off, his eyes sweep the living room, checking the sightlines, evaluating the shadows in the corners, verifying that nothing has been disturbed in the twenty minutes he was outside.
"Perimeter secure?" I ask, leaning my hip against the kitchen counter.
He pauses, his dark eyes locking onto mine. He knows I am teasing him, but he still gives a short, serious nod.
"The eastern motion sensor was misaligned by the wind," he says, shrugging out of the heavy coat and hanging it on a hook near the door. "I recalibrated it."
"Callum, the only thing that is going to trip the eastern motion sensor is a stray puffin."
"A compromised sensor is a blind spot," he replies, walking into the kitchen. He stops a few feet away from me, his nose wrinkling slightly. "Did you burn something?"
"I am experimenting with culinary boundaries," I say, crossing my arms over the thick, oversized wool sweater he bought me our second day here. "It turns out my boundaries stop at boiling water."
He doesn't smile, but the hard, tense lines around his mouth soften. He walks past me to the sink, turning on the hot water to wash his hands.
The proximity makes the hair on my arms stand up.
For the last three weeks, we have lived in this house like two ghosts haunting the same space. We sleep in the same massive bed. We eat at the same table. We spend hours sitting in the living room, watching the ocean.
But he hasn't touched me.
Not really. He checks my scar every morning with clinical precision. He guides me by the elbow if the stone floors are slippery. But the violent, desperate man who kissed me in the motel room has been completely buried under a thick layer of protective restraint.
He is treating me like I am made of spun glass. And it is driving me absolutely insane.
I watch him dry his hands on a towel. The dark henley he is wearing pulls tight across the broad expanse of his shoulders.
"You don't have to check the cameras every morning," I say quietly.
He tosses the towel onto the counter. "It is a routine."
"It’s paranoia." I take a step closer to him. "We’ve been here for almost a month. The syndicate is bankrupt. Marcus is dead. Elias is dead. Nobody knows we’re here."
"Gemma." He turns to face me. The warning in his tone is subtle, but it’s there. "You cannot simply turn off a survival instinct because the environment changes."
"I did," I point out. "I haven't looked over my shoulder in two weeks. I sleep through the night. I am trying to make pancakes, Callum. I am trying to be normal."
He stares at me, his jaw tightening. "I am not normal."
"I know." I take another step, entirely invading his personal space. I have to tilt my head back to look at his face. "I don't want you to be normal. I just want you to stop acting like I’m going to break if you look at me too hard."
His eyes drop to my mouth. A muscle twitches near his temple.
He wants to step back. I can see the tactical part of his brain calculating the distance, urging him to maintain the physical boundary he set the day we arrived.
He raises his hand, his fingers hovering inches from my waist. "Your stitches only came out four days ago. The tissue is still fragile."
"The tissue is fine," I say.
I reach out, grabbing his wrist. His skin is incredibly warm, a stark contrast to the cold air he brought in from outside. I don't let him pull away. I guide his large hand down, pressing his palm flat against the left side of my torso, directly over the thick wool of my sweater.
Callum goes completely rigid.
His breathing stops. I can feel the slight, involuntary tremor in his fingers as they rest against my ribs.
"I am healed," I tell him, my voice dropping to a whisper. "I am not a patient anymore. And you are not my bodyguard."
He looks at my face, his dark eyes burning with a sudden, intense heat that completely strips away the polite, domestic mask he has been wearing for three weeks.
"If I stop being your guard," he says, his voice rough, scraping against the quiet of the kitchen, "I am going to cross a line that I cannot walk back from."
"I want you to cross it," I breathe. "I’ve been waiting three weeks for you to cross it."
Callum doesn't hesitate anymore.
His hand slides around my waist, gripping my hip with a bruising, possessive force. He pulls me flush against his chest. The impact knocks a small gasp out of my throat, but before I can speak, his mouth crashes down on mine.
There is nothing gentle about it.
It is a collision. It is the culmination of twenty-one days of forced restraint, adrenaline, and unspoken desire finally snapping. He kisses me with a dark, consuming hunger, his other hand tangling in the hair at the nape of my neck, tilting my head back to deepen the angle.
I open my mouth, my hands sliding up his chest to grip his shoulders.
He tastes like black coffee and the cold ocean wind.
He backs me up, his long strides forcing me to walk backward until my spine hits the edge of the marble kitchen island. He presses his weight against me, pinning me between the cold stone and the solid heat of his body.
My heart is hammering a frantic, chaotic rhythm against my ribs, but it doesn't hurt. The pain is completely gone, replaced by a heavy, pooling heat in my stomach.
I pull my mouth away, gasping for air.
"Callum," I whisper, my hands sliding up into his dark hair.
He doesn't answer. He drops his head, his mouth trailing hot, open-mouthed kisses along my jawline, down to the sensitive skin of my throat. I let out a soft, involuntary sound, my fingers tightening in his hair.
He slides his hands under the heavy wool sweater.
His palms are rough, calloused from years of handling weapons, but his touch is incredibly precise.
He traces the curve of my waist, his thumbs brushing lightly over the raised, pink scar on my ribs.
He doesn't press down. He just maps the evidence of my survival, treating it with a strange, reverent kind of violence.
"You’re perfect," he murmurs against my skin, the words vibrating through my collarbone.
"Take us to the bedroom," I manage to say, my brain struggling to form coherent thoughts as his hands slide higher, brushing against the lace of my bra.
He lifts his head, his eyes entirely black with desire.
He doesn't agree verbally. He simply hooks his arms under my thighs and lifts me completely off the floor. I wrap my legs around his waist, crossing my ankles behind his back, my arms locked securely around his neck.
He carries me out of the kitchen, his boots heavy and determined on the stone floor.
We reach the hallway. The door to the master bedroom is open, the large, unmade bed visible in the morning light.
I lean in, pressing my lips against the hard line of his jaw, completely surrendering to the overwhelming, terrifying reality that I am entirely his.
And then, a sound cuts through the house.
It isn't the wind. It isn't the ocean.
It is a sharp, high-pitched electronic chime.
Ping.
Callum stops dead in the middle of the hallway. The muscles in his back and arms turn to absolute granite.
I freeze, my lips still pressed against his jaw.
Ping. Ping.
The sound is coming from the kitchen. It is coming from the heavily encrypted, air-gapped laptop sitting on the island. The laptop I set up the day we arrived, specifically configured to monitor the ghost accounts and a single, buried communication node on the dark web.
Callum slowly lowers my legs, letting my feet touch the floor.
The heavy, intoxicating heat of the moment vanishes, sucked out of the room by the cold vacuum of tactical reality.
"You set an alarm," he says. His voice is completely flat.
"I set a tripwire," I correct him, my hands falling away from his neck. I step back, wrapping my arms around myself, suddenly feeling freezing cold. "A dead-man's switch on the routing numbers. If anyone tried to reverse-engineer the transaction logs, it would ping."
"Who is pinging?"
"I don't know."
I walk past him, heading back into the kitchen. My hands are shaking. The domestic illusion we built over the last three weeks shatters with every step I take.
I reach the island and open the laptop.
The screen is black, save for a single, blinking red dialogue box in the center.
It isn't a financial alert. It is a direct, encrypted text message.
I stare at the screen, my blood turning to ice water in my veins.
"Gemma," Callum says, stepping up behind me. He doesn't touch me. He is reading the screen over my shoulder. "What does it say?"
I swallow hard, my throat completely dry.
"It’s from Pippa," I whisper.
I hit the spacebar to decrypt the text. The red box expands, revealing three lines of stark, white text.
P_HAYES_SECURE: Gemma, I don't know if this node is still active. P_HAYES_SECURE: They found me in London. I’m locked in a shipping container. P_HAYES_SECURE: They want the keys to the ghost accounts. They gave me 48 hours before they start cutting.
I stare at the words.
They found me.
The syndicate is bankrupt. Marcus is dead. Elias is dead. There shouldn't be anyone left with the resources to hunt down a ghost broker in London.
Unless Elias Vance wasn't the top of the food chain.
"Callum," I say, my voice cracking. I grip the edge of the marble island so hard my knuckles ache. "They have Pippa."
He doesn't say anything for a long time.
I turn around to look at him.
The man who was kissing me in the hallway is gone. The monster is back. His eyes are cold, empty, and calculating. He is already running the variables. He is already planning the logistics of a transatlantic flight, the acquisition of weapons in Europe, the probability of a successful breach.
"Forty-eight hours," Callum says, his voice a low, mechanical rasp.
"We can't leave her," I plead, reaching out to grab his shirt. "She’s the only family I have. If they hurt her because of what I did..."
"I am not going to let them hurt her," he interrupts.
He steps back, pulling away from my grip. He walks over to the heavy wooden door, pulling his winter coat off the hook.
"Where are you going?" I ask, panic spiking in my chest.
"I am going to check the perimeter," he says, pulling the coat on. "And then I am going to call Ben."
"Ben is in Italy. He’s out."
"Ben is back in," Callum states, opening the front door. The violent wind howls into the living room, whipping his dark hair across his forehead. "Pack a bag, Gemma. We are going to London."
He shuts the door, leaving me alone in the quiet kitchen.
I look back at the laptop screen. The red dialogue box blinks mockingly in the silence.
The war wasn't over.
It was just waiting for us to lower our guard.