Chapter 5
5
ABBY
M orning light cuts across the loft in slanted gold streaks, catching dust motes in the air like they’ve got nowhere better to be. I wish I could say I slept, but I didn’t. My body’s warm under the thermal blanket, but my thoughts have been doing laps since Travis stomped off to his bedroom last night, like the mountain couldn’t contain him anymore.
I don’t know what’s worse—his silence or the way he looks at me when he’s not saying anything. Like he’s torn between throwing me out and throwing me over his shoulder.
But it’s the silence that’s making me crazy. That and the truth I’m no closer to getting.
I shove the blanket aside, get dressed quickly, and glance out the window. Travis is outside, shirtless in the freezing weather under the early sun, chopping firewood like it personally insulted him. He moves with control and precision. Each swing of the axe lands with clean, brutal finality.
I bite my lip. Because this is not the time for hormones. I need answers, not abs.
I creep down the stairs, careful not to make a sound. The cabin is still, too still, the way it always gets when Travis is outside. There’s something about the silence without him in it that makes the air feel heavier. Like the walls are holding their breath.
I pad barefoot across the floor, avoiding the boards I now know creak under too much pressure. I hesitate once, then head straight for the small hallway behind the kitchen. The one I hadn’t dared explore until now.
The door to his bedroom is slightly ajar. I push it open.
Inside, the space is dark and utilitarian—same as the rest of the cabin. Bed neatly made, no laundry in sight, no clutter. The dresser is what catches my eye. It’s tucked into the corner beneath the window, battered and scarred from use. Drawers closed, except one—it’s cracked half an inch open.
That’s basically an invitation, right?
I crouch and ease it open, careful to keep my fingers light. Inside, there’s a manila folder tucked beneath a few pairs of briefs—white, of course—and a worn leather notebook with what looks like water damage across the cover. I flip the folder open first.
Photographs—some grainy, some sharp. All military. Uniforms, sand, tactical gear. There’s one with six men standing in front of a helicopter, smiling like they’d just finished something impossible.
My heart seizes in my chest. I recognize my brother instantly. Nick stands on the far left, arms crossed, grin cocky and bright. He looks younger, but it’s definitely him. And beside him—closer than the others—is Travis.
He’s different in the photo. Younger too, obviously, but also looser. Less guarded. There’s no beard, no permanent scowl. He’s laughing, mouth open mid-comment, hand gripping Nick’s shoulder like they’d known each other forever.
I stare at the photo, something heavy pressing against my chest. This wasn’t just a command. This wasn’t duty. This was family. I brush a fingertip over the image—and that’s when it happens.
The window explodes.
Glass shatters with a scream, and I hit the floor before I know I’m moving. Something hisses past where I used to be standing. A second too late, I realize what it is. A bullet.
Heart hammering, I crawl behind the bedframe, keeping low. Dust is raining from the ceiling. The bedroom window’s nothing but a jagged hole now, the curtain flapping like a surrender flag.
Another shot rips through the silence, punching a hole in the dresser inches from where I just was.
Shit. Shit.
The front door slams open like a goddamn freight train has punched it, and then he’s there.
Travis.
All six-foot-something of fury and control, rifle slung across his back, face hard and eyes burning. Before I can even get a word out, he’s on me. One huge hand grips my upper arm, the other curls protectively around my waist as he yanks me into his body and spins us toward the wall, pinning me.
Not roughly, not cruelly—but completely. One arm braced against the wall by my head, the other pressed tight to my side. His chest is against mine, his hips locked low, his entire body forming a shield between me and whatever’s still out there.
I can barely breathe.
But it’s not fear keeping the air out of my lungs. It’s him.
His jaw is tight. His body coiled. He looks like he’s two seconds away from hunting down the shooter with his bare hands.
“Are you hurt?” His voice is a low rumble, deep and lethal.
“No,” I whisper. “I’m okay.”
His gaze rakes over me like he needs to confirm that himself. Hands glide over my arms, my waist, my hips, searching for blood or damage. When he finds none, he rests his forehead against mine for one fleeting moment, just long enough for me to feel the hammer of his heartbeat.
He shoves me behind him and drops to one knee near the window, peeking out through the ragged edges.
“Sniper,” he mutters. “Pine ridge. Long-range. Professional.”
Another round punches into the side of the cabin, spraying splinters.
“Living room. Now.” He pulls me with him, low and fast.
I don’t argue. We crouch-run through the cabin, ducking behind the couch as another shot blasts through the wall near the fireplace.
“Why now?” I whisper, heart racing.
“I don’t know.” His voice is a growl. “But someone followed you.”
“No,” I say. “I was careful.”
“Careful doesn’t matter,” he snaps. “Not when someone’s paid to find you.”
He lifts his rifle, eyes narrowing as he peeks out through a side window. Then he shifts, adjusts the angle. Calculating. Tracking.
I want to ask what he sees, but his whole body goes still.
“Got him,” he mutters.
“What are you?—”
The rifle cracks. One clean shot. Then silence.
Travis lowers the weapon, breath controlled, shoulders squared.
I don’t realize I’ve been shaking until he turns to me and presses a hand to my shoulder.
“Breathe.”
“I… I am.”
“No, you’re not.” He cups my face, tilts it up. “Look at me.”
I do, and everything else fades. There’s snow drifting through the broken window. Blood and glass on the floor. I don’t know if the blood is mine or his. The air smells like gunpowder and pine. But he’s steady. Solid. He presses his forehead to mine for the briefest second.
“You’re okay,” he says. “We’re okay.”
Then he steps back, reloading, all business again.
Travis stalks to the front door and locks it. Deadbolt. Chain. Bar. Then he turns to me.
“I think it’s time I stopped pretending silence is safer,” he says, more to himself than to me.
And just like that, everything shifts. Because now I know the fight isn’t just coming… it’s already here.
“Dammit, Abby.” He pulls back just enough to see my face. “You can’t do that. You don’t go through my things. You don’t put yourself in front of a window. You don’t—” His words cut off, jaw snapping shut like he’s biting back the rest.
“Don’t what?” I snap, adrenaline mixing with the heat already crackling under my skin. “Don’t act like someone who wants answers and is being frozen out by the one man she thinks can answer her? Who’s being hunted and doesn’t know why? You want me to just sit here and knit while people shoot at me?”
His eyes narrow. “You think this is a game?”
“No. I think this is life or death. And you’re the only one who has the rulebook.”
That earns a muscle twitch in his jaw. Then he leans in again, closer than close, and his voice drops to something that curls straight down my spine.
“I will end whoever did this. You hear me? I will find them. I will bury them. But I can’t do that if you’re dead. So you stay behind me. You don’t touch what you don’t understand. And you do what I say.”
His authority crackles like lightning in the space between us. It should make me furious. It should make me feel small. It doesn’t. It makes my knees go weak.
His body is still caging mine, heat radiating off him in waves. I can feel every line of muscle, every controlled breath, every beat of barely leashed restraint.
My voice is softer when I speak again. “Then tell me what’s happening.”
His gaze flickers between my eyes and my mouth, like he’s weighing more than just the question.
“I will,” he says finally. “But not here.”
“Why not?”
“Because we’re not safe. That shot wasn’t a warning. It was a message.”
A chill runs through me. “I thought you got him…”
“I got the sniper. My guess is he didn’t come alone.”
“So what do we do?”
He pulls back, reluctantly, and grabs my hand. “We go to ground.”
“To what?”
“Follow me.”
I don’t argue. He leads me to the back of the cabin, past the kitchen and the pantry, to a wall I hadn’t looked too closely at before. Travis kneels and lifts a thick bearskin rug, revealing a recessed floor hatch with a fingerprint scanner embedded into the corner.
“What is this, some ex-SEAL panic room?” I mutter, but he doesn’t answer.
He presses his thumb to the reader. There’s a soft beep, and the hatch clicks open.
He yanks the heavy panel up, revealing a narrow metal ladder disappearing into darkness.
“Go,” he orders, voice low.
I hesitate only a second before climbing down. The metal rungs are cold under my palms, the space just wide enough for my shoulders. Travis follows, and when he closes the hatch above us, the darkness swallows everything.
Then a series of dim emergency lights click on, illuminating the tunnel ahead—narrow, reinforced, and stretching maybe fifty feet.
“What the hell…” I whisper, my voice echoing slightly off the stone.
“Old mine shaft,” he says as he moves past me, brushing against my side. “Runs straight into the hillside.”
“Why do you have an old mine under your house?”
“I didn’t build it,” he answers. “I just made it useful.”
We jog in silence for a few seconds, my breath short and shallow, my mind racing. The tunnel opens into a small cave-like chamber lined with thick stone and outfitted with military-grade storage crates, a backup generator, shelving stacked with supplies… and weapons.
Lots of weapons—rifles, pistols, ammunition, tactical gear and a wall of knives that makes me blink.
I turn in a slow circle. “Jesus, Travis. Are you planning to survive the apocalypse down here?”
“If necessary.” He walks to a locked cabinet, opens it, and pulls out a thick duffel. “But right now, it’s our escape route.”
He pulls on a shirt and jacket before tossing a coat toward me—lined, insulated, looks like it’s seen snow and war alike.
“Put that on. And these.” He tosses me gloves next.
I don’t argue. My fingers are stiff from the cold, and this space is protected, yet unheated. I tug everything on as he kneels beside a snowmobile—sleek, black, powerful.
“You have a snowmobile in your underground lair.”
“I have two. One’s for backup.”
I blink. “That’s not reassuring.”
Travis finishes loading the gear into the pack, straps it down behind the seat, then straightens and looks at me.
“We’re leaving now. You ride behind me. Keep your head down and your arms around my waist. If I tell you to duck, you duck. If I tell you to run, you run. No questions. No arguing.”
I nod. “Understood.”
He grabs his rifle, slings it over his back, then stalks toward me again. Close. Close enough that I stop breathing. His hand lifts to my jaw, tilts my chin up.
“Next time,” he says, voice firm, “you want to look through my things, you ask.”
“I was desperate.”
“I get that. But you’re mine to protect while you’re under my roof…”
“We’re not under your roof.”
He shakes his head. “I see smartass is part of the Westwood DNA. Let me put it another way, as long as you’re here or until I know the threat to you has been neutralized, I will keep you safe, even from your own choices. You don’t like it, tough shit.”
I stare up at him, anger and heat flaring in equal measure. “That sounds an awful lot like ownership.”
“Call it what you will,” he says with a shrug.
And with that, he turns, straddles the snowmobile, and jerks his head toward the second seat.
I climb on behind him, wrapping my arms around his waist, and feel the rumble of the engine start under us. We shoot forward out of the tunnel; the lights vanishing behind us, the cave falling away as we bounce through the snow. Even in the cold, even with danger snapping at our heels, all I can think is: God help me, I believe him.