CHAPTER 17
Jameson
Geneva, Switzerland
The apartment felt wrong the second I popped the lock. Too quiet. The kind of silence that pressed in and made your skin itch before your brain caught up.
I eased the door open slowly. My primary sat holstered at my side, and a gear bag hung from my left hand, filled with things she didn’t know she needed yet. Comms. Backup firearms. Enough insurance to get her through the night.
It had taken me about an hour to track down everything I wanted, just enough time to stock up and get back before she returned.
I still hadn’t entirely decided how I was going to inform her of the situation.
The lock clicked shut behind me.
Then something shattered.
Glass cracked against tile, the sound breaking across the room in a scatter that echoed.
“GET OUT!” a woman shouted, her voice cutting through the air with panic.
Unexpected.
She was home early.
My gaze moved through the room, counting exits, shoes, shadows.
Footsteps scrambled. Furniture scraped.
The smell hit next. Wine, sweet and acidic, spreading fast.
“Who the hell are you?” she shouted, breath tight. “What are you doing in my apartment?”
Something else came at me. I turned fast, gun up on reflex, body already shifting and clearing the space without thought as it flew past and hit somewhere behind me.
“Hey, easy,” I said, lifting one hand slightly while keeping the other steady. “I’m not here to hurt you.”
She made a small, frustrated sound.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she snapped. “Did I interrupt your break-in? Or were you planning to wait until I was asleep to murder me?”
The remote came next. It clipped past my shoulder and hit the wall behind me.
“Can you stop throwing things for a second?” I asked, an edge entering my voice as I tracked her movement. “Just give me a minute.”
I lowered my aim and reached for the table lamp.
Soft light spread across the room, warm and low after the dark.
She gasped.
And there she was.
Bare-faced and wide-eyed, damp hair clinging to her skin. A sweatshirt slipped off one shoulder. She stood barefoot in a spread of shattered glass, frozen half a second too long.
It hit me all at once.
The hotel. The way she’d looked at me. The way her body had melted into mine. The way she’d left.
“Fuck,” I breathed, more to myself than her.
“You,” she whispered, disbelief threading through the word.
She reached for something else to throw, but the movement stopped short with a hiss. Her gaze dropped to the glass beneath her feet.
Blood bloomed beneath her heel, dark against the tile.
“Shit,” she muttered, grabbing the back of the couch for balance. “Perfect. Why not bleed for dramatic effect?”
I dropped the gear, holstered the gun, and crossed the space in three strides.
“Don’t move. You’re standing in glass.”
“No kidding,” she shot back, but she held still.
I crouched beside her.
“Let me see it.”
She shifted her weight carefully. Her leg trembled as she eased her foot toward me. The shard was small, but it was buried deep. Blood welled fast, warm against my fingers.
“How are you here right now?” she asked, her voice tight and guarded.
I didn’t answer.
“A little higher.”
She lifted her foot, slower this time. I caught her ankle and steadied her. Her skin was hot, her pulse quick beneath my thumb.
I took one breath and pulled the glass free.
She groaned and gripped the back of the couch hard enough to whiten her knuckles.
I adjusted my grip and slid one arm behind her knees.
She flinched.
“Don’t,” I said, quieter. “You’ll make it worse.”
Then I lifted her.
She was lighter than I expected, warm and tense through every muscle.
I carried her across the floor, past scattered papers and the damp edge of a rug, and set her on the kitchen island.
She watched me, eyes wide, as I retrieved the small medical kit from my bag by the door.
“Do murderers usually carry first-aid kits?” she asked. “Doesn’t that defeat the purpose?”
I opened it beside her. “Hold still.”
“I am holding still,” she said.
“You’re talking.”
Her mouth pressed into a line, but she stopped moving.
I cleaned the blood from her heel, then flushed the cut. She sucked in a breath when the antiseptic touched it.
“The glass was clean,” she said.
“It was on your floor.”
“It was full of alcohol. That’s basically self-sanitizing.”
“That is not how that works.”
She gave me a look I didn’t need to see directly to understand. “It should be.”
I checked the wound for anything left behind, then pressed folded gauze against it.
“Hold this,” I said.
She took over the pressure while I pulled out a bandage.
“You do realize I still have questions,” she said.
“I assumed.” I secured the dressing around her heel, tight enough to hold but not restrict circulation.
“Keep your weight off it tonight,” I added.
She looked toward the shattered glass covering half the living room. “I’ll add that to the itinerary.”
I returned to the floor and started collecting the larger pieces by hand. They clicked softly together, sticky with wine.
I worked without rushing. I could feel her gaze tracking every movement.
By the time I swept the smaller shards into a folded takeout menu, her voice came again, quieter now. “I need to know how you’re here right now.”
I stood, tossed the menu into the trash, and turned just enough to catch her in my peripheral.
“I came to find Threadbare,” I said.
Her gaze flicked to the bag by the door, half-zipped, tactical, loaded, then back to me.
“Why?” she asked.
“Initially, it was courtesy. A warning to back off.”
I moved toward her deliberately. “Now I’m here to keep you safe.”
Her eyes dropped to the gear again.
“And all this was necessary?” she asked.
“You weren’t exactly armed when I arrived,” I said. “Unless you count the ten inches of silicone in your nightstand as a tactical advantage.”
The sound she made came out half strangled, half feral.
“Excuse me?” she choked out, straightening despite the injury.
My mouth twitched, barely there. I didn’t let it become anything more.
“You went through my nightstand?” she demanded.
“I was looking for a firearm.”
“And instead you found something that was none of your business,” she said.
“To be fair, I tried to reach the same conclusion.”
Her mouth fell open.
She stared at me, and for a second, the apartment fell away.
The hotel was there between us. Neither of us needed to name it.
Her face was different without the red lipstick and practiced confidence, but not unfamiliar. Damp hair clung near her temple. The faint scent of wine mixed with the citrus warmth I’d noticed when I first entered her apartment.
I had remembered more than I should have. The sound of her laugh. Her nails against my back. The empty bed when I woke.
The words came out before I could measure whether they should.
A year ago, she had left before morning.
This time, neither of us had an easy way out.
“I didn’t think I’d get another chance to see you.”
Her eyes lifted to mine.
For a moment, she didn’t move. The refrigerator hummed behind her, and rain whispered against the windows.