CHAPTER 52
Brynn
Olsztyn, Poland
Day Thirty-Seven Off Grid
The rental sat at the end of a narrow road that looked like it had been forgotten on purpose, the sky still hours from daylight.
No streetlights. No neighboring porch lamps. Just a low house with a steep roof, dark windows, and trees pressed close on three sides like they were trying to keep a secret.
Jameson killed the headlights before we reached the drive.
The car rolled the last stretch in near-dark, gravel crunching softly beneath the tires. My whole body felt hollowed out from the drive, from fear, from crying in a way I’d tried very hard to do quietly and failed at anyway.
He parked behind the house instead of in front.
Of course he did.
Neither of us moved until Jameson reached for the burner, checked the address again, and slid it into his coat pocket. “Stay in the car until I clear it.”
I laughed once, but there was no humor left in it. “Sure. Because the car has been such a sanctuary.”
His hand paused on the door handle.
He got out with his gun already in his hand, keeping it low against his thigh as he moved toward the back door. The key was where the owner said it would be, tucked inside a rusted lockbox bolted beneath the old meter.
I watched him disappear into the house.
A minute stretched.
Then another.
The trees shifted in the wind, branches dragging against one another with a dry, brittle sound. Somewhere far off, a dog barked once and went quiet.
I pressed my forehead to the cold window and closed my eyes.
I wasn’t going to cry again.
Not in the car. Not while he was inside deciding if the walls were safe enough to leave me behind.
The back door opened.
Jameson stood there, half in shadow. “Clear.”
I dragged myself out of the car.
The cold hit immediately, meaner now that I wasn’t moving. My legs almost buckled when my heels touched the gravel, and I gripped the open door until the world steadied.
He saw.
His expression didn’t change, but he crossed back to me without saying anything and reached for the bags in the back seat.
“I can carry something.”
“You can carry yourself inside,” he said.
The house smelled like old wood, radiator heat, and whatever lemon cleaner people used when they wanted a place to seem more welcoming than it was.
A narrow mudroom opened into a kitchen with outdated cabinets, a small square table, and curtains that had probably been chosen by someone’s grandmother in a fit of optimism.
It wasn’t beautiful.
It was dry. It was dark. It had locks.
At this point, that qualified as luxury.
He set the bags on the kitchen floor and moved through the house again with the kind of focus that made everything in me ache. Windows. Back door. Front door. Hall closet. Bedroom. Bathroom. He checked the locks twice, then the curtains, then the view from every window.
I stood in the middle of the kitchen with my coat still on, watching him turn a stranger’s house into a temporary perimeter.
He pulled the curtain closed. “At least this one has heat.”
“Thrilling.”
He moved to the sink and turned the faucet on. “Running water.”
“Decadent.”
He shut the water off. “A back road that doesn’t show cleanly on most navigation apps.”
I dropped my bag onto one of the kitchen chairs. “Be still my heart.”
I caught the hint of a smile before he turned away to move to the next window.
I unbuttoned my coat because standing there in it suddenly felt ridiculous. My fingers didn’t want to work. The first button slipped. Then the second. By the third, frustration burned behind my eyes, sudden and stupid and completely out of proportion.
Jameson crossed the kitchen.
“I’ve got it.”
He stopped.
I wished he hadn’t.
I wished he would ignore me and help anyway. I wished he would stop trying to respect every boundary except the one where I told him not to leave me.
I got the button free and shrugged out of the coat.
“There,” I said, like I’d accomplished something.
He looked at me for a second too long, then bent to unzip one of the bags.
Not his small one.
The larger one.
He started removing things with quiet efficiency.
A black sweater. A folded shirt. A charger.
A small pouch of medical supplies. A backup magazine he tucked into the drawer beside the stove after checking it was empty.
Cash, divided into three stacks and hidden in three different places while I stood there pretending not to notice.
Then came the hard case.
He set it on the table and opened it.
The sight of the equipment inside made my stomach tighten. Burner batteries. Drive sleeves. Adapters. A passport wallet. A small leather roll I didn’t recognize. Everything placed with intention, neat enough to make it worse.
He pulled the laptop from the larger bag and set it beside the case.
“You’re unpacking,” I said.
He didn’t look up. “I’m staging.”
“That sounds like unpacking with commitment issues.”
“It’s not,” he said.
I raised a brow.
He removed a clean shirt and folded it over the back of the chair. Then a second one. Then a pair of socks. Domestic little pieces of him, left in a kitchen that was not ours, in a country that was not safe, while he prepared to walk out of it.
My throat tightened.
I looked away.
He noticed that too.
“I’m not taking anything I don’t need for London,” he said.
“I noticed.” I gestured to myself.
His eyes moved to my hand, then back to the bag. “That isn’t what I meant.”
I crossed my arms and leaned back against the counter. “So this is the part where you make the house look like you’re coming back?”
His hand stilled inside the bag.
Only for a second.
Then he kept moving. “I am coming back.”
The words were too controlled to be comforting.
“Don’t.”
He looked up.
“Don’t say it like that. Like saying it calmly makes it true.”
His expression tightened. “I’m saying it because it’s the plan.”
“The plan is stupid.”
“You’ve mentioned that,” he said.
“I’m going to keep mentioning it until it stops being true.”
He closed the larger bag and set it beside the chair. The laptop and hard case remained open on the table.
The smaller London bag held one change of clothes, his spare glasses, cash, a burner, and whatever documents he needed for the meeting. The rest of his equipment stayed behind.
“You need to sleep,” he said.
“I need you to stop making decisions about me like I’m a fragile object you’re trying to get through customs.”
“That is not what I’m doing,” he said.
“No?” I pushed off the counter, exhaustion making the anger loose and messy. “Because from where I’m standing, you’re arranging the room, hiding the cash, leaving me instructions, and putting your shirts on chairs like that’s supposed to prove you’re coming back.”
His jaw tightened.
There.
I’d hit something.
Good.
I wanted to hit something.
“I’m trying to give you something to hold on to,” he said.
“I don’t want something to hold on to, Jameson. I want you not to go alone.”
He looked at me then, and for one horrible second, the entire room went soft around the edges.
Because he looked tired too.
Not physically. Not only that.
He looked like the last month had finally caught up to him, and he had no idea what to do with exhaustion that couldn’t be solved by moving faster.
“I know,” he said.
The anger slipped out from under me.
I hated that even more.
I turned away before he could see my face change. “Where’s the bedroom?”
“Down the hall,” he said. “Last door on the right.”
“Great.”
I grabbed the nearest bag.
His hand closed around the strap before I could lift it. “Not that one.”
I looked down.
It was his.
The small London bag.
Because of course it was.
For a second, neither of us let go.
Then I released it.
“Right,” I said. “Wouldn’t want to interfere with the sacred martyr luggage.”
“Brynn,” he said.
“Nope.” I picked up my own bag this time. “I’m going to find a bed before I say something worse.”
“Good idea,” he said.
I gave him a look over my shoulder.
He had the nerve to look like he deserved it.
The bedroom was small and cold around the edges, with a double bed, two mismatched nightstands, and a wardrobe that smelled faintly of cedar. I dropped my bag on the floor and sat on the mattress.
It gave under me with a tired squeak.
Perfect.
I stared at the wall.
A minute later, he appeared in the doorway with the rest of the bags.
He set mine near the wardrobe. His larger bag went beside it.
His smaller one stayed in his hand.
I looked at it.
Then at him.
He stepped inside and checked the window lock, because apparently even heartbreak came with a security sweep. Then he drew the curtains closed and turned back toward me.
“You have three burners,” he said. “One in your bag. One in the kitchen drawer beneath the towels. One taped under the sink.”
I stared at him.
“Cash in the flour tin, the bathroom vent, and the left boot by the back door,” he said. “There’s a road behind the tree line. It looks like a farm track, but it connects to the main road south after about two kilometers.”
“Are you done?”
“No,” he said.
“Fantastic.”
“If anyone comes to the door, you don’t answer,” he said.
“I know.”
His voice softened, but the words didn’t. “If something happens, you leave through the back. You take the tree line. You call Beckett only after you’ve put distance between yourself and the house.”
I stood because sitting through this felt impossible. “And what if you call?”
“I won’t,” he said.
I blinked.
He held my gaze. “I won’t risk making you trust a voice on a line.”
The room seemed to shrink around him.
I wanted to hate him for that answer.
Instead, I understood it.
I pursed my lips and nodded slowly.
That was the problem with Jameson. Even at his worst, even when he was tearing the ground out from under me, his logic had teeth.
“Great,” I said. “So I’m not answering doors or phones. Very restful. Can’t imagine why I’m tense.”
He stepped closer. “I need you alive.”
My laugh came out thin. “That’s not fair.”
“I know,” he said.
“No, I don’t think you do.” I looked at him then. “You keep saying things like that and expecting me to stand here and be reasonable about it.”
“I don’t expect you to be reasonable,” he said.
“Good.”
“I expect you to survive me,” he said.
That one got through.
Right through the anger.
Right through everything.
For a second, I couldn’t breathe around it.
He looked like he regretted saying it, but not because it wasn’t true.
Because it was.
The little house creaked around us. Pipes ticking. Wind pressing against the windows. Somewhere in the kitchen, the refrigerator hummed like nothing in the world had changed.
He crossed the last bit of space between us and stopped in front of me.
He gently lifted my chin with two fingers. Like I was something breakable and he hated himself for knowing exactly where the cracks were.
“Sleep for a few hours,” he said. “Please.”
The please almost did it.
I swallowed around the ache in my throat. “Are you sleeping?”
He let out a breath that wasn’t quite steady. “No.”
“Of course not.”
“I’ll rest when I can,” he said.
“That’s a lie.”
His mouth twitched. “Maybe.”
I laughed, but it broke halfway through.
His thumb brushed once along my jaw.
Only when he pulled his hand away did I realize his skin was damp.
A tear.
Mine.
He had wiped it away so quietly I hadn’t even felt myself lose it.
His gaze moved over my face like he was trying to memorize the damage he’d done without asking me to forgive him for it.
“I would choose you in every version of this,” he said. “Even the one where choosing you means leaving.”
My breath caught.
Then he let me go.
I hated that too.
He stepped back, picked up the small London bag from the floor, and carried it out of the bedroom.
The larger bag remained beside mine. His laptop and hard case were still spread across the kitchen table.
I stayed there, listening to him move through the house.
A kitchen drawer opened.
The back door latch clicked.
Curtains shifted.
The whole brutal language of a man trying to leave without making it sound like goodbye.
“I love you too,” I whispered.
But the house swallowed it before it could ever reach him.