Chapter 58
Harmony
No one in the house took a proper breath after the door slammed shut. We listened to every creak. Every shift of wind. Every phantom footstep that might’ve been real.
Pierre and Becket had vanished into the storm the moment the masked man retreated.
They were hunting a shadow now. The kind of men who could track anyone through the woods.
But not here. Not inside this house where the danger hadn’t ended, only refocused.
Eric had eyes on the mudroom door and the back kitchen door.
His chest rose and fell too fast, too hard.
Asher stood to my right, back against the island, positioned exactly where he could block both me and Olivier with one step. And me? My pulse lived in my throat.
“We’re safe,” I whispered, though my voice didn’t believe it.
Eric didn’t look away from the door. “He’s still out there.”
The wind howled. Branches scraped the siding. I glanced at Olivier.
He lay on his side, a blanket pulled over him, skin pale and damp with sweat. He wasn’t unconscious. His eyes fluttered in flickers, and every few breaths his fingers twitched like he was fighting something in a dream. Or waking from a nightmare.
“Asher,” I whispered. “We need to—”
“Don’t,” he said sharply, then softened it. “Don’t move. Don’t go near the doors.” I swallowed hard and nodded.
Eric looked at him. “Did you see him clearly?”
Asher shook his head. “Mask. Hood. Tall. Strong enough to shove a solid wood door into my ribs.”
Eric’s jaw clenched. “Same guy Becket and I saw on the ridge.”
“What if it’s Ravenhill?” I whispered before I could stop myself.
Eric turned to me slowly. “He might be.”
“Olivier said Ravenhill isn’t what we think. That he—”
A cracking sound outside snapped all of us still. It wasn’t the wind or an animal. But a boot on ice. Eric stepped in front of me instinctively, shoulders squared, breath sharp. He scanned the back windows like he could cut through the frost with his bare eyes.
Asher held up one hand quiet, sharp, commanding.
“Listen.”
We did.
At first, there was nothing but howling wind.
Then. . .A tap. Not on the door. Not on the window. It was coming from the side of the house. Three slow, deliberate knocks and my blood went cold.
“He’s checking the walls,” Asher murmured. “Mapping the structure. He’s deciding where to come in.”
Eric’s fists tightened. “Over my dead—”
“ERIC!”
Olivier’s voice burst from the floor, raw and terrified. He tried to sit up and collapsed, shaking violently.
“Harm, don’t let him take you, he’ll take—”
“Who is he?” Asher snapped, crouching beside him.
Olivier’s gaze darted frantically between the two doors, the windows, the hallway. He looked like a trapped animal. His breath came in harsh, broken pulls.
“He knows where the cameras are,” Olivier rasped. “He knows where you stand. He sees everything…”
Eric stiffened. “What do you mean he sees everything? How?”
But Olivier’s eyes rolled for a second then snapped to me with horrifying clarity.
The lights flickered. The walls groaned under the weight of the wind. And then a silhouette crossed the kitchen window. Tall. Domineering and on a mission. The man moved with the confidence of a person who already knew the blueprint of the house.
I gasped.
Eric pulled me back into his chest with one arm and reached for the nearest weapon, a cast-iron pan on the stove, with the other.
Asher pivoted, fists up, weight ready for impact. “He’s circling toward the front!”
“No,” Eric said. “He’s circling toward Harmony.”
Another tap. On the opposite side of the house now. Olivier sobbed a broken, shaking sound. “Don’t open the door.”
A shadow paused at the kitchen window. Even through the frost, I felt him looking right at me. My breath stopped.
Asher whispered, “Hell. He’s hunting.”
Eric tightened his grip around me. “He isn’t getting inside. I swear it.”
Another tap. This one closer. Almost gentle.
Like a promise. Eric stiffened beside me.
Asher adjusted his position. Even the air felt tighter, like the walls themselves braced.
Then Olivier, who’d been trembling on the rug, gave a sudden, sharp flinch.
Not from pain. From a sound. A faint click.
It was so soft I almost questioned if I heard it.
But Olivier reacted instantly, eyes widening, breath choking off.
Eric froze. “What was that?”
Olivier’s gaze darted downward. Toward his own chest. His shirt. The folds of the blanket covering him. Terror raw and unmistakable spread across his face.
“Asher,” Eric said cautiously, “give me your phone light.”
Asher handed it over. Eric knelt slowly beside Olivier on the rug, lifting the edge of the blanket.
“Olivier,” he said tightly, “is there something on you?”
Olivier swallowed, shaking his head much too fast. “No, no, I didn’t mean—”
“Harmony,” Eric said without looking back, “step away from him. Now.”
My pulse slammed.
“Asher?” I whispered.
He was already moving, grabbing my arm, pulling me behind him.
Eric lifted the fabric fully and froze. There, clipped to the hem of Olivier’s undershirt, half-hidden in the fabric, was a tiny black transmitter.
No bigger than a coin. A blinking red diode winked once in the dark. Olivier let out a strangled sob.
“He said it was insurance,” he rasped. “He said if I didn’t help him get inside he’d kill me and take her anyway. He wants everything that isn’t his.”
Eric snapped upright, fury sparking across his face.
“Asher,” he said, voice low and lethal. “The son of a bitch isn’t circling the house.”
Asher’s jaw locked. “Then what the hell is he doing?”
Eric’s gaze lifted to the window where the shadow had paused moments ago.
“He’s watching us.”
The transmitter blinked again. A slow, taunting pulse.
Olivier buried his face in his hands. “He knows where everyone is. He knows how many of you there are. He sees everything. . .”
The masked man didn’t need to break into the house to find me. He already had eyes inside it. And the worst part? Those eyes belonged to my brother.