CHAPTER 5 Maeve
The heavy steel door at the top of the basement stairs shuts behind me, cutting off the pulsing red light of the kitchen alarm.
I stumble down the metal steps, my damp socks slipping on the grated edges. I catch myself on the cold iron handrail, the impact sending a sharp jolt of pain up my wrist. I don't stop. I keep moving until my feet hit the solid concrete floor of the server room.
The space is freezing, easily ten degrees colder than the rest of the house, and smells intensely of hot copper wire, ozone, and artificial blue raspberry.
Leo is sitting in the center of the room, surrounded by a semi-circle of glowing monitors. He isn't eating Froot Loops anymore. He has a headset slung around his neck, his fingers moving across his mechanical keyboard so fast the sound is a continuous, aggressive clatter.
"Where is he?" Leo asks, not looking away from the center screen.
"He went outside," I say. My voice sounds hollow, completely stripped of the sarcastic armor I usually wear. I wrap my arms around my waist, pulling the oversized green sweater tighter against my chest. "He had a gun. He said he was going to clear the ridge."
Leo’s hands stop typing for a fraction of a second. He mutters a curse under his breath—something short and harsh—before his fingers resume their frantic pace.
"Of course he did," Leo says, shaking his head. He reaches out and taps a key, bringing up a new window on the far-left monitor. It’s a topographical map of the mountain, overlaid with a sweeping green radar line. "He doesn't wait for the breach. He goes to the perimeter."
I walk slowly toward the back of his chair, my legs feeling like they are made of wet sand. I stare at the radar screen. There are three small, blooming red dots clustered near the top edge of the topography lines.
"Are those... people?" I ask, the word sticking to the roof of my mouth.
"Thermal signatures," Leo corrects, his eyes darting between the data streams. "Could be people. Could be a very lost family of bears. The blizzard is throwing off the mass calibration. The snow is too thick for the infrared cameras to get a clean visual, so all we have is heat output."
"If it's Richard's men," I start, swallowing the bitter taste of stale coffee and pure panic that is rising in my throat. "If they found us..."
"They didn't find us," Leo interrupts. His tone is surprisingly authoritative for a guy wearing plaid pajama pants.
"This house is off the grid, Maeve. It doesn't exist on county zoning maps.
The LLC that owns the land is buried under six layers of corporate shell companies in countries that don't comply with US subpoenas. Nobody just finds this place."
"Then who is out there?"
"I don't know," he admits, leaning closer to the screen. "But whoever it is, they are about to have a very bad morning."
I look away from the red dots and stare at the concrete wall.
Ten minutes ago, I was standing in a pristine kitchen, aggressively pouring heavy cream into a mug of coffee just to annoy a man in a bespoke t-shirt. I was worried about boundaries. I was worried about the fact that he knew my bra size and my favorite toothpaste.
Now, that same man is walking through a blinding snowstorm with a loaded weapon, fully intending to murder anyone who steps foot on his property.
"Is he going to die out there?" The question slips out before I can stop it. It’s a stupid, naive question, but my brain is desperately trying to categorize the level of threat we are actually facing.
Leo lets out a short, humorless laugh. He spins his chair around slightly to look at me. The harsh blue light of the monitors casts deep shadows under his eyes.
"Declan doesn't die, Maeve," Leo says quietly. "He's the thing other people die from."
A cold shiver runs down the back of my neck, completely unrelated to the temperature of the server room.
"You make him sound like a monster," I whisper.
Leo looks at me for a long moment. He glances down at the green sweater I’m wearing, then back up to my face.
"He's a fixer. He specializes in threat neutralization for people who can afford to make their problems disappear.
You don't get good at that job by being the hero in the white hat.
" Leo turns back to the monitors. "He’s a monster.
He just happens to be the monster standing between you and the cartel. "
I press my lips together, my teeth biting down on the soft inner tissue until I taste the faint, metallic tang of blood.
I look back at the radar screen. The three red dots are moving. They are shifting laterally across the ridge, moving parallel to the house rather than toward it.
"They're moving fast," Leo mutters, leaning in. He taps a sequence of keys, trying to isolate the thermal bloom. "Too fast for the depth of the snow up there. If they were bipedal, they'd be sinking to their waists."
"What does that mean?"
"It means..." Leo squints, watching the dots suddenly break apart, darting in opposite directions with a speed that defies human mechanics.
He exhales a long, heavy breath, his shoulders dropping two inches.
"It means it's wildlife. Elk, probably. Maybe a pack of timber wolves tracking a scent.
The wind distorted the thermal mass, making them look larger on the initial sweep. "
My knees actually buckle.
I don't fall, but I stagger sideways, my hip colliding with the edge of a metal filing cabinet. I grip the cold steel to keep myself upright. The relief is a physical blow, heavy and exhausting, draining the last remaining drops of adrenaline from my bloodstream.
"Not hitmen," I say, my voice sounding incredibly small.
"Not hitmen," Leo confirms. He reaches over and hits a button on his comms console. "Dec. It's a false alarm. Thermal distortion on a pack of local wildlife. You're hunting Bambi, man. Stand down."
Static crackles through the small speaker on the desk. A second later, Declan’s voice cuts through, low and clipped, completely devoid of the heavy breathing you would expect from a man trekking through a blizzard.
"Copy that. Returning to the house."
Leo kills the comms and leans back in his chair, rubbing his hands over his face. "Well. That was a fun start to the day. I need another energy drink."
I don't answer him. I slide down the side of the filing cabinet until I am sitting on the hard concrete floor. I pull my knees up to my chest, wrapping my arms around my legs.
I try to take a deep breath, but my lungs refuse to expand fully. The air feels too thin. My hands are shaking so badly I have to tuck them under my thighs to hide the tremors.
It was a false alarm. No one is coming to kill me today.
But the reality of my situation is pressing down on me, suffocating and absolute. I am sitting on the floor of a subterranean bunker. I have no money, no phone, no identity. The only reason I am breathing is because a lethal, obsessive man decided I was his property to protect.
I rest my forehead against my knees, closing my eyes. I just want to wake up. I want to wake up in my messy apartment in Chicago, complain about the broken radiator, and go to my boring job.
But Richard is at that job, my brain reminds me cruelly. Richard sent men with guns to your apartment.
A heavy, metallic clank echoes from the stairwell.
The heavy steel door at the top of the stairs opens, and the sound of heavy boots hits the metal grating.
I lift my head.
Declan descends into the server room.
The visual impact of him completely steals whatever air I had left in my lungs.
He is covered in snow. The white powder clings to his dark hair, melting against the heat of his skin and running down his temples.
His black t-shirt is soaked through across the shoulders, clinging to the heavy, defined musculature of his chest. He is holding the Glock in his right hand, the muzzle pointed at the floor, his finger resting flat against the trigger guard.
He doesn't look like the polished executive who wiped blood off his cuff last night. He looks feral. Stripped down to the violent, predatory core that Leo just warned me about.
He reaches the bottom of the stairs and engages the safety on the weapon with a sharp click . He holsters it at the small of his back, his movements fluid and automatic.
"Wildlife," Declan says, looking at Leo.
"Yeah. Pack of wolves, looks like," Leo replies, already turning back to his code. "I'll recalibrate the thermal sensors to filter out non-bipedal mass below a certain threshold. Sorry for making you freeze your ass off."
Declan doesn't acknowledge the apology. His dark eyes sweep the room, passing over the servers, the monitors, and finally landing on me.
I am still sitting on the floor, huddled against the filing cabinet. I look pathetic. I know I do.
He walks toward me. His boots leave wet, melting footprints on the concrete. The smell of the blizzard comes with him—sharp, metallic cold, mixed with the dark cedar of his skin.
He stops two feet away, looking down at me.
"Get up, Maeve," he says quietly.
"I'm fine down here," I lie. My voice wavers. I hate it. I clear my throat and try for a smile, hoping to project the chaotic, unbothered energy I used in the kitchen. "The floor is very supportive. Excellent lumbar structure."
He doesn't smile. He doesn't even blink. He just watches me, his obsidian eyes cataloging every microscopic detail of my physical state. The way my shoulders are hunched. The way my jaw is locked tight.
"You are experiencing an adrenaline crash," he observes, his tone clinical, though the cadence of his voice is softer than it was upstairs. "Your body prepared for a physical confrontation that didn't happen. The excess cortisol is causing the tremors."
"I'm not trembling," I say, my teeth literally chattering as I speak. "It's just freezing in here. Leo keeps this place at penguin-friendly temperatures."
"Stand up."
"I said I'm fine."
I try to look away, focusing on a blinking green light on the server rack opposite me. If I look at him, if I look at the melting snow on his collarbones and the absolute, terrifying capability in his eyes, I am going to lose whatever fragile grip I have left on my sanity.
Declan sighs. It’s a low, rough sound.
He steps closer, invading my space entirely. He crouches down, his knees popping slightly, bringing him eye-level with me. The sheer size of him blocks out the rest of the room. It’s just me, the concrete wall, and him.
"Look at me," he commands.
I shake my head, keeping my eyes fixed on the server rack. "I guess I don't have to worry about cartel assassins today," I say, the words rushing out in a desperate attempt to fill the silence. "Just wolves. Which is... you know, a nice change of pace. Very rustic. Very National Geographic ."
The joke falls flat, dying in the cold air between us.
My throat tightens painfully. The burning sensation behind my eyes is sudden and aggressive.
Don't cry. Do not cry in front of the hitman.
"Maeve."
He says my name like it’s a physical object he is holding in his hands. Careful. Heavy.
I blink, and a single, treacherous tear spills over my lower lash line, cutting a hot path down my cold cheek.
I let out a frustrated, broken sound and try to lift my hand to wipe it away, but my muscles feel completely disconnected from my brain.
Declan moves before I can.
He reaches out, pulling his hand from his pocket. His knuckles are red from the cold outside. He doesn't offer a platitude. He doesn't tell me everything is going to be fine, because we both know that is a lie.
Instead, he presses his thumb against my cheekbone, catching the tear before it reaches my jaw.
I freeze.
His skin is cold from the snow, but the pressure of his touch is a sudden, shocking anchor in the middle of my spiral. His fingers are slightly rough, calloused from years of handling weapons, but the way he holds my face is terrifyingly gentle.
I finally look at him.
His dark eyes are entirely focused on mine, stripping away the sarcasm, the jokes, the walls I’ve spent my entire life building. He sees exactly how terrified I am. He sees how broken I feel.
And he doesn't look away.
"You aren't going to be eaten by wolves," Declan says, his voice dropping to a low, rough murmur that vibrates directly in my chest. "You aren't going to be touched by the cartel. You are going to stay in this house, and you are going to survive."
I swallow hard, my pulse hammering against the base of my throat, right where his index finger is resting.
"You can't promise that," I whisper.
His thumb moves, a microscopic, deeply intimate stroke against my cheekbone. The gesture is so small, but it sends a jolt of heat straight down my spine, fighting the chill of the room.
"I don't make promises, Maeve," he replies, his gaze dropping to my mouth for a fraction of a second before lifting back to my eyes. "I make guarantees. And I am guaranteeing you that nothing on this earth will harm you while you are mine to protect."
While you are mine.
There it is again. That heavy, possessive phrasing. He isn't protecting a client. He is guarding something he has claimed.
I should push his hand away. I should tell him I belong to no one. But the truth—the ugly, humiliating truth I refuse to admit out loud—is that the pressure of his hand on my face is the only thing keeping me from shattering into a million pieces on this concrete floor.
I lean into his touch. Just a millimeter. Just enough for him to feel the surrender.
A dark, dangerous satisfaction flares in Declan’s eyes. The muscle in his jaw flexes. He doesn't pull away. He stays crouched in front of me, his hand anchoring me to the earth, while the servers hum blindly in the background.
For the first time since the door of my apartment splintered open, I don't feel like I am falling.
I feel caught.
And I have no idea which is more dangerous.