CHAPTER 23 Maeve
The morning light filtering through the massive, floor-to-ceiling windows is brilliant, blindingly white, and completely silent.
I wake up slowly, the heavy, dark gray duvet tangled around my waist. The right side of the bed is empty. The sheets are cool to the touch, carrying only a faint, lingering trace of cedar and the sharp, sterile scent of iodine.
I roll onto my back, staring up at the vaulted wooden ceiling. My muscles ache, a deep, heavy soreness that has nothing to do with running down stairwells or crawling through sewers.
I pull the duvet up to my chin, the soft fabric brushing against my bare skin.
Everything about last night feels like a fever dream. The frantic, desperate surrender in the medical bay. The way Declan looked at me, stripped of all his tactical armor, completely consumed by the need to claim me. The absolute, terrifying realization that I didn't want him to stop.
I trace the line of my collarbone, my fingers brushing the edge of the bruises on my neck.
They still hurt, a dull, tight ache when I swallow, but the sharp, paralyzing panic attached to the memory is gone.
Declan burned it out of me. He replaced the violence of the cartel with the heavy, possessive weight of his own obsession.
I sit up, pulling the duvet with me.
My clothes from last night—the gray sweatpants and the black t-shirt—are folded neatly on the edge of the dark wood dresser across the room. It’s such a bizarre, domestic detail. The man who kills people for a living folded my sweatpants while I was asleep.
I slide out of bed, wrapping the heavy duvet around my shoulders like a cape, and walk over to the dresser. I drop the blanket and pull the clothes on. The cotton is soft, smelling faintly of the expensive laundry detergent used in this house.
I walk out of the bedroom and into the wide, sunlit hallway.
The house is incredibly quiet. The only sound is the rhythmic, crashing roar of the ocean hitting the rocky cliffs below the property.
It’s a beautiful sound, but it emphasizes the absolute isolation of the island.
We are a thousand miles away from Chicago, from Richard Evans, from the federal warrants and the cartel hitmen.
We are completely cut off from the world.
I find Declan in the kitchen.
He is standing at the massive slate island, a ceramic mug of coffee in his right hand.
He is wearing a clean pair of dark cargo pants and a plain white t-shirt.
The shirt is tight, stretching over the thick bandage on his left shoulder.
He looks rested, his dark hair damp from a shower, but the rigid, alert posture is exactly the same.
He turns his head as I walk into the room. His dark eyes sweep over me, taking in the messy hair, the oversized t-shirt, and the bare feet.
"Good morning," he says, his voice a low, steady rumble that sends a warm shiver straight down my spine.
"Morning," I reply, my voice slightly raspy.
I walk toward the island, suddenly feeling incredibly self-conscious.
It was easy to be brave in the sterile light of the medical bay, fueled by adrenaline and exhaustion.
It is much harder to stand in a sunlit kitchen and face the reality of what we did.
I stop a few feet away from him. "How is your shoulder?"
"Stiff," he admits, setting his mug down. "The sutures held. You did adequate work."
"Adequate?" I raise an eyebrow, crossing my arms over my chest. "I sewed your muscle back together with trembling hands while you interrogated me about my life choices. I think I deserve at least a 'proficient'."
The corner of his mouth twitches. It isn't a full smile, but it changes the entire geography of his face, softening the harsh, lethal angles.
"Proficient," he concedes. He reaches across the counter, picking up a second ceramic mug, and slides it toward me. "I made coffee."
I look at the dark liquid. "Is it your battery acid roast, or did you let me ruin it with sugar?"
"I added the cream and sugar myself," he says, his tone completely deadpan. "I attempted to replicate the exact ratio of chaos you prefer."
I pick up the mug, bringing it to my lips. It is surprisingly perfect. Sweet, creamy, and entirely drinkable. I take a long sip, the warmth settling in my stomach.
"Thank you," I murmur, leaning against the edge of the slate counter.
We stand in silence for a few minutes, drinking our coffee and looking out the massive glass windows at the ocean. The water is a brilliant, blinding turquoise, stretching out to the horizon without a single boat or island in sight.
"It's beautiful," I say quietly.
"It is secure," Declan replies, his focus entirely practical. "The reef surrounding the atoll prevents large vessels from approaching the cliffs. The only safe harbor is the private dock on the north side of the island, which is monitored by a closed-circuit thermal grid."
"You really don't know how to relax, do you?"
He turns his head, looking at me. "Relaxing implies a lack of threats. The threats still exist, Maeve. They are simply geographically distant."
I sigh, tracing the rim of the coffee mug. He's right. The cartel isn't going to stop looking for us just because we flew off the map. Richard Evans knows what I look like. He knows what Declan looks like.
"Have you talked to Leo?" I ask, shifting the conversation to the immediate problem.
"Yes. He initiated contact an hour ago via a heavily encrypted satellite relay." Declan sets his empty mug in the sink. "The burn protocol was successful. The firm's domestic servers are entirely wiped. The physical offices in Denver were cleared and sanitized by a local cleanup crew."
"So the company is really gone."
"The company was a tool. The tool became a liability.
" He dismisses the loss of a fifty-million-dollar enterprise with a casual shrug of his uninjured shoulder.
"Leo is currently establishing a new, decentralized network from a secure location in Europe.
He is monitoring the cartel's internal communications. "
"And?" I press, my heart rate picking up slightly. "What are they saying?"
"They are angry," Declan says, walking around the island to stand next to me. "Evans survived the gunshot wound. He is currently recovering in a private clinic controlled by the syndicate. He told them I went rogue and stole the ledger."
"But the ledger is gone. I wiped it in the server room."
"They don't know that. They assume we downloaded the data before initiating the fire suppression system.
" Declan leans against the counter, his dark eyes fixed on the ocean.
"They believe we have the routing numbers for their entire Midwest operation.
They believe we are holding the data for ransom. "
I stare at him, the reality of the situation sinking in. "We don't have the data. We have nothing to bargain with."
"We don't need to bargain," he says, turning his head to look at me.
The cold, lethal certainty in his eyes is absolute.
"We are going to let them hunt us. We are going to let them exhaust their resources searching the continent.
And when they are desperate, when Evans makes a mistake, we will strike. "
"How? We're stuck on an island."
"We are not stuck. We are waiting."
He reaches out, his hand wrapping gently around my upper arm. He pulls me away from the counter, guiding me toward the massive glass doors leading out to the terrace.
"Come with me," he instructs.
I set my coffee mug down and follow him.
He opens the glass door, and the heavy, humid heat of the Bahamas hits me instantly. The sound of the ocean is deafening out here. We walk across the wide wooden deck, past the infinity pool, and down a narrow set of stone steps carved directly into the cliffside.
The steps wind down through the dense jungle foliage, the air thick with the smell of salt and blooming flowers.
"Where are we going?" I ask, keeping my hand on the rough stone wall to steady myself.
"To the armory."
I stop walking. "The armory? Declan, I thought this was a safe house."
"It is." He stops a few steps below me, looking back up. "But safety is an illusion without the capacity for violence. If they find this island, we will not be hiding in a panic room."
He continues down the stairs. I take a deep breath and follow him.
We reach the bottom of the cliff. A heavy, reinforced steel door is set into the solid rock, completely hidden from the ocean by a natural overhang. Declan presses his thumb to a scanner, and the door clicks open.
He flips a light switch.
The room inside the cave is massive, brightly lit by harsh fluorescent bulbs. The walls are lined with heavy metal racks, identical to the server racks in Miami, but instead of computers, they are filled with weapons.
Rifles, handguns, tactical shotguns, boxes of ammunition, plate carriers, and heavy-duty communication equipment. It looks like the staging area for a small private army.
I walk slowly into the room, staring at the sheer volume of lethal hardware.
"You bought all of this just for a fallback point?" I ask, my voice echoing slightly against the stone walls.
"I bought it to ensure that I am never cornered," Declan replies, walking over to a long metal workbench in the center of the room.
He picks up a sleek, black handgun, checking the chamber with practiced ease.
"The cartel operates on intimidation and overwhelming force.
They believe they control the board because they have more pieces. "
He sets the gun down and turns to face me.
"But they do not have you," he says, his voice dropping to a low, intense register. "They do not have the woman who bypassed their primary firewall in under three minutes. They do not have the woman who sacrificed a knight to blind me to a bishop."
I look at him, my heart hammering against my ribs. He isn't just showing me his weapons. He is showing me his strategy.
"You want me to build a trap," I realize, the pieces clicking into place.
"I want you to build a digital labyrinth," Declan corrects, walking toward me. "I want you to use the secure terminal in the house to access the cartel's secondary accounts. I want you to leave breadcrumbs. Small, untraceable anomalies that Evans will eventually find."
"You want me to lure him out."
"I want you to make him paranoid. I want you to make him believe we are slowly draining his remaining assets. He will panic. He will try to secure the funds by moving them to a physical location."
"And when he does," I say, the dark, vindictive thrill of the plan settling in my chest, "you hit the location."
"Yes."
Declan stops in front of me. He reaches out, his hands resting on my waist. The physical contact grounds me, pulling me out of the tactical calculation and back into the heavy, intimate reality of the man standing in front of me.
"It will take time," he murmurs, his thumbs pressing lightly into the soft cotton of my t-shirt. "It requires patience. It requires you to sit in that house and stare at a screen for weeks."
"I can do it," I say, tilting my head back to look at him. "I'm good at staring at screens."
"I know you are."
He leans down, his mouth brushing against mine. The kiss is slow, a heavy, possessive promise that sends a rush of heat straight down my spine. I slide my hands up his chest, my fingers tangling in the soft fabric of his white t-shirt.
"We are going to destroy him, Maeve," Declan whispers against my lips. "We are going to take everything he has, and then I am going to end him."
I close my eyes, leaning into his touch.
I am standing in an underground armory with a man who is planning a war. I am a fugitive, isolated on an island, entirely dependent on a lethal fixer for my survival.
But as his arms wrap around me, pulling me flush against his chest, I realize that I have never felt more powerful in my entire life.
"Okay," I breathe, opening my eyes to meet his dark, obsessive gaze. "Let's build a trap."