Chapter 4
4
HAWKE
H awke didn’t wait for them to settle. He didn’t need to. When Gavin Briggs called a meeting, you came ready. When Hawke called one, you came on edge.
The conference room at Silver Spur Security wasn’t flashy—glass walls, one long table, blackout blinds already drawn. No distractions. The energy in the room shifted the moment he walked in. Reed Malone was already leaning against the far wall, arms crossed, his ever-present scowl in place. Dawson Hart sat forward with a pen between his fingers, flipping it like a blade. Jesse Bryant, boots up on the corner of the table, dropped them the second he saw Hawke. Gavin sat at the head, unreadable.
Hawke didn’t bother with greetings. He dropped the manila folder onto the table, flipped it open, and slid the contents into the center. Photos. The letter. A printout from Vanessa’s security feed. And two screenshots from fan event footage.
He kept his voice clipped. Clear.
“Vanessa Ellington has a stalker. Advanced. Structured. He breached her home two nights ago without tripping alarms, left a message quoting a scene from an unpublished manuscript, and exited clean.”
Gavin reached for the letter first. “Is this the actual scene from the book?”
Hawke nodded. “Verbatim. Chapter fourteen of her next novel. The file’s encrypted and air-gapped. No email copies. No digital backups except one on her hard drive. No one’s seen the content, not even her editor.”
“Not even her Dom?” Jesse asked, trying for light. Hawke shot him a look that said don’t push it, and Jesse held up both hands. “Just asking.”
“Do we have a suspect pool yet?” Dawson asked, flipping through the printed screenshots.
Hawke tapped the image from the Denver signing event. “That’s our first solid thread. He shows up here, again six months later in Dallas. No ticket scan. No photo with her. But he’s in her proximity three separate times on footage I’ve found so far.”
Reed leaned in, studying the face blurred beneath a cap. “Ballsy.”
“Calculated,” Hawke corrected. “He never lingers. Never speaks. Never pushes contact. This is a long play.”
Gavin passed the note down the table. “This was hand-delivered?”
“Left in her mail slot. No fingerprints. No surveillance footage. And the paper’s custom stock—bespoke run from a print boutique in Austin. I’ve got Liz working on the customer list.”
“Jesus,” Jesse muttered.
“He didn’t leave DNA. He left intimacy,” Hawke said. “This wasn’t a threat. It was possession. He quoted a scene where the heroine’s already bound, marked, emotionally vulnerable. He’s letting her know he knows her. He sees her. And now he wants her to feel him watching.”
Dawson tossed the pen on the table. “Any idea if this is bleeding into her public channels?”
“Not yet,” Hawke said. “No DMs. No emails. But we’re checking through her author account now, cross-referencing IPs. I’ll need one of you to scrub her inbox manually—every reader message she’s flagged as obsessive or strange in the last twelve months.”
“I’ll take it,” Jesse said.
Reed grunted. “You just want to read fan mail from horny romance readers.”
Jesse grinned. “Guilty.”
Gavin ignored them both. “You think it’s someone from inside the club?”
That question dropped heavily.
Hawke didn’t answer right away. He pulled a USB stick from his jacket pocket, plugged it into the wall screen, and brought up a grainy still from the Iron Spur’s parking lot camera. Three weeks ago. Vanessa leaving with Keely and Roxie. Behind them, a dark SUV idling in the back corner of the lot. License plate not visible. No movement. But the timestamp lined up with the night Vanessa mentioned feeling watched.
Hawke crossed his arms.
“We’ve got someone who knows the club. Knows the security schedule. Knew how to avoid every active camera and what time to intercept her without drawing attention.”
Reed swore under his breath. “That’s an inside job.”
“Or a lifestyle insider,” Dawson said. “Someone who plays at another club, who’s familiar enough to move quietly.”
Jesse leaned forward. “Could be a switch who’s seen her scene. Could be a voyeur who’s latched on from the sidelines. Hell, could be a submissive turned obsessive Dom wannabe.”
“She thinks it’s someone she’s never scened with,” Hawke said. “She’s confident she’d remember if she’d spent any time with him.”
“Don’t assume she’d know,” Gavin warned. “If this guy’s good enough to get in and out of her house, he’s good enough to blend inside a scene.”
Hawke’s jaw locked. That was the part that gnawed at him. Not just the breach or the quote or the footage. It was that someone had been close enough to her in his space, their space, and he hadn’t seen it.
“She’s safe now,” Jesse said, more gently this time. “You’ve got eyes on her. You’ve got her in your territory.”
“That’s not enough,” Hawke said. “She wasn’t supposed to need this.”
Gavin gave him a look. Not judgment. Not pity. Just understanding. The kind you didn’t need words for after a decade in the field together.
“We run the perimeter,” Gavin said. “Dawson, take Vanessa’s calendar. See which events she had staff pull last minute. Any cancellations, security swaps, or guests that changed day-of. Reed, I want deep pulls on every man in her fan group who’s ever emailed more than once. Cross them with the boutique’s paper customer list when Liz sends it.”
Reed gave a tight nod. “On it.”
Jesse closed the file. “What about Vanessa? You telling her all this?”
“She already knows most of it,” Hawke said. “What she doesn’t know is how close this bastard’s gotten.”
Gavin stood. “You’ll have to tell her soon.”
Hawke gave a curt nod. “I will. Once I’m sure it won’t undo the work I’m doing to keep her from running again.”
He unplugged the drive, slid it back into his pocket, and turned for the door.
Reed called after him. “You sure you’re not too close to this?”
Hawke didn’t stop walking. “I’m the only one close enough to handle it.”
And that, more than anything, was the damn truth.
Hawke hit the top step in his cabin, spotted her immediately in his bedroom, and bit back the first response that came to mind.
Vanessa was curled in his chair, legs tucked under her, his laptop balanced on the ottoman. She furrowed her brow as she clicked through a folder labeled Fan Messages—Archived . Her mouth moved slightly, like she was silently mouthing words as she read. She hadn’t heard him come in.
Which made his point for him.
“You’re not supposed to be up here.”
She jumped, shutting the laptop instinctively and swinging her legs to the floor. “Jesus, could you wear a bell or something?”
He crossed the room, slow and deliberate, stopping just short of her. “I told you to rest.”
“I did. Then I got bored. Then I got curious.”
“That wasn’t an invitation to break into my system.”
“I didn’t break anything.” She stood, chin lifted. “You left it open. I just… leaned in.”
“Vanessa.” His tone was low now. “You don’t go through my files. Ever. You want access, you ask.”
“Would you have said yes?”
He didn’t answer. Because she already knew.
She sighed, brushing a curl from her face. “I wasn’t snooping for dirt. I was looking for patterns. Something that might trigger recognition.”
He crossed his arms. “And?”
Her eyes dropped. “There’s a message from someone tagged ‘Reader 3782’ that feels off. He references scenes from Sins of the Flame , but the phrasing… it’s possessive. Familiar… almost like he thinks he’s talking to the character, not me.”
Hawke took the laptop, opened it again, and found the thread she’d left open. The last message was from six weeks ago.
“I know you don’t respond, but I see the way you write her. She’s not fiction. She’s you. And you know I’d never let anything happen to you. Not again.”
He stilled.
“This isn’t just a reader,” she said, watching him carefully. “He’s inserting himself into the narrative. Like he thinks he belongs in it.”
Hawke scanned the metadata. No IP data logged. No name, no linked account. Whoever this was knew how to keep his digital signature minimal.
“Why didn’t you flag this?” he asked.
Her voice was quieter now. “Because it didn’t seem threatening. Creepy? Sure. But I get dozens of messages that blur the lines between fiction and fantasy. Occupational hazard.”
He hated that. Hated the way she said it like it was normal. Like it was something she just accepted.
“He’s been watching you,” Hawke said. “Not just your books. You. He knows you’re the voice behind her. He’s personalizing it.”
She didn’t argue. Didn’t cross her arms or throw out another sarcastic quip. That scared him more than the message.
He moved to the side table, grabbed his phone, and started snapping shots of the screen for backup reference before pulling the thread onto a flash drive.
“I’ll get this to Gavin. Reed can run it deeper, scrape the hidden metadata. See if we can trace anything.”
She moved closer, her presence like a hum under his skin.
“I know what you’re thinking,” she said. “That I should’ve taken this more seriously. That I should’ve told someone.”
“No.” He looked at her. “I’m thinking I should’ve been here months ago.”
Her gaze faltered.
“I saw the signs,” he went on. “I knew you’d pulled back. I knew your posts had dropped off, your book was late. I watched you disappear in pieces and didn’t say a damn word because I told myself you wanted distance.”
“I did,” she said. “We both did.”
“That was two years ago. It was a lie then, and it’s a lie now.”
Vanessa blinked.
“You left because you thought I couldn’t choose you over the job,” he said in a voice devoid of emotion. “I didn’t fight for you because I didn’t know how. But none of that means I ever stopped watching.”
Her lips parted like she wanted to argue, but the words didn’t come.
He turned the laptop back toward her. “There’s a second message from the same account, three days before the letter showed up.”
He opened it. This one was shorter.
“You keep writing her like she belongs to someone else. But you know the truth. She was always mine. Stop rewriting what we both know happened.”
Vanessa stiffened. “That sounds like he’s referencing something specific.”
“He’s responding like you’ve betrayed a shared history.”
Her voice dropped. “Like he thinks we had something.”
“Or like he thinks he did something, and you ‘rewrote’ it.”
Hawke’s gut clenched.
He sat down at the desk, brought up her calendar on his backup drive. “You said you didn’t recognize the man in the signing photos. But if he’s been watching, he could’ve been at other appearances.”
She stepped behind him, arms brushing his shoulders as she leaned in to look.
“Wait,” she said, tapping the screen. “That charity panel in Houston. The moderator had to cancel last minute, and the replacement was—what was his name? Shit. It’s on the program in my bag.”
“I’ll get it.” Hawke was already moving.
Downstairs, he grabbed her leather tote from beside the couch and rifled through until he found the event program. He scanned the list and found the name: Miles Brenner.
The panel moderator. Not a fan. Not a ticket-holder. But someone with direct access to Vanessa. Someone who’d sat beside her on stage for forty-five minutes and led a discussion about power dynamics in fiction.
When he came back up, Vanessa was pacing.
“Brenner,” he said, handing her the paper.
Her face paled.
“That’s him.”
“You’re sure?”
“He was too familiar. Asked off-script questions. Touched my shoulder when he didn’t need to.”
“You didn’t tell security?”
“It didn’t feel like a threat. Just awkward. I didn’t want to make a scene.”
Hawke’s fingers curled into fists. He forced himself to stay calm. “He’s the same guy from the Dallas and Denver footage.”
“I didn’t connect it until just now. He was clean cut for the panel. Different haircut. No hat. But it’s the same build. Same eyes.”
Hawke felt his chest tighten with something heavier than frustration. Guilt. Fury. Something primal. He’d let her walk into that event alone. He should’ve been there. He should’ve known.
“He’s been circling for months,” he said. “Building access. Testing your reactions. Getting closer.”
She sat on the edge of the chair, her knuckles white. “Do you think he’s done more than watch?”
Hawke knelt in front of her, his hands braced on her knees.
“I think he’s escalating. But he hasn’t made a physical move yet. When he does, I’ll be there.”
She looked at him, wide-eyed, vulnerable in a way she rarely let herself be.
“I don’t want to live my life afraid.”
“You won’t be,” he said. “I’ll find him, Vanessa. I swear it.”
His voice didn’t rise. He didn’t posture. But she leaned toward him, like she believed him, like she was finally letting herself feel it. Like neither of them was going anywhere. Not this time.
And Hawke? He was already planning how to make Brenner disappear from her life—permanently.