Chapter 7
7
VANESSA
V anessa didn’t realize when it happened—when the hum of anxiety in her chest dropped to something quieter. When the itch to keep moving—the fight-or-flight that had gripped her since the letter—stopped buzzing in her bones. Maybe it was the way Hawke disappeared into task mode without barking orders. Maybe it was the smell of coffee and cedarwood in the air, or the soft creak of old floors beneath her bare feet.
But something shifted.
She stood in front of the stove, barefoot in a pair of leggings, an oversized thermal Henley that was very much his. She had rolled up the sleeves three times, exposing her forearms. The scent of bacon filled the cabin. She had already scrambled the eggs. Toast in the warmer. She hadn’t asked. He hadn’t told her to. She’d just done it.
Because she needed to do something normal. Something that wasn’t running or flinching or pretending she wasn’t on edge. So she cooked. Not for him. Not really. But if he ate, fine. If he didn’t, whatever, but she still set two plates on the table.
When Hawke came in from the side porch—boots off, shirt damp from morning mist and probably another perimeter check —he said nothing. He took the plate she slid toward him, sat, and dug in.
Like it had always been this way.
“How long are you going to keep pretending you don’t like when I do domestic things?” she asked, pouring herself another cup of coffee.
“I’m not pretending,” he said without looking up. “I like it.”
She paused mid-pour. “Seriously?”
He gave her a side glance. “You think I kept a functioning kitchen just for show?”
“I thought it was more of a military habit. Tactical nourishment.”
His mouth curved. “Tactical bacon?”
“Wouldn’t put it past you.”
He didn’t rise to the bait. He just kept eating, calm and quiet, like the mountain man he was. Like they hadn’t had each other stripped and gasping twenty-four hours ago. Like the entire world hadn’t gone off the rails the second she picked up that damn letter.
Vanessa dropped into the chair across from him and rested her chin on one hand.
“You’re very annoying, you know that?”
“I do.”
“I mean, the brooding and the silence and the way you make me want to punch you and climb your frame at the same time…”
The corners of his lips lifted slightly, and she saw the flicker of something darker in his eyes.
Don’t go there, Nessa. Not now.
She picked up a slice of bacon and tore into it, chewing like it had personally offended her.
Hawke didn’t push; he never did. He just let her unravel at her own pace, which was more dangerous than if he’d demanded answers. Because silence gave her room to think. And thinking led to remembering, and remembering was dangerous.
He finished eating before she did and rose to rinse his plate, moving with the kind of quiet confidence that made everything in her tighten. He didn’t posture. Didn’t strut. Just operated like a man who knew how to move in his own space—and could rearrange yours if needed.
She stared at his back as he washed the dish. The line of his shoulders beneath the fabric of his shirt. The cut of his forearms. The fact that her body still hummed just looking at him.
And then, for no reason at all, she blurted it out. “My father used to read my journals.”
Hawke stilled.
“He did it for years,” she said, voice quiet but steady. “I didn’t find out until college. I came home for Christmas break, and he quoted a paragraph I’d written about a boy I had a crush on. Word for word. Called it a ‘concern.’ Said it didn’t reflect well on the image I was supposed to be projecting.”
She didn’t look at him. Couldn’t.
“After that, I stopped writing by hand. Went digital. Passwords. Encryption. Firewalls. Like maybe if I locked it down hard enough, no one could crawl inside my head again.”
Hawke turned off the water and dried his hands. Still silent.
“I don’t trust people easily,” she said. “Not because I don’t want to. But because too many of them have used what they learned about me as leverage. As something they could twist or claim or use.”
He turned and walked over to her, dropped to one knee beside her chair, and rested a hand on her thigh. Warm. Grounding.
“You’ve told no one that, have you?”
She shook her head.
His thumb moved in slow circles, soothing without coddling. “You don’t have to tell me more.”
“I know,” she said. “That’s why I did.”
They sat in silence. Not awkward. Not heavy. Just… there.
And that was what shook her the most.
She hadn’t meant to fall back into rhythm with him. Hadn’t meant to settle into his space like it fit. But it did. Too well. And if she let it go too far, she wouldn’t be able to walk away again.
“I hated you let me go,” she said. He didn’t flinch. “I left because I thought it would hurt less than staying. And then you didn’t chase me. You didn’t call. You didn’t fight.”
“I was trying to respect your decision,” he said. “I thought that’s what you wanted.”
She met his eyes. “It wasn’t.”
“Then I failed.”
“No,” she whispered. “We both did.”
Hawke rose, pulled out the chair beside her, and sat close. Too close.
“You still don’t trust me completely,” he said.
“No.”
“You still think I might disappoint you.”
She nodded.
“But you’re here,” he said. “You’re still here.”
And that was the truth of it. She didn’t know what tomorrow held. Didn’t know how deep the stalker problem ran. Didn’t know if her old wounds would rip open again before this was over.
But she was still here, and Hawke wasn’t going anywhere.
That should’ve made her feel stronger. Instead, it made her feel like she was standing at the edge of a cliff—terrified that this time, if she jumped, there wouldn’t be a safe place to land.
The words hung between them longer than they should have.
‘You walked.’
Vanessa stared at him, stomach twisted, throat dry. She’d spent years building a version of the truth that painted her departure as inevitable. He remained intensely focused on his mission. Too rigid. Too impossible to need without losing herself.
But now, sitting in the quiet of his kitchen, plates still warm from breakfast and his eyes steady on hers, that version cracked.
“You thought I left you?” she asked, voice rough.
“I didn’t think,” he said. “You did.”
She blinked. “I left because you stopped showing up.”
“No,” he said calmly. “You left after one fight. One awful week. You didn’t ask me to stay. You didn’t ask if I was coming back. You just packed up, wrote your goodbye in an email, and disappeared.”
She opened her mouth, but no words came. The memory was too clear. The call he didn’t return. The message he didn’t answer. Her heart had been already cracking, and she’d told herself if he would not fight for her, she’d fight for herself.
But now—hearing it in his voice, quiet and steady, no anger behind it—it didn’t feel like justification anymore. It felt like regret.
“I didn’t think you wanted me to,” she said.
He arched a brow. “You didn’t ask.”
She looked away. That was the problem, wasn’t it? She didn’t ask. She didn’t risk the answer.
“I thought needing you made me weak.”
His hand came down on the table between them, palm flat, strong.
“Needing me makes you human,” he said. “Letting me stand between you and danger doesn’t mean you’re incapable. It means you’re not alone.”
Her breath caught. Not because the words were poetic, but because they were so damn simple. No games. No grand declarations. Just fact.
She wasn’t sure what she would have said next, if the knock hadn’t come.
Not a knock, exactly. More like a soft impact, too light to echo, too deliberate to ignore. Her gaze darted to the front door. Hawke’s did too.
He stood without a word. Vanessa followed him to the entryway, barefoot and silent. He gave her one look—stay there—and opened the door.
There, resting dead center on the welcome mat, was a pale gray envelope. No stamp. No name. No marking except the clean, narrow script printed across the front:
Vanessa.
She stepped forward, but Hawke blocked her with one arm.
“Don’t go through the door, and don’t touch it,” he said, voice clipped.
“I wasn’t going to?—”
He snorted. “You were.”
Fair. She’d already moved halfway into his space without realizing it.
He crouched, eyes scanning the porch, the railings, the space beyond the columns. His perimeter alarms hadn’t gone off. She knew because he checked them every hour. The cameras hadn’t pinged—there would’ve been a silent alert to his phone. That meant someone had made it past both systems without detection.
“How?” she whispered.
His eyes scanned the tree line. “Either they found a blind spot… or they know how I think.”
That made her blood run cold. He pulled his phone from his back pocket and brought up the security feed. Tapped. Scrolled. Then cursed under his breath.
“What?” she asked.
“Video cuts out for eight seconds between 4:11 and 4:12. Clean drop. Power never flickered, just the camera. Something or someone overwrote the recording.”
“Can you recover it?”
“Reed can.”
Hawke reached for a pair of black nitrile gloves from the drawer near the front door—of course he kept them there—and slid them on with practiced efficiency.
Vanessa watched as he lifted the envelope and turned it over.
“No seal,” he muttered. “Tucked flap.”
He peeled it open carefully and removed a single folded piece of paper. Same texture as the last one. Same expensive feel. The kind of stationery used for wedding vows or last confessions.
He read it once. Then again. And that silence—that cold, exact silence—made her stomach knot.
“What does it say?”
He looked at her, eyes unreadable. Then grabbed another glove, wrapped it around one side, and passed her the paper.
She took it with trembling fingers and read.
You look better in his clothes than I expected.
But they don’t change what you are.
You can’t hide behind him forever.
You belong to me.
Tell him I don’t enjoy sharing.
Her breath caught. Not from fear, but from the twisting, coiling sickness that curled in her belly.
“He was watching,” she whispered.
Touching the hem of the shirt she was wearing—Hawke’s shirt—was something she hadn’t even realized had been mentioned until she reread the first line.
He’d been that close.
Close enough to see her inside the cabin. Through the windows, the glass panels by the door, maybe even from the ridge across the property.
“I checked every camera this morning,” Hawke said. “He knows how to move around them. He timed the drop perfectly.”
“He hacked your system.”
“Or someone gave him access.”
Her head snapped up. “You think it’s someone you know?”
“I think it’s someone who knows me.” He scanned the porch again. “And that’s worse.”
Vanessa stepped aside as he resealed the letter and bagged it in an evidence pouch. Then he made the call to Gavin—short, precise and no emotion.
She sat on the edge of the couch and stared at the fire, cold now, the flames gone to ash. This wasn’t just about obsession anymore. This was about possession. Proximity.
“You don’t look surprised,” she said when he hung up.
“I’m not.”
“Why?”
“Because this would never stay inside your inbox,” he said. “This was always leading here.”
She swallowed. “To what?”
“To him making a move.”
Vanessa wrapped her arms around herself. “He thinks I belong to him.”
Hawke’s voice came low. “He’s about to learn differently.”
She looked at him, saw the calm behind the fury. Saw the man who never raised his voice but always finished the fight. And she hated that a part of her—the part that was still unraveling—felt safer now than she had in years. But safety didn’t mean the fear was gone.
Because this wasn’t over. This was just the beginning.