Chapter 57
KNOX
Outside the bedroom window, where the noise had come from, the wind began to howl like the earth itself was screaming.
Harper shot out of bed, throwing on clothes. No hesitation. No fumbling. Just muscle memory, born from years of expecting the worst.
She opened the bottom drawer of her nightstand and pulled out a hammer.
“It’s probably nothing.” She clearly hoped it was a tree branch or something.
But her eyes told a different story. Wide. Darting. The green that usually reminded me of sunlit grass had gone dark with fear.
And in that moment, something inside me broke.
Because I realized that all those nights I’d been lying in my concrete tomb, counting ceiling tiles and dreaming of freedom, she’d been lying here. Alone. Probably terrified to close her eyes. Arming herself with a hammer she kept within arm’s reach of where she slept.
There was only one asshole on this planet who could have introduced her to this particular brand of terror. One man who had trained her body to react before her brain could catch up.
She might be right. The sound outside might be nothing. Statistically, it probably was nothing.
But I curled my fists, knuckles going white because even if Silas wasn’t out there right now, he had traumatized her to the point where one sound had her heart racing so fast, her breathing so shallow, she looked like she might hyperventilate.
“Hey.” I kept my voice low. Steady. “We’ve got two armed guards sitting in that SUV at the end of the driveway. Remember? Anyone comes near this house, they’re on it.”
She swallowed. Nodded. But her fingers were still white-knuckled around the hammer.
“Let me just call them. Make sure they heard that too.” I reached for my phone on the nightstand. Swiped to unlock it.
No signal. The hair on the back of my neck stood up.
I stared at the screen. One bar had become zero. Not weak. Gone.
“Try yours,” I said.
Harper grabbed her phone. Her face went pale. “Nothing. I had full bars an hour ago.”
That wasn’t a coincidence. That was a jammer. And there was only one reason someone would block cell signals to a house with armed security outside.
Because they didn’t want anyone calling for help.
I opened the bedroom door, my mind already running calculations. If we heard that crack, the guards would have too.
“I need to get to the guards,” I said. “Their radios should still work. They can call for backup.”
“What? No.”
“Harper”—I turned to face her—“without phones, we’re blind in here. If something’s wrong, they need to know. And send for help or get us out.”
I could see it in her expression. The stubborn set of her jaw. The way her spine straightened, even as fear flickered in her eyes. Harper wasn’t the type of woman to sit back and wait for someone else to fight her battles. She didn’t consider herself a damsel in distress.
This woman had been protecting herself her entire life.
But all that changed the day she met me.
She was going to have to learn to let me protect her. Might as well start now.
“I need you to hide,” I said. “Bathroom. Lock the door. Don’t come out until you hear my voice.”
“Knox—”
“If I’m wrong and this is nothing, you can give me shit about it for the rest of our lives. But if I’m right …” I didn’t finish. I didn’t have to. We both knew what Silas was capable of.
“Take the hammer,” she said.
“Keep it.” I met her eyes. Held them. “I’m not leaving you in here unarmed.”
I didn’t give myself time to second-guess. Instead, I moved down the hallway with the silent precision prison had taught me. Each step controlled.
When I reached the front door, I turned the dead bolt as slowly as possible. Quiet. Silent.
If this fucker was outside, I would not be the one caught off guard.
The last millimeter of the dead bolt released with a soft click, and I clenched my jaw, irritated by even that small sound, before easing the door open.
“Lock it behind me, then get to the bathroom. Now.”
She hesitated for one more second.
“Come back to me,” she whispered.
“Always.”
The door closed, and the lock clicked into place. Good girl.
Cold air hit me like a punch to the chest. The wind howled through the bare trees, carrying with it the scent of distant woodsmoke and something else. Something I couldn’t quite place in the chaos of my thoughts.
But as quickly as it came, the wind shifted and carried the scent away from me.
I scanned the front yard quickly, looking for clues in the damp earth. It had rained yesterday, the ground still damp. Which was why I saw them in the areas with no grass—footprints.
Footprints that didn’t belong. Footprints facing the living room window, as if someone had stood there. Watching.
My blood turned to ice.
The security team was parked at the end of the driveway, and if someone had been standing in the yard long enough to leave prints like these, they should have seen him. Should have been on him before he ever got this close.
The driver’s door was hanging open.
Bare feet burning against the cold ground, I bolted toward the SUV.
And when I got there, my stomach dropped.
The driver’s eyes were open, his head angled slightly to the side. His coffee was still steaming in the cupholder like the last few minutes hadn’t happened.
His partner was in the passenger seat. He’d had time to react.
His holster was unsnapped, his hand wrapped around the grip of his weapon, halfway drawn.
But that was as far as he’d gotten. Two rounds to the chest. His body had slid sideways against the door, his head resting against the window at an angle that made him look almost peaceful if you didn’t see the rest.
No shattered glass. No signs of a struggle. No sound that had reached us inside the house.
A silencer. Had to be. The suppressed shots would have been swallowed by the wind, buried under the howling that had been rattling the windows all night. We never stood a chance of hearing it.
I backed away from the SUV, my mind recalculating everything. This wasn’t a stalker leaving threatening texts and lurking in the shadows. This was a man who had just executed two armed, trained professionals with the kind of precision that said he’d planned every second of this.
Silas wasn’t here to scare Harper.
He was here to end this.