Chapter 14
Breakfast had gone long—longer than she’d expected, longer than Alec had time for.
Between Rhys being officially assigned as her bodyguard and the team laying out protection protocols, there hadn’t been space for anything personal.
Not for the conversation she and Alec needed to have.
Not for the questions she still didn’t know how to ask.
Lunch never happened. Alec had to shift things around, and she had class anyway.
Then came the evening shift with Regina—another banquet, another round of forced smiles and aching feet.
Rhys had been watching, though she never saw him.
She felt only the weight of his gaze, and, later, the sweep of headlights slipping in behind her as she pulled out of the event center and following her home.
Being shadowed could have been creepy. Instead, she felt less exposed—and relatively safe. Was anyone ever fully so? Her dad, Ethan, and Alec—cops who had seen more ugliness than she could fathom—would say no.
She had showered and was climbing into bed when Alec called to check in and say good night. His voice was tired, his words brief. She didn’t blame him. He was working. But the rather stilted conversation felt more awkward than it should have.
The next morning, she stepped out of her bedroom dressed and ready, tugging her hair into a low ponytail as she padded barefoot into the living room—expecting to find Rhys with a cup of tea and some sort of dry commentary.
Instead, a stranger stood in her living room.
He glanced up from his phone and smiled, easy and unbothered.
“Morning.”
Dark hair and eyes. Absurdly good-looking. He wore camo pants, a fitted black tee, and the relaxed bearing of a man who wouldn’t look out of place on the cover of a tactical gear catalog. She didn’t return his smile, asking stiffly, “Who are you?”
“Mateo. I’m your shadow for the day.” He unclipped an ID badge from his belt and flashed it her way.
“Where’s Rhys?”
“His shift ended at seven. He said he heard you moving around late and figured you could use the sleep, so he skipped the intro with the handoff.”
“He just left you here?” she said, her voice rising.
“Rhys let me in. I didn’t pick the lock, if that’s what you’re worried about.” His grin broadened. “Though I could, if I had to.”
She crossed her arms. “How many PIs does Devlin have?”
“Last count? Twenty-three. And that’s still not enough.”
She snorted despite herself. “You’re cocky.”
“I’m competent. It gets mistaken for cocky a lot.”
He handed her a travel mug. “Coffee. Black, two sugars. Rhys said you’d need it.”
She took it, eyeing him over the rim. “You’re also disturbingly well-briefed.”
“I had time to read your file while waiting for you to get up.” He gave her a once-over—not in a leering way, more professional, checking for signs of stress, fatigue, threat level. “What’s your schedule today?”
“I have a class at one. Before that, I was thinking about going by my storage unit.”
“Got it,” he said, like it was a routine client request. Then his tone softened, and he gave her a look that said he knew exactly what she was facing. “Storage units and emotional landmines—my specialty.”
She didn’t smile or react, but inwardly, she thought, another perceptive hottie with an investigator’s license. Lucky me.
He nodded toward her feet. “Get your shoes, and we’ll head out.”
They drove in silence, not awkward or uncomfortable but for her, necessary. She stared out the window, watching the city blur past, her thoughts tangled in the past.
After Ethan died, and she left home—and Alec—she’d had to do something with the house.
She couldn’t bring herself to sell it, but she couldn’t live in it either.
The memories were too overwhelming, the empty silence too loud.
But she couldn’t afford the taxes and upkeep if it just sat empty, so she rented it out.
That meant cleaning it out and deciding what to trash, sell, and keep.
She wasn’t ready for that, so she hired movers. They packed up everything she couldn’t face—her parents’ furniture, her mother’s art, Ethan’s books, the family photos, the heirlooms. All of it had gone into storage. Out of sight. Out of mind.
But now, with bills piling up and danger circling closer, she couldn’t ignore it anymore. The things she’d clung to for comfort were just collecting dust in a cube she hadn’t visited in years.
Dad would say, “Be practical, Emily.” Mom and Ethan would agree—and be furious she was doing without when any of it could help her.
Now, as the metal door screeched upward and banged into place, the sound echoing off the concrete walls, she wondered if eight years’ distance was enough.
Dust motes danced in the shaft of morning light cutting through the hallway of the storage facility.
Emily stood frozen on the threshold as the scent of stale air, cardboard, and the faintest hint of cigar smoke hit her, along with a wave of memories.
She had to be imagining it. Still, the scent clung like a ghost—faint, familiar, and impossible to forget.
Mateo whistled low behind her. “You weren’t kidding. This place is packed.”
“I couldn’t deal with grief and bubble wrap at nineteen and had the movers pack it all,” she explained as she stepped inside.
He followed her in, turning sideways to squeeze between two towers of boxes. “What exactly are we looking for?”
“Anything I can sell that won’t make me feel as if I’m pawning off my soul.”
“So, nothing sentimental, nothing practical, and nothing that might make you cry. Got it.”
She shot him a look over her shoulder. “You’re here for heavy lifting, not commentary.”
“Actually, I’m here to keep you safe. But I’m young, strong, and multitalented.”
Emily turned, hiding a small smile. He was also arrogant, but likeable.
She looked around, scanning the labels. The moving company had done most of them, neatly written on white stickers.
But a few were scribbled in black Sharpie in her own handwriting: Dad’s Office, Ethan’s Stuff, Kitchen Crap I Might Regret Tossing.
Her fingers hovered over the flaps then settled on a small box tucked between the others.
The cardboard was soft at the corners, the tape yellowed and curling.
She peeled it open and froze.
Inside, cushioned in a faded dish towel, was her grandfather’s gold watch. He’d given it to Ethan the day he’d graduated from the police academy. The one she’d rarely seen him without, until…
“Nope,” she said, replacing the lid. “Not this.”
Mateo glanced over. “What’d you find?”
“A blast from the past,” she said, voice thick. “And a reminder I’m not ready to sell my history.”
She dug into another box. A photo surfaced—sun-bleached and curling at the edges.
Alec, Ethan, and her fifteen-year-old self, in oversized sunglasses and a crooked grin, at the beach.
Alec had his arm slung around her shoulders, his chin resting lightly on her head.
She remembered the moment—Ethan had just dared her to jump off the pier, and she’d chickened out.
Alec had whispered, “You don’t have to prove anything to anyone, Em. Least of all him.”
Her smile faded into a frown. As long as she could remember, he’d always been that way. Her knight. Protective. Steady. More so than Ethan, even.
She found a book next. Wuthering Heights, its spine cracked with age and use, the pages yellowed. Like her mother before her, it had always been her favorite classic.
Inside the limited first edition, she found a pressed violet—brittle but intact. But it was the slip of paper tucked behind the front cover that stole her breath.
Happy Sweet 16, Em!
You’re stronger than you know.
But if you ever need a little extra muscle, I’m here for you.
~A
The words blurred as time folded in on itself. She sank onto the cold concrete before her knees could give way. The book lay open in her lap, the note trembling in her fingers.
He’d pulled her aside at a family celebration to give it to her privately. She hadn’t known what to make of it then, only that she’d fallen even more hopelessly in love with him.
Her knight. Her anchor. Her safe place.
He’d been that all along, before she’d truly understood what it meant.
She’d always sensed the steel beneath his sweetness—instinctively, without knowing why it made her breath catch or her pulse skip. Only now, after the spanking, the way his voice could coil through her, did she recognize what that edge truly was.
And why it had always been him.
Mateo’s voice broke through her thoughts. “Hey, Em. You might want to see this.”
She looked up. He was holding a battered banker’s box, the lid askew. Even before he tilted it toward her, recognition hit. Spiral notebooks, manila folders, loose papers, all marked with his tight, slanted handwriting.
“Case notes,” Mateo confirmed, flipping through one. “There’s enough in here to pitch an entire season of CSI: Miami.”
Emily stood, feeling the grit of dust against her palms as she brushed off the seat of her shorts.
Ethan had become fixated on her dad’s notes after the accident.
She’d kept them, hoping to look through them one day and perhaps understand his obsession.
Was it their shared interest in police work, or something more? With distance, perhaps she could now.
“Could you put them in the car?” she asked, heading toward him with the watch, one of the photo albums from before her world had turned upside down, and the book that had once made her heart ache for something she hadn’t dared name. “I’m ready to go.”
“Did you find what you were looking for?”
She glanced around the unit at the boxes piled high, years of her life she still didn’t know how to unpack. “I’m not sure I ever will.”
Following him out, she pushed the button and watched as the metal door slammed down with a clang.
***