Ronan
Jasper glanced up from the folder in front of him. "I don't make faces."
"I have one face, and it stays the same all the time,” Jasper insisted.
“No, you don’t. You’re making the one that says you've learned something terrible, and you're trying to figure out how to tell the rest of us."
Jasper closed the folder. "Later."
"So I was right,” Ronan said triumphantly. Jasper didn't answer, but that was answer enough for him.
Across the room, Sophia stood in front of the bookshelves. She wasn't really looking at the books. She was studying the room, being hypervigilant. Ronan knew the signs because he'd seen them in rescued hostages before. The body escaped captivity long before the mind did.
She pulled a novel from the shelf, turned it over, and set it back on the shelf. She picked up another and looked at it. She was doing anything to keep her hands busy and avoid thinking.
He wandered over. "You like mysteries?"
She glanced at the paperback in her hand. "I don't know."
"You've never read one?" Ronan asked.
"I don't remember,” she admitted. His smile faded because Keller hadn't only stolen three years. He'd stolen pieces of the woman who'd lived them.
"I used to read constantly,” she admitted, her voice barely above a whisper. Ronan looked at her. "I think." She laughed quietly. "See—I can't even be sure of that anymore."
"You don't have to remember today.” She looked surprised at what he just said to her.
"What?" she asked.
"My grandmother used to say memories are stubborn." He leaned against the bookshelf. "The harder you chase them, the faster they run."
A tiny smile touched her lips. "So what do you do then?"
"You stop chasing them,” he said. Ronan picked up a dog-eared thriller. "And eventually they come looking for you."
She smiled at him. "I hope you're right."
"So do I,” he breathed.
The front door opened, and Avery walked inside carrying two grocery bags. "I come bearing snacks."
Ronan immediately perked up. "Finally."
"You ate an hour ago,” Jasper mumbled.
"I've had a difficult afternoon,” Ronan said.
"You've done nothing,” Jasper said.
"I've emotionally supported people." Avery rolled her eyes.
"By annoying them?" she asked.
"It's a gift,” he insisted. Sophia laughed, actually laughed, and the sound filled the room.
She immediately clapped a hand over her mouth. "I'm sorry."
Ronan frowned. "You've got to stop apologizing every time you're happy."
Her smile faltered. "I don't know how." He wished she hadn't said that, not because it hurt him, but because she meant it.
Later that evening, rain began falling against the windows—heavy and steady. It was the kind that made the whole world feel smaller. Sophia stood on the covered back porch watching the storm roll across the lake.
Ronan joined her. "No jokes?" she asked.
"I've been informed I only get twelve a day,” he teased.
She looked sideways at him. "By who?"
"Myself,” he admitted.
She shook her head. "Good policy." For a while, they simply listened to the rain. It was the quietest that he’d been in a damn long time.
"Can I ask you something?" she asked.
"Depends,” he said.
She raised an eyebrow. "On?"
"Whether my answer is going to make me look cool or not." That earned him another smile.
"I'll take my chances."
He leaned against the porch railing. "Ask."
She hesitated. "Were you ever afraid?" He didn't answer immediately because she deserved honesty.
"Sure, during every mission,” he admitted.
She looked genuinely surprised. "But you're—” She gestured vaguely toward him. "Like this."
He wasn’t sure if he should be offended or not. “Like what?” he asked.
"Relaxed,” she said.
He laughed softly. "I'm terrified more often than people realize."
"You hide it well,” she assured.
"I practice."
She studied him. "Why?"
"Because if everyone around me thinks I'm calm, then sometimes, they become calm.” He looked out at the rain, and silence stretched between them.
"So the jokes?” she asked.
"Aren't really jokes,” he said. "They're medicine."
Sophia looked down at her hands. "My brother worries all the time."
"I know,” Ronan said.
"And Jasper never seems afraid,” she said.
Ronan smiled. "Oh, Jasper gets scared."
"He does?" she asked.
"The difference is he channels it into planning,” Ronan said.
"And you?"
"I make bad puns,” Ronan admitted.
She laughed. "I noticed." A sharp chime interrupted them. It was the security system sent him a perimeter alert on his cell phone.
Ronan's easy smile vanished, and professional instinct slammed into place. He touched the earpiece clipped beneath his collar. "Movement on the east fence."
Jasper's voice answered immediately. "I see it."
"Animal?" Ronan asked.
"Negative," Jasper said. Ronan quietly moved Sophia behind him.
"You don't have to?—"
"Humor me,” he said. She fell silent.
Jasper emerged from the hallway carrying his sidearm. "What've we got?"
“I don’t know,” Ronan admitted. “Let’s check with Avery.”
Avery was already in the security room. "I'm pulling camera feeds,” she said as the monitors flickered to life.
The final image zoomed toward the tree line.
A little girl stood alone in the rain, barefoot, wearing an oversized white hospital gown.
She couldn't have been older than eight. She looked directly into the camera.
Sophia gasped so sharply that it made everyone turn. "No—” Her face had gone white.
Ronan looked from the monitor to Sophia. "You know her." Tears filled Sophia's eyes, and she nodded, barely able to breathe.
"That's Emma." The name trembled from her lips. "The little girl I told Jasper about." Everyone looked back at the monitor as the child slowly raised one trembling hand. She wasn’t waving but pointing toward the woods behind her. Then she mouthed three silent words.
They’re behind me.
And then, the camera feed exploded into static.
The security monitors went black. One by one—all eight screens had turned to static and then went black. The only sound inside the safe house was the steady drum of rain against the windows.
Ronan was already moving. "Lock the house down."
Avery's fingers flew across the keyboard. "I'm trying."
"What do you mean by trying?" Ronan asked.
"Somebody's inside the network,” Avery said. Her jaw tightened. "They're not hacking us." She looked up. "They're controlling us."
Jasper stepped into the security room. "Offline?"
"Completely offline,” she said.
"Do we have thermal?" Jasper asked.
"Gone,” Avery said.
"Perimeter feeds?” Ronan asked.
"Gone,” Avery said.
Ronan sighed. "I hate competent bad guys."
Sophia hadn't moved. She stood frozen in the middle of the great room, staring at the blank monitors. "Emma." Her voice barely carried.
Ronan stepped behind her. "Sophie."
"That was her."
"I know,” Ronan said.
"They found her." Tears welled in Sophia's eyes.
"I promised that I’d come back." Ronan watched guilt crash over her like a tidal wave.
She wasn't seeing the monitor anymore; she was back in Keller's compound, and back with an eight-year-old girl who'd looked at her like she hung the moon.
And Sophia had survived, but Emma hadn't—or so she believed. Until now.
"Talk to me." Jasper's voice was calm and grounded.
"What do you remember?" Sophia closed her eyes.
"She liked dinosaurs." The room fell silent.
"What?" Ronan asked gently.
"Emma." A faint smile broke through Sophia's tears. "She corrected everyone."
"Corrected?" Jasper asked.
"If somebody called a Brontosaurus a dinosaur, she’d tell them it was technically an Apatosaurus." She laughed gently.
Ronan blinked. "That's oddly specific."
Sophia nodded. "She'd whisper facts through the air vents." Her smile disappeared. "So we'd remember there was still a world outside." The words hit everyone hard. An eight-year-old child had kept hope alive.
Avery spun her laptop around. "I recovered one frame before the feed died." The image filled the screen with Emma standing in the rain, and behind her was nothing—only trees.
Jasper leaned closer. "No." He pointed toward the left edge of the image. "There." Ronan followed his finger and saw a reflection. It was barely visible in the wet leaves, but he saw a rifle scope. Somebody had been watching Emma and using her as bait.
"They wanted Sophia to see her,” Jasper said.
Ronan's expression darkened. "Why?"
"So she'd chase Emma,” Jasper said.
Ronan nodded slowly. "Classic manipulation."
Sophia looked sick. "I almost did what they wanted me to do."
Jasper looked directly at her. "But you didn't."
She swallowed. "No."
"You stopped,” Ronan said. Six months ago, she would've probably run without thinking, but tonight, she hesitated. Sometimes, healing was making a better decision, and that was exactly what Sophia had just done.
Ronan grabbed his jacket. "I'm going outside."
Jasper frowned. "Alone?"
"I'll stay inside the fence," Jasper said.
"He's checking for tracks,” Ronan said to Sophia. She nodded and watched him walk out the door.
Rain soaked through his jacket almost instantly.
The air smelled like wet pine and fresh mud—perfect conditions for tracking, but terrible conditions for electronics.
He moved carefully along the inside perimeter fence, with his flashlight off.
His eyes adjusted quickly, and something caught his attention near the eastern gate: small, bare footprints—Emma.
He crouched beside them—they were fresh.
His pulse quickened, and he noticed something else—adult boot prints.
There were four sets of them, and no signs of a struggle.
Emma hadn't been forced. She'd walked with them, either willingly or because she'd believed she had no choice.
Ronan's jaw tightened because neither possibility sat well with him.
A flash of white caught his eye beneath a cedar tree, and he approached cautiously to find a stuffed rabbit with one ear missing.
It was old, worn, and rain-soaked. He picked it up, and a folded piece of paper had been tucked beneath its threadbare sweater.
Ronan unfolded it and found three words that made his smile vanish.
"Jasper." His voice over the radio was suddenly all business. "I found something."
Five minutes later, the team gathered around the kitchen table. The soaked note lay in the center. Sophia seemed to recognize the handwriting immediately. Her face drained of color.
"Emma wrote this." She picked it up with trembling fingers. Childlike block letters covered the paper, and she read them aloud.
HE MAKES ME CALL HIM DADDY
Silence crashed into the room, and no one spoke. Sophia's hands began to shake. "No.” She looked at Jasper. "He found another little girl." Jasper's expression hardened into stone. Ronan had seen that look exactly twice before, and both times, very bad people had ended up in handcuffs—or worse.
Dante slowly closed his hand over the note. "We're getting her back."
Sophia looked at him. "What if we're too late?"
Ronan met her eyes. "We're not."
"You can't know that,” Sophia said.
"No." His voice was steady. "But I know something else."
"What?" she asked.
He glanced at Jasper before looking back at her. "The people who took you expected you to stay broken." He nodded toward the note. "They expected Emma to stay invisible." He gently pushed the stuffed rabbit toward Sophia. "They were wrong about you."
A long silence followed, and then Sophia hugged the rabbit to her chest. For the first time since Ronan had met her, the fear in her eyes wasn't for herself. It was for someone else. He had a feeling that was exactly what their enemy had been counting on, and he intended to make them regret it.
Universal Link-> Coming soon!
What’s coming next from K.L. Ramsey? You won’t want to miss Vengeance (Royal Hellions MC book 1), coming in August 2026!