CHAPTER 12
Tessa
It’s confusing to be woken from a deep sleep, but the hand at my shoulder gently shaking me has too much purpose to ignore it.
“Tessa.” Cole’s voice is low and close, not loud, not panicked, but threaded with an urgency that pulls me fully awake in an instant. I see the outline of him leaning over me and immediately note he’s fully dressed.
There’s no sluggishness, no struggling to understand the undercurrent of urgency in his voice. “What’s going on?”
“We need to leave.”
My stomach tightens. The word slices deep.
Need.
Not want. Not maybe.
Danger.
Cole reaches down and grabs the sweatpants draped over the end of the bed, pressing them into my hands. “Get dressed. Now.”
My heart begins to hammer hard enough that I feel it in my throat.
I swing my legs out of bed and step into the pants with hands that are suddenly unsteady.
My tank top must be sufficient and there’s no demand to put on my shoes.
Cole waves me behind him as he moves with quiet efficiency to the open doorway that leads into the hallway.
That’s when I notice the gun in his hand.
It’s held low, angled toward the floor, finger off the trigger, but ready.
My mouth goes dry. “Is someone here?” I ask, my voice barely more than a breath.
As if in answer, a soft, unfamiliar chime cuts through the silence and it takes me half a second to recognize it as my phone.
The perimeter alert.
It’s from the security app Cole installed on both our phones. It’s set to chime after a legitimate threat detection from the thermal sensors tied to the exterior cameras. It only makes that sound when a large heat signature crosses the boundary mapped around the house.
Another faint chime follows and my pulse spikes. Cole’s eyes flick toward the nightstand where my phone sits glowing in the dark, and then back to me.
“Yes,” he says quietly. “And I need you to stick close behind me.”
Cole reaches into his back pocket, pulls out his phone that’s on a black light setting. The live perimeter map fills the display—a digital outline of my bungalow traced in thin white lines. Four pulsing red shapes move slowly through the yard, their forms rendered in grainy thermal silhouette.
They aren’t wandering. They’re advancing.
I don’t recognize the sound that leaves my throat, between a breath and a gasp, fear leaving me nearly immobile.
“How many?” I ask, even though I can see them.
Cole’s jaw tightens as he watches the shapes shift position near the back hedge. “Four,” he says quietly. “Two front and two back.”
One of the red signatures pauses near the kitchen window. Another moves toward the front door. The other two hang back a bit.
My stomach drops. “Cole…”
He hears the fear in my voice but doesn’t reassure me. He doesn’t have time, instead pressing his thumb down on a button and I know he’s just sent out an alert to Jameson.
“Stay behind me,” he says again, already moving toward the bedroom door. It’s a command wasted as I’m glued to him, my hand on his lower back.
The hallway beyond is dark with only the faint wash of the streetlight bleeding through the curtains in the front room. I follow him barefoot, sweatpants half tied, heart pounding so hard I’m certain whoever is outside can hear it.
We stop short of the living room instead of the kitchen, the hallway opening toward the front of the house where a low window faces the side yard. The curtains are tied back and a shadow moves past.
Cole positions me at the bend of the hallway where the wall angles just enough to shield me from a direct line of sight into the living room. From here, I can see part of the couch and the edge of the coffee table, but nothing of the front of the living room. “Stay,” he says, and I do.
Cole steps forward and slightly to the side, not centered in the opening but offset, eliminating the straight-line view from the window to where he stands.
“Whatever happens,” he murmurs, his voice barely stirring the air between us, “do not run unless I tell you to.”
I nod because I can’t seem to form words.
For a few seconds it’s utterly silent, mostly because I’m holding my breath.
Then I hear it. A faint, deliberate scrape. Metal against glass.
It’s not going to be an explosive breach but rather they’re counting on me being sound asleep, and they’re going to cut through the window.
The sound is methodical, patient, and far more terrifying because of it. I grip the corner of the wall until my fingers ache, willing myself not to move, not to breathe too loudly.
The scraping stops.
There’s a muted pop and I can’t help myself.
I peek around the corner to see a dark shape rise against the window.
A hand sneaks through a round hole, efficiently releases the latch.
The window slides upward silently and the man comes through, swinging one leg over the sill and dropping inside in a crouch.
He wears dark clothing that absorbs the dim light, his face covered in a black mask.
His movements are practiced and economical, weapon already drawn as he scans the room.
He’s a professional, same as Cole, but his mistake is in thinking he’s entering an unprotected home.
He doesn’t see Cole.
The intruder straightens just enough to clear his first angle, and that’s when Cole fires.
The sound detonates inside the bungalow and it’s not subtle. It is an explosion in a confined space that slams into my chest and rattles my teeth. The muzzle flash blooms like a sudden sunrise, blinding me for a split second.
I clap my hand over my mouth to stop my scream.
The man’s body snaps backward, his weapon flying from his grip as he collapses onto the hardwood floor. The impact is heavy and final, and he doesn’t move. I have no clue where the bullet landed but he’s not a threat anymore.
I’m frozen in place but Cole is already shifting his stance, pivoting toward the rear of the house.
Outside, there’s movement—faster now, less cautious. They heard the gunshot and they know that I’m not just peacefully waiting to get taken.
The back door explodes inward with a crack of splintering wood that tears my scream free. The force of it sends the door slamming against the interior wall as a second figure surges through the frame, weapon up, committing fully to the entry.
Cole fires before the intruder can orient.
The shots thunder through the house again—one, two, three—each one controlled but devastatingly loud.
The recoil pulses through Cole’s arms, but his stance doesn’t waver.
The rounds land high and center, driving the man backward as his forward momentum stalls mid-step.
He tumbles onto the porch outside, his weapon clattering across the boards before disappearing from view.
The sudden silence afterward is so oppressive, I wonder if my eardrums have been blown. The air smells like burned metal and I’m still pressing my hand over my mouth, terrified that if I remove it, I’ll make a sound that shatters whatever fragile control Cole has over this moment.
He holds his position at the edge of the hallway, weapon trained on the open doorway, waiting.
Waiting.
Waiting.
Somewhere outside, in the dark beyond the broken door, the rest of them are deciding what to do next. I can hear again… my own ragged breathing and now a faint ringing in my ears.
Cole shifts toward the edge of the kitchen doorway, weapon angled toward the yard. His posture changes subtly—lower, coiled, ready.
Seconds stretch thin and my mind spins. I feel like I’m about ready to splinter into a million pieces.
Are they coming?
Or retreating?
And how is Cole so calm?
I wait for the answers, but then they’re driven from my thoughts.
Blinding white light floods through the shattered back door and the kitchen window simultaneously, so bright I have to shield my eyes.
The yard beyond erupts into harsh illumination, shadows fleeing beneath hedges and across the fence line.
An engine roars and tires squeal.
“Jameson,” Cole mutters, relief threading briefly through the tension.
I didn’t know.
I didn’t know they had someone close. All of this went down in a matter of seconds and they’re here.
Cole fishes his phone out again and studies the heat map of my yard. Shapes move—glowing red figures retreating fast toward the rear fence. There’s no return fire. No wild exchange. Just a clean withdrawal under the assault of light and exposure.
Cole shoves his phone into his pocket as he pivots toward the back door. He’s going after them and I reach out panicked, grabbing his arm and holding on like the house is collapsing.
“Don’t,” I whisper, and the word cracks in the middle. “Please don’t.”
He freezes, eyes searching mine in the gloom. I know he wants to give chase. Perhaps capture one to find out who is behind this. But they have guns too, and I can’t stomach the thought of him dying.
And in that split second, I see what he lives with every time I chase a story into danger.
The fear. The possibility of loss. The knowledge that one wrong step could mean never coming back.
“If you go out there,” I say, my voice shaking openly now, “you could get killed.”
The words are selfish and honest and terrifying. They’re words he’s said to me in one form or another in our past.
He studies me for one long beat, torn between instinct and a need to protect me.
“Please don’t leave me,” I whisper, hoping that his duty to me outweighs his duty to go after those men.
Then, slowly, he steps back and I suck in a ragged, grateful breath.
The front door bursts open with a boom, wood splintering. Cole whips that way, gun raised, but he holds his fire.
“It’s just me,” Reid says, his body blackened into a silhouette from the bright light outside, but he has his gun raised and pointed right back at Cole.
Cole lowers his weapon, and Reid follows suit, both men realizing simultaneously they’re on the same team. “Inside is clear. Two took off through the backyard.”
“Want me to go after them?” Reid asks.
“Nah… they’re long gone.”
The Jameson vehicle’s lights continue to flood the yard and behind us, in my living room, a man lies motionless on the floor. On the back porch, another is sprawled where he fell.
Four men came to take me. Two men are dead.
Sirens wail faintly in the distance, and I know the situation has radically changed for me. There’s no going back now.