Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
Eight hours on the road and Fallon had slept through seven of them.
Isaac had watched the highway unravel in front of them while she curled against the passenger door with his jacket balled under her cheek.
Her body was collecting on everything the chase had cost it—the sprint, the gap between the fence and the wall, joints that had been asked to perform again before they’d finished healing from the last time.
She’d been asleep before they crossed the county line, and the shallow pull of her breathing hadn’t changed since.
He’d had a lot of time to think.
The thinking hadn’t helped.
The gravel drive now wound through a stand of pine and opened onto the property just as the late afternoon light was going amber across the water.
Isaac pulled to a stop and killed the engine.
The lake stretched out below the house, still and flat, the dock extending from the shore like a finger pointing at nothing.
Fallon stirred. Her eyes opened, unfocused, and she sat up slowly with the careful deliberation of someone cataloging damage before committing to movement.
She went still.
The house sat on a gentle slope above the water.
Cedar and stone, two stories, a wall of windows across the lake-facing side that caught the late light and threw it back in sheets of gold.
A wraparound porch with Adirondack chairs.
A boathouse at the water’s edge. The kind of place that belonged in a magazine spread about mountain retreats where the prices weren’t listed because if you had to ask, you couldn’t afford it.
Fallon looked at the house. Looked at Isaac.
“This is your fishing cabin?”
“I mean, it’s got a dock with some poles. And there are fish in the lake.”
“Isaac, this place has more square footage than my last three apartments combined.”
He got out of the car. “Let’s get you inside.”
She opened her door and eased herself out, one hand braced on the frame. He came around and offered his arm. She took it, and they walked toward the front steps at the pace her knee would allow.
“I’m just saying,” she said, “when someone tells you fishing cabin, you picture logs and a woodstove and maybe a suspicious stain on the floor. You don’t picture floor-to-ceiling windows and a private dock.”
“There’s a woodstove inside.”
She laughed. “That does not make this a cabin. Where are we?”
He was just glad to see some sort of smile on her face. “Table Rock Lake, southern Missouri.”
He got the door open and guided her through. The main room was open, high-ceilinged, the lake visible through the glass. He watched her take it in—the kitchen with its stone countertops, the wide plank floors, the fireplace. Her eyebrows climbed but she didn’t say anything else.
Her phone buzzed before either of them had to address it.
“It’s Cass.” She lowered herself onto the couch and answered. “Hey. We made it.”
Isaac moved to the kitchen and started opening cabinets. He’d had the place stocked through a local service before they’d left Chattanooga—a call he’d made during one of the gas stops while Fallon slept. He pulled out what was there and started putting together something simple while Fallon talked.
He could hear Cassandra’s voice through the speaker, clipped and efficient, running through what she’d done.
The remote wipe on Fallon’s computer had gone clean.
She’d scrubbed the apartment’s digital footprint—accounts, utilities, anything that could connect back.
It had all been through a fake name, anyway.
And she’d run a fresh sweep of every law enforcement database she could access.
Fallon’s partial photo was still in the system, but nothing new had been added.
No name, no fingerprints, no additional intel.
Seemed like everything was relatively calm for the moment.
The chase through Chattanooga hadn’t made anything worse.
“Okay,” Fallon said. “Keep us updated if anything changes.”
“I will. Get some rest. You look like hell.”
“Interesting observation, since you can’t see me. Love you too, Cass.”
The call ended. Fallon set the phone on the cushion beside her. He brought her water and the food he’d put together. They ate together slowly, her left hand doing all the work, and when she finished, he crouched beside the couch.
“Bath? Help ease everything?”
She nodded. “You’d think I wouldn’t be so stiff after sleeping most of the way here, but…”
“A bath will help.”
The bathroom was upstairs. He helped her climb the steps one at a time, his arm around her waist, her hand gripping the railing.
The master bath had a deep soaking tub set beneath a window that looked out over the lake.
He turned the faucet and held his hand under the stream, adjusting until the temperature was right. Warm. Steady.
She undressed while he held her steady, his hands doing the work where hers couldn’t.
This time she was awake for it, present in a way she hadn’t been in Chattanooga, and the awareness changed the texture of every small movement between them.
She gripped the edge of the tub and eased herself down, one leg at a time, and he kept his hand on her back until the water took her weight.
He could tell when the warmth reached her. Her whole frame softened. Her eyes closed. Her shoulders dropped. She sank until the water lapped at her collarbones and stayed there, breathing.
Isaac sat on the floor beside the tub with his back against the tile wall. She didn’t need him to hold her upright this time and he didn’t want her to think he was ogling her. She was steady on her own. He was just there. Close. Present.
She looked around the room. The tub she was sitting in could have fit three people. The tile was hand-laid, a pattern that repeated in soft grays and whites. A window above the tub framed the lake.
She shifted her gaze to the floor where he was sitting. “This bathroom has heated floors.”
He could feel the tile through his jeans. “Might.”
She pointed at the glassed-in shower next to the tub. “And that showerhead has more settings than most car stereos.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever actually counted, but yeah, there’s a lot.”
She turned her head on the rim to look at him. Her expression had warmed past the exhaustion, something almost playful surfacing beneath it.
“I assume Zodiac pays pretty fairly, but how does a man who works private security own a place like this?” she asked. Giving him room rather than putting him on a spot. “Because this bathroom alone costs more than everything I’ve ever owned, and you told me we were going to a fishing cabin.”
He pulled his knee up and rested his arm across it. This conversation had been coming from the beginning of their relationship, and rightfully so. She’d given him her father, her mother, her mission, her body’s betrayal. He owed her the same honesty.
“My family has money. A lot of it,” he said. “Old money. The kind that comes with a last name people recognize at benefit dinners and a trust fund that shows up on your eighteenth birthday whether you want it or not.”
She didn’t move. The water lapped gently against the sides of the tub.
“I grew up in that world. Private schools, country clubs, summers in places that had names instead of addresses. My parents expected a certain kind of life from me: the right college, the right career, the right marriage. A seat on the family foundation board. The whole choreographed trajectory.”
He looked at the window. The lake reflected the clouds above it.
“That wasn’t what I wanted so I walked away.
” At the end of the day, it was as simple as that.
“Enlisted the day I turned eighteen. My father didn’t speak to me for two years.
My mother cried, but she also drove me to the recruiting station, so that tells you something about how she felt about the trajectory, too. ”
“Did you like the military?”
“Yes. Loved the Army for all the reasons you’d assume I would’ve hated it. I loved just being one person in a group of people. A grunt getting screamed at by my drill sergeant just like everybody else. I had to prove myself, just like everybody else. Nobody gave two shits about my name or family.”
She nodded, the corner of her mouth kicking up. “I could see that.”
“When I got out eight years later, I was recruited by Zodiac. Code name: Leo. I built a life that was actually mine. The money’s still there—I never touched it. But I didn’t want to be defined by it. Didn’t want people to look at me and see the name instead of the man.”
“Did your parents ever get over it?”
“Yeah. I think once they saw it wasn’t just a rebellious stage I was going through, things evened out. At the end of the day, I’m their kid and they love me.”
“Good. That’s what family should be.”
He turned back to her. This was the part that mattered. The part where the shape of his past overlapped with the shape of her targets.
“I can’t help but think the world I grew up in is the very one you’re fighting against,” he said.
“Galas. Charity dinners. Seven-figure donations and champagne that costs more than rent. That’s the world you move through when you work.
The same rooms. The same people. I guess that’s why I didn’t mention it to you. ”
She looked at the water. Her good hand moved slowly beneath the surface, tracing a line along the edge of the tub. Her expression had gone unreadable.
“You shouldn’t have worried. I don’t hate rich people. That’s never been what this is about.” Her voice was steady. Certain. “Money’s just money. It’s neutral. What I care about is what people do with the power it gives them.”
She lifted her good hand from the water and rested it on the rim of the tub.
“My targets aren’t just wealthy people. They’re predators. People who use their money and their access to destroy others and never face a single consequence for it. There’s a difference between having money and weaponizing it.”
“That’s true.”