Chapter 12
Twelve
Silas
The temperature's still dropping—I can feel it biting at the air beyond the blankets. I should check the chimney, ensure the wind hasn't shifted, and re-verify the perimeter. But that means leaving the bed, leaving her, and stepping back into the snow.
The thought makes every muscle in my body protest. I’m getting soft. Too comfortable. Too old.
I’ve built a career on staying a step ahead—of threats, of complacency, of the thousand ways things can go sideways.
I’ve drilled my team until they were nothing but hardwired response and raw reflex, preaching that comfort is a terminal condition.
Comfortable gets you killed. Yet, here I am, anchored to this mattress by the dead weight of her exhaustion.
My arm is tucked beneath her head, her breath hitching rhythmically against my collarbone.
It’s a strategic disaster. I have no eyes on the horizon, no distance between us and the door, and my Glock is a reach away instead of in my hands.
The hours before dawn are when judgment bleeds out, and I know exactly what I’d say to one of my men if I caught them this compromised. I’d be brutal. I’d be unkind. I’d tell them that their sentimentality is a liability that will get everyone in the room slaughtered.
I should move. The rational part of my brain is screaming for me to slide out, put the steel between us, and set a proper watch.
But she’s finally sleeping. If I move, the spell breaks. The shivers return. She wakes up, and we go back to the version of her that’s barely controlled trauma.
I stay still, feeling the steady thrum of her heart against my chest, and for the first time in my life, I don't care if the world ends before sunrise. As long as she’s here, breathing in sync with me, the only perimeter that matters is the reach of my own arms.
Ava
I wake, my nose frozen solid, a sharp, biting draft dancing across my face. I reach out, and the bed is cold—the space where Silas was is empty, the sheets devoid of the heat he’d left behind, leaving me to pull the quilt tight against the encroaching chill.
Yawning, I check my watch, and I wince at the hour. He must have crept out at the earliest hint of dawn.
I peel back the covers. Fumbling as I add another sweater, my fingers stay stiff and numb. As warm as I can be, I go in search of him.
Banging from outside alerts me immediately to his location. The snow has paused, but the wind still howls against the timbers. I duck into the bedroom, locate my hat, gloves, and scarf, and open the door.
I catch sight of him balanced on the roof peak, a dark, solitary silhouette against the relentless gray of the sky.
One boot is braced against the chimney cap, his body angled sharply as he hammers at something.
My heart leaps to my throat, a physical, sickening jolt.
I’ve seen too many patients come through the ER after falls like this—shattered femurs, fractured skulls, one man paralyzed from the waist down after slipping on ice-covered shingles.
Winter roof work is how orthopedic surgeons stay busy, and right now, my stomach is in a knot so tight it hurts to breathe.
Rather than distract him, I retreat inside, stripping off my coat. I sink onto the couch, closing my eyes, clenching my hands together until my knuckles ache.
Lord, keep him safe up there. Please. Don't let him slip, don't let him fall. I know he's capable and trained, but the ice doesn't care about his training. Please protect him.
I swallow hard, my voice barely a breath against the quiet of the room. “We need more men like him in this world,” I whisper. “I need him in my world.”
The faint creak of the door makes my eyes fly open. Silas is standing on the threshold. He’s dusted in snow, his tactical jacket white with frost, his shoulders rigid. The look on his face—raw, exposed, and exhausted—tells me he heard.
"Chimney's all set," he murmurs.
My throat tightens as heat floods my face. "Perfect." I attempt a smile, though it feels brittle. "Quite the handyman."
The corners of his eyes wrinkle in a tired, returned smile. "Jack of all trades, master of none."
I give him a skeptical look, pleased to have something else to discuss. "I doubt that. You seem to excel at whatever you tackle. Except, of course, accepting that you have limits."
He shifts his weight, rubbing the back of his neck; he looks older, suddenly, weighted down by a fatigue sleep couldn't possibly fix. “You sound like my father.”
I nod. “Then I hope he’s also told you to get more sleep.”
He gives me a wry smile, but it doesn't reach his eyes. “Regularly,” he says. “I’ve been disappointing him for years.”
I shake my head, a flash of frustration cutting through my concern. “Leaders tend to treat exhaustion like a badge,” I say. “It usually just means they haven’t learned how to set boundaries.”
His brow knits. “I didn’t realize you had a degree in psychology.”
“I don’t need a degree to notice you’re a strong leader who cares deeply for each member of his team.”
He looks away, his jaw tightening into a hard, stubborn line. “Strong leaders should know better than to put their team members into situations they can’t handle.”
So that’s what’s been eating him. He blames himself for the choices his team makes. I want to bridge the distance, to pull him back from the edge of that guilt, but he’s walled himself in. “I’m going to say this as kindly as I can, Silas. You can’t control every outcome.”
He holds my gaze, his eyes dark and haunted, the weight of his responsibility hanging in the air between us.
“In medicine, we learn early that trying to eliminate every mistake actually makes us less effective,” I say quietly. “You start seeing threats in every shadow.”
He nods once, slowly. “Same lesson in basic,” he says. “Tunnel vision.”
“So you’ve learned you can’t save everyone?”
Silas’s jaw stays locked, his shoulders immovable.
“I know that if I let my guard down, people get hurt,” he says, his voice flat with resolve. “I know that I’m responsible for my team. I know I’m accountable to God for all of them.”
I study him for a moment, the quiet certainty in his words settling somewhere deep in my chest. I know that weight—the endless replay of decisions made under pressure, the quiet question that never quite goes away: what if I’d done one thing differently?
“That’s a heavy burden to place on yourself.”
Silas doesn’t reply for so long, I think he isn’t going to. “You said it yourself—with great privilege comes great responsibility.”
My stomach twists into knots at him throwing my father’s words back in my face.
Even if he didn’t mean to hurt me, it stings.
When he returns his attention to his laptop, I retreat into the bathroom, close the door behind me, and try to accept that we’re both under enormous pressure right now.
But as I brace my hands on the edge of the sink, one truth settles over me with devastating clarity.
If he believes God holds him personally responsible for those in his care, if anything happens to me…
Silas Hightower will never forgive himself.
Silas
I abandon drafting the final email about red tape stalling a time-sensitive extraction they should’ve greenlit hours ago, and get to my feet. The team’s staged, transport’s locked, and we’re still waiting on a signature no one’s willing to put their name on.
This level of bureaucracy is why we move in the gray. And don’t always tick every box as neatly as government departments like.
It’s also why we have as many enemies as allies spread across the country.
My jaw is so tight it aches as I pull out my phone and compare the map Axel forwarded with the one tacked to the wall beside the door.
I trace the western slope with my index finger—the easiest route in if someone knew what they were doing.
I calculate the time it would take to cover the distance on foot, mentally marking the secondary paths and hidden logging trails—the ones someone would use if they were trying to move unseen.
I focus on the western slope, mapping the path of least resistance.
When I’m sure I have a measure on it, I dial Axel. “Walk the perimeter with me,” I say when he answers. “Start west side.”
Paper rustles on the other end. “Steep approach,” Axel says. “Rock shelf halfway up. You’d have to come in on foot.”
“Timber cover?”
Axel's voice crackles through the static, thin and distorted. “Good for the first two hundred yards. After that, you’re exposed.”
My finger moves south. “Creek bed?”
“Too narrow for a vehicle,” Axel replies. “But a man could follow it partway. Noise from the water would cover movement.”
I nod to myself, already mapping the approach. “Logging trails?”
“Two old ones on the east side. Both washed out about a mile back. You’d need a snowmobile, then you’d have to hike the rest.”
I trace the northern edge of the map, studying the contour lines. “Anything else I’m missing?”
There’s a pause. Long enough to pull my attention from the map.
Axel exhales slowly through the line. "I missed something, boss."
My gut tightens, a cold, sharp knot forming. "What?"
"There's an old service road I’d forgotten about. North side of the property. Hasn't been used in years, but it's there."
I scan the snow-dusted tree line through the glass, the white expanse looking suddenly like a casket. "How accessible?"
"In bad weather? Hard to say. But if someone knows it's there and has the right equipment..." He trails off, the unspoken threat hanging in the air. We both know what that means. A blind spot. A breach waiting to happen.
"Send me the coordinates."
"Already done. Boss, I'm sorry. I should—"
"Not your fault," I cut him off. "Keep working the other angles. I'll handle this end."
I end the call and stand there for a moment, the silence of the room pressing against my eardrums. My mind is spinning through defensive perimeters that just grew a mile wider.