Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
DECK
The call comes at three in the morning.
I'm awake instantly, years of training overriding the deep sleep Vivian's presence has finally allowed me. She stirs beside me as I reach for the satellite phone, but I press a hand to her shoulder.
"Stay here."
I slip out of bed and move to the living room, answering before the third ring.
"Cross."
"We have a problem." Mace's voice is tight. Controlled. The voice he uses when things have gone sideways. "The leak investigation has concluded. You were right to be concerned."
"Carver?"
"Carver. He's been feeding information to the Castellanos for months. Names, locations, transport routes. They've been one step ahead of federal protection the entire time."
My blood runs cold. Vivian's suspicions, the ones she'd shared with me just days ago, confirmed.
She'd told me about the Sacramento breach, about how Carver was on rotation that night, about the look on his face when she said she was turning in early.
She'd been pushing the thought away, not wanting to believe it, but her instincts had been right all along.
"Do they know about this location?"
"Unknown. The leak was in the San Francisco office, not the transport team that brought Vivian to you. Taylor handled her transfer personally and kept Carver out of the loop. But we can't rule anything out."
"What about the Sacramento breach? Was that him?"
"That's the working theory. He was on duty. He would have had access to disable the alarm, let the shooter in through the service entrance. The timing matches."
The man Vivian killed with a lamp got inside because a federal agent opened the door for him. She'd sensed something was wrong that night, and she'd been right.
"I need to know what Carver knew," I say. "Transport details, destination, anything about Guardian Peak."
"We're working on it. Marshal Taylor is personally overseeing the interrogation. But Deck, it could take days to break him. Maybe longer."
"I don't have days. If the Castellanos know where we are—"
"Then you do what you do best. You protect her."
I stop pacing and stare out the window at the darkness beyond. The snow from earlier has stopped, leaving the world blanketed in white. Peaceful. Deceptively calm.
"Keep me updated," I say. "Anything changes, I want to know immediately."
"Understood. Watch your back, Deck."
"Always."
I end the call and stand there for a long moment, the weight of the situation settling over me. Everything I've built here, every defense I've prepared, might not be enough. If the Castellanos know where Vivian is, they'll send an army. They won't make the same mistakes twice.
And I'm one man.
"Deck?"
Her voice from the doorway makes me turn. She's standing there in my henley, arms wrapped around herself, hair mussed from sleep. She looks soft and vulnerable, but I can see the tension in her shoulders. She already knows.
"It's Carver, isn't it." Not a question.
"Yes."
She closes her eyes briefly, and I watch her absorb the confirmation of what she'd suspected for weeks. When she opens them again, there's grief there alongside the fear.
"I knew it. Some part of me knew it that night in Sacramento.
The way he looked at me. The way he seemed almost nervous when I said I was going to bed early.
" She crosses the room slowly, her movements heavy.
"I kept telling myself I was being paranoid.
That the stress was making me see things that weren't there. "
"Your instincts were right."
"My instincts got a man killed." She sinks onto the couch. "If I'd reported my suspicions, if I'd told someone what I was feeling instead of dismissing it—"
"You defended yourself against an assassin. That's not the same as getting someone killed."
"Carver let him in. Carver is the reason that man came through my door. But I'm the one who bashed his skull in with a lamp." Her voice is hollow. "And now I find out I was right all along. That I knew something was wrong and I ignored it."
I sit beside her, close but not touching. "You didn't have proof. You had a feeling. That's not enough to accuse a federal agent."
"It was enough to save my life. If I'd ignored that feeling, if I hadn't grabbed the lamp, I'd be dead." She looks at me. "My gut told me something was wrong with Carver, and I didn't listen. What else am I not listening to?"
"What do you mean?"
"This. Us. Being here." She gestures around the cabin. "I've been so focused on feeling safe, on falling for you, that I stopped paying attention to the danger. What if my instincts are trying to tell me something now, and I'm ignoring them again?"
"Are they? Is something telling you this is wrong?"
She's quiet for a long moment. "No. Being with you feels right. But so did trusting the marshals, and look how that turned out."
I take her hand, threading my fingers through hers. "The marshals failed you. Carver betrayed you. But I'm not them. I'm not going to let anyone hurt you."
"You can't promise that."
"I can promise that I'll die trying to prevent it."
"That's not better." Her eyes fill with tears she refuses to let fall. "That's actually worse, Deck. I don't want you to die for me. I want you to live with me."
"Then that's what I'll do."
"You don't know that. You can't know that.
" She pulls her hand free and stands, pacing to the window.
"Everything I thought I knew about my situation so far was wrong.
The safe houses weren't safe. The people protecting me were selling me out.
The only reason I'm alive is because I trusted my gut when it mattered and got lucky with a heavy lamp. "
"You weren't lucky. You were prepared."
"I was terrified. I acted on instinct, not training." She turns to face me. "What happens when instinct isn't enough? What happens when they send someone I can't stop with a piece of furniture?"
"That's why I'm here. That's why you've been training."
"Training won't matter if they know where we are. If Carver gave them this location—"
"Taylor kept him out of the loop on your transport. He suspected something was off, which is why he handled it personally."
"Taylor suspected?" Some of the tension leaves her shoulders. "He knew about Carver?"
"He had concerns. Couldn't prove anything, but he was careful. That's why he brought you here himself instead of delegating to his team."
She processes this, her expression jumping from fear to something more complicated. "So there's a chance Carver doesn't know where I am."
"There's a good chance. But we can't be certain until he talks, and he's not cooperating with the interrogation."
"Of course he isn't. The Castellanos would kill him and everyone he loves if he gave them up." She laughs bitterly. "I almost feel sorry for him. Almost."
"Don't waste sympathy on a man who sold you out for money."
"I'm not sympathizing. I'm recognizing that everyone in this situation is trapped." She returns to the couch and sits beside me again, closer this time. "Me by the Castellanos. Carver by his own greed. You by your need to protect everyone."
"I don't need to protect everyone. Just you."
"That's not true and we both know it. You built Guardian Peak to protect people.
You take assignments like mine because you can't stand the thought of someone getting hurt when you could prevent it.
" She touches my face. "It's one of the things I love about you.
It's also the thing that scares me most."
"Why?"
"Because one day you might have to choose between saving yourself and saving someone else, and I already know which one you'll pick."
I don't have a response to that. She's right. We both know she's right.
"What do you want me to do?" I ask. "Tell you I'll put myself first? I can't make that promise."
"I know you can't. I'm not asking you to." She leans her forehead against mine. "I'm just asking you to remember that your life matters too. That I need you to survive this, not just me."
"I'll do my best."
"That's all I'm asking."
We sit there in the early morning darkness, the weight of the situation pressing down on both of us. Outside, the first gray light of dawn is beginning to creep over the mountains.
"What do we do now?" she asks.
"We stay vigilant. We don't assume we're safe, but we don't panic either. If the Castellanos knew where we were, they'd have moved by now."
"You said that before. About them not waiting."
"It's true. They throw resources at problems. If they had our location, we'd already be fighting."
"So the fact that we're not fighting means we're probably okay?"
"Probably. Not definitely." I stand and offer her my hand. "Come on. Neither of us is going back to sleep. I'll make coffee, and we'll go over the contingency plans again."
She takes my hand and lets me pull her up. "I already know the contingency plans."
"Then we'll go over them until you could execute them blindfolded."
"That's overkill."
"That's preparation. There's a difference."
She manages a small smile. "You and your differences."
I lead her to the kitchen and start the percolator. She sits at the table, watching me move through the familiar routine, and slowly the tension in her body begins to ease.
"I'm glad I told you about Carver," she says quietly. "About my suspicions. Even though I wasn't sure, even though I thought I might be imagining things. I'm glad I didn't keep it to myself."
"Why?"
"Because you believed me. You didn't tell me I was being paranoid or that I should trust the system.
You took my concerns seriously." She meets my eyes.
"No one's done that before. Not about this.
Everyone kept telling me I was safe, that the marshals had it handled, that I should just focus on my testimony and let the professionals do their jobs. "
"The professionals failed you."
"They did. But you haven't." She reaches across the table and takes my hand. "Whatever happens next, I want you to know that. You haven't failed me, Deck. Not once."
The words hit me harder than I expect. For years, all I've carried is the weight of the people I couldn't save. The names and faces that haunt my nightmares. And here's this woman, this fierce, brilliant, stubborn woman, telling me that I haven't failed her.
It doesn't erase the past. Nothing can erase the past. But it makes the future feel possible in a way it hasn't in a very long time.
"I won't fail you," I say. "Whatever it takes. I won't fail you."
"I know." She squeezes my hand. "That's why I love you."
The next two days pass in tense vigilance.
Mace calls with updates that tell us Carver is finally starting to crack.
The interrogators have leveraged his family, threatened prosecution for accessory to murder, laid out exactly how many years he'll spend in federal prison if he doesn't cooperate.
Slowly, he's giving up names and dates and details.
So far, nothing about Guardian Peak. Nothing about Nevada. Nothing that suggests he knew where Vivian was taken after Sacramento.
But we don't relax. Can't afford to.
Vivian throws herself into trial preparation with renewed focus. She's not hiding from the fear anymore, she's channeling it. Every hour she spends reviewing testimony is an hour spent fighting back against the people who want her silenced.
We train together, harder than before. She's moved past the basics now, into advanced techniques that require speed and precision. I push her, and she pushes back, and by the end of each session we're both sweating and breathing hard.
At night, we still share a bed. But now there's a new quality to our intimacy—an urgency that wasn't there before. We make love like we're running out of time, desperate and hungry, and afterward we hold each other in the darkness and don't talk about what might be coming.
On the third morning, she finds me on the porch, watching the sunrise with a cup of coffee in my hands.
"You actually slept last night," she says, sitting beside me.
"A few hours."
"Progress." She takes the coffee from my hands and drinks from it. "Any news?"
"Mace called while you were in the shower. Carver confirmed he didn't know about the Nevada transfer. Taylor really did keep him completely out of the loop."
She goes still. "So they don't know where I am?"
"They don't know where you are."
The breath she releases is shaky with relief. "Oh god. Okay. Okay, that's good."
"It doesn't mean we can let our guard down. They're still looking. They won't stop until the trial is over."
"I know. But at least we have time." She leans against me, her head on my shoulder. "Time to prepare. Time to be ready."
"Time to be together."
She looks up at me, and for the first time in days, her smile reaches her eyes. "That too."
We sit on the porch and watch the sun climb over the mountains, painting the snow in shades of gold and pink. For this moment, at least, the danger feels distant. Manageable.
I know it won't last. The trial is still coming. The Castellanos are still out there. Sooner or later, we'll have to face whatever they're planning.
But right now, with Vivian warm against my side and the morning light spilling across our mountain, I let myself believe that we might actually make it through this.
Together.