Chapter 30
The limo pulls through the gates at the end of the driveway, the familiar sound of them creaking shut welcoming us home.
Devyn is half asleep against my shoulder, her body warm and pliant, the exhaustion of the evening having finally caught up with her.
I stroke her hair, my fingers tangling in the waves splayed across her back, and I feel the contentment that comes from having her close and knowing she’s safe.
The feeling evaporates the moment the car comes to a stop and I see Hawk waiting on the porch.
He stands at the top of the steps, his massive frame silhouetted against the security lights that illuminate the front of the house.
His arms are crossed and his feet are planted wide.
Even from here I can see the tension in his shoulders and the set of his jaw, both silently speaking of bad news.
My stomach drops, the post-coital haze shattering like glass.
I know that look. I’ve seen it in war zones, hostage situations, and moments when intelligence comes through that changes everything. It’s the look of a man who’s been holding information he doesn’t want to deliver. “What is it?” I ask sharply, the moment I push open the door.
Devyn stirs beside me, the night air washing away some of the warmth of the limo. Hawk waits until we’re sliding from the car before answering, “Mattis has something.” His voice is grave and heavy with implications.
My jaw clenches painfully tight in preparation for what we’re about to walk into.
After the note and high-definition violations of our privacy, any new information from Mattis is likely to be devastating.
He’s been digging into the dark web site, trying to break the encryption and find any digital fingerprints that our stalker may have left behind.
I pause mid-step, turning to face Devyn a couple steps behind me. Her dress is slightly askew and her eyes, still glazed with satisfaction, sharpen as she takes in Hawk’s expression. “Go upstairs,” I insist, keeping my voice gentle but firm. “I’ll be there as soon as we’re done.”
She blinks at me, confusion flickering across her features. “What? Gunnar, no. If Mattis found something, I want to hear it. I need to know—”
“Babygirl,” I interrupt, stepping close and cupping her face in my hands. Her skin is soft and warm against my palms as I force her to meet my eyes, needing her see the sincerity in mine. “I will tell you everything you need to know when we’re done. Trust me to shelter you from this.”
She stares at me, and I watch the war in the golden pools.
Her desire to be included, treated as an equal partner in this nightmare, is fighting against her exhaustion and the trust she’s placed in me.
In the short time we’ve known each other, she has learned that when I say I want to protect her, I mean it.
Even when it means keeping things from her.
Especially when it means keeping things from her.
“Gunnar—” she starts, her voice carrying that particular note of stubbornness that I usually find adorable.
“Trust me,” I repeat, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “Please.”
She holds my gaze for a long moment, and I see the second she decides through the slight softening around her eyes and almost imperceptible dip of her chin.
She begrudgingly agrees, pulling away from my touch with a huff that’s more resigned than angry.
“Fine. But you better not be deciding what’s too scary for the little woman to handle. I’m stronger than you think.”
“I know you are.” She’s the strongest person I know. But strength has limits, and I’ve already seen her break once when she found those photos. I won’t risk her breaking again. Not if I can help it. “Go change. Get comfortable. I’ll be up soon.”
She turns and heads for the stairs, her back straight with the pride that refuses to let her show how much this exclusion hurts as her heels click against the stone. I watch her go, my chest tight with guilt-laced protectiveness and the burden of what I’m about to learn.
When she’s disappeared inside, I turn back to Hawk. “The den?”
He nods, falling into step beside me as we move toward the house. Damon follows, silent and alert. I figure Jagger is probably already inside, waiting with that restless energy that makes him invaluable in a fight and exhausting in a meeting.
The den is as we left it—dimly lit, the makeshift conference table covered in laptops, files and the debris of an investigation that has been consuming our lives.
Jagger is perched on the edge of the table with his phone in his hand, the expression plastered across his face uncharacteristically serious.
I shut the door behind us, the click of the latch sounding final and ominous. “Tell me.”
Hawk crosses to the laptop that’s already open, the screen glowing with the interface for a secure call. He hits a button, and Mattis’s voice fills the room, sounding tinny and unmistakably tense.
“I looked into Colton like you asked,” Mattis shares, and there’s something in his tone that makes my stomach clench.
“And?” I ask, the word coming out sharper than I intended, colored by the anxiety that’s been building since I clocked Hawk’s expression from the limo.
“And he’s shady as fuck,” Mattis continues, the click of his keyboard filling the background a he pulls up files. “Except for his well-hidden name change before moving to Hollywood, I have no idea how the media hasn’t caught wind of this yet.”
A name change. That explains why the preliminary search I ran came up clean. Colton Cross is a constructed identity, a persona. “Caught wind of what?” I ask, though part of me already knows and is putting together the pieces that have been nagging at my instincts since that encounter on the street.
“Colton has a handful of restraining orders and dropped sexual assault charges from his early twenties,” Mattis discloses.
His voice carries a weight of disgust, anger on behalf of victims who never saw justice.
“These poor women really went through it. Stalking, assault, violations that… fuck, Gunnar… you don’t want the details.
But the cases were dropped when he settled and paid them off.
Or in one instance where he threatened them into silence.
And then he changed his name, reinvented himself, and Hollywood welcomed him with open arms.”
The room is silent except for Mattis’s breathing through the speaker. I can feel the tension radiating from Hawk, Damon, and Jagger with the collective rage of men who have done deplorable things to predators who dared harm someone they love.
“And Devyn?” I ask, the question barely more than a whisper, though I already know the answer. My gut has known since my instincts screamed at me when we ran into outside the tailor. The way he looked at her like property he had been denied never sat right with me.
“Colton has been here as long as she has,” Mattis confirms, and I hear the triumph in his voice mixed with the horror.
“It took a lot of work, but I found a PGP encryption key that ties from the dark web site back to an email address linked to him. The same encryption protocol, the same digital signature. It has to be him, Gunnar. The shrine, the photos, the notes… It’s all Colton Cross. ”
“Son of a bitch,” I breathe, the words escaping in a rush of air. “We’ve got him.”
The relief is immediate and overwhelming, replaced almost instantly by a rage so pure it makes my vision blur.
Colton Cross. The smug bastard who deemed me invisible is the same one who’s been watching her, photographing her, and fantasizing about her death.
He’s the monster who’s been haunting her life, and he’s been hiding in plain sight this whole fucking time.
“We need to move on this,” Hawk insists, his voice calm but his eyes burning with the same fury I feel. “Tonight.”
I shake my head, forcing myself to think past the red haze of violence that wants to consume me. “No. We need to be smart. He’s a high-profile celebrity. We can’t just bury this one in the desert. If he disappears, people will notice. Questions get asked. We need finesse, not just force.”
“Finesse?” Jagger asks, hopping off the table, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. “The guy is a fucking piece of shit. He’s called your girl a whore and has a fucking shrine to her murder. And you want finesse?”
“I want him fucking dead,” I snap, turning on him. “But I want Devyn safe. I want this done in a way that doesn’t put her at risk. One that doesn’t bring the law down on us or turn this into a media circus she’ll never escape. Yes, I want finesse.”
Damon steps forward, his voice measured and reasonable.
“Gunnar’s right. If we go in guns blazing, we become the story.
And if Colton has contingency plans… And let’s all be real, a guy this paranoid and obsessive, definitely has contingency plans…
Then Devyn becomes collateral damage in a way we can’t control.
That’s a narrative that not even Mattis can spin. ”
“So what do we do?” Hawk asks.
I pace to the window, staring out at the darkness beyond, at the ocean that stretches to the horizon.
Colton is out there somewhere, probably in his Hollywood Hills mansion, reviewing his latest photos of Devyn and planning his next move.
He thinks he’s safe. He thinks his fame protects him, that his money insulates him, and his carefully constructed persona makes him untouchable.
He’s wrong.
“We go tomorrow,” I say, turning back to face my team. “Crack of the day, when he’s likely to be home and he’ll be complacent. We go in quiet, prepared, and we end this. Permanently.”
“Permanently,” Jagger repeats, with a. dark hunger in his voice that matches my own.
“One of us stays behind,” I continue, my mind working through the logistics and contingencies. “With Devyn. She can’t be alone, not now, not when we’re this close. And if something goes wrong, if he has security we don’t know about, she needs protection.”
“I’ll stay,” Damon says immediately, accepting the burden of this necessity.
“I’m the best in close quarters combat. That makes me the best position to defend the house if he has friends we don’t know about.
And I’m… I’m the most level-headed. If she asks questions, if she figures out something’s happening, I can keep her calm. ”
He isn’t wrong there.
I nod, grateful for his sacrifice and understanding of what’s at stake. “Hawk, Jagger, you’re with me. We go in the morning, early. We don’t give him a chance to run, hide, or call for help.”
“And then?” Hawk asks, though we all know the answer.
“And then we make sure he never threatens her again.” My voice is flat and final. “We make sure he never looks at her, thinks about her, or ever breathes her fucking name again. We bury him so deep the world forgets he existed.”
The plan takes shape over the next several hours, details of entry points, alibis, contingencies, and determining how best to make a famous man disappear without leaving traces that lead back to us.
Mattis feeds us information—blue prints of Colton’s house and security systems—through closed channels.
By the time we finish, gray is creeping in at the edges of the darkness in the sky.
I stand and stretch, knowing that in a few short hours I’m going to kill a man for the crime of loving what belongs to me and coveting what he can never have.
But right now, I have other responsibilities.
I climb the stairs slowly, my boots heavy on the hardwood, each step taking me further from the violence we just planned and closer to the woman who makes it all worthwhile.
When I open the bedroom door, I find her sitting on the edge of the bed, dressed in one of my oversized shirts.
“Well?” she asks, her face snapping toward me. “What did Mattis find?”
I cross to her and kneel before her so I can look into her eyes. And because I want her to see the truth in mine. “I found who’s been hurting you,” I share, choosing my words carefully. “And I’m going to make sure he never does it again.”
She stares at me, and I see the questions forming in her beautiful little head—demands for details, names, and explanations. But then she seems to read the darkness I’ve been trying to keep from her in my eyes, and she simply nods.
“Okay,” she whispers, her hand coming up to cup my cheek.
I pull her into my arms, holding her tight, feeling her heartbeat against my chest. Knowing that I’m going to kill him to spare her from the violence he is so intent on inflicting, I hold her in silence as I make a promise to myself.
She’ll never know the details, see the blood on my hands, or be forced to understand the depths I will sink to protect those that I love.
Tomorrow, I’ll become a monster… And she will never have to know.