Chapter 21
TWENTY-ONE
BANKS
The cabin feels different tonight.
We made it back just after midnight, both of us exhausted, dirty, and still riding the high of adrenaline and pure relief.
The drive from the warehouse was quiet at first. The kind of silence that settles in after you have looked death in the face and somehow walked away breathing.
Anniston sits beside me the entire way with her hand resting on my thigh, like she needs the constant contact to believe we’re really safe.
I keep one hand on the wheel and the other covering hers, grounding myself in the warmth of her skin and the steady rhythm of her breathing.
When we finally pull up to the cabin, the familiar sight of the small wooden structure nestled among the pines hits me harder than I expected. For the first time in months, it doesn’t feel like just another safe house. It feels like coming home.
I lock the heavy deadbolt behind us the second we step inside, then go through my usual routine of checking every window, resetting the perimeter alarms, and making sure the motion sensors are active.
Anniston watches me from the middle of the living room.
She looks tired, a little roughed up, and so damn beautiful it makes my chest ache.
“Come here. Let me take a better look at that wound.”
We move into the kitchen and I sit her down.
“It is not that bad,” she says. “Who do you think caused the explosion?”
I shake my head. “I honestly don’t know. I have no fucking clue as to what’s going on. But after I bandage you up I need to call my brothers.”
She nods. “Do you really think it’s over?”
I wish I could tell her yes. “Langford is. You’ll be safe, but I still don’t know how my father fits into everything. I don’t know where the fuck Nash and Sin are.” I wet a towel to clean the blood as I grab my first aid kit from the shelf.
I lose myself in the simple task of cleaning her up as my mind spins. What the fuck is going on? Who was shooting at us? Who interrupted the meeting and why? When I finish with the bandage I lean back in the chair.
“What are you thinking?” Anniston asks me.
I scrub a hand down my face. “Honestly? I have no fucking idea.”
She smiles, and the sight of it nearly knocks me on the ground. “I have a small idea. It could be wrong, but what if the men who shot up the place were working with Wyatt? Maybe your father and Wyatt are working together? I don’t know.”
I cup her cheek. “We’ll look into it.” I pull my phone out, putting a call into Crewe.
I tell him what happened, and he tells me Vance is cleaning up the mess that was made at the warehouse. Local PD hasn’t found anyone except a few bodies here and there. They’ll have more answers in the morning.
“Somebody didn’t want that meeting to happen,” I say into the phone.
Crewe agrees, and I tell him I’m going to see what’s on the hard drives we recovered from the meeting.
I hang up and look at Anniston. The hard drives and digital recorder we grabbed from the table sit on the kitchen counter like bombs waiting to go off.
“We need to see what’s on these,” I say.
I pull out my air-gapped laptop—the one I never connect to any network—and set it up on the table. Anniston sits beside me, shoulder pressed against mine. I plug the recorder in first.
The footage is crystal clear.
Victor Langford sits at the head of the table, calm and arrogant, discussing payoffs, shell companies, and “asset neutralization.” My stomach turns when he casually mentions “the Hawthorne problem.” He talks about Nash and Sin like they’re loose ends that needed tying up.
He even references my father, calling him a “loose cannon who got too close.”
But the worst part is when he looks straight at the camera and says, “The girl… Anniston Wells… needs to be eliminated quietly. She knows too much.”
Anniston’s hand tightens on my thigh.
We move to the hard drives next. I copy everything to an encrypted external before we open any files.
The deeper we dig, the worse it gets. Financial trails.
Offshore accounts. A list of compromised officials.
And buried in one folder—communications showing my father had been feeding them false information for months while trying to dismantle the network from the inside.
He was playing them.
“He’s alive,” I say quietly, staring at the screen. “And he’s been fighting this the whole time.”
Anniston leans her head on my shoulder. “We have enough here to bury them, Banks. The recordings, the files, the money trails. It’s over for Langford.”
I nod, but my mind’s still racing. We send encrypted copies to Crewe, Mack, and Vance through a secure dead-drop channel. By morning, this should be exploding across every major news outlet.
I close the laptop and turn to Anniston.
The fear, the relief, and everything we’ve been through tonight crashes over me at once.
I cross the room in three long strides and pull her into my arms without saying a word.
She melts against me instantly, arms wrapping around my neck as I lift her off the ground.
Her legs circle my waist like they belong there.
I kiss her hard and deep, pouring every ounce of feeling I have into it.
The fear I felt when that gun was pressed to her temple.
The relief of surviving. The love I have for her.
She kisses me back with the same desperate relief, fingers threading through my hair, soft little sounds escaping her throat that make heat rush through my body. When we finally break apart, I rest my forehead against hers, breathing her in.
“It’s over,” I murmur. “The worst of it, anyway. We’ll leak everything. The hard drives, the recordings, all of it. By morning the entire consultancy network should be burning. Victor Langford will be finished.”
She smiles, soft and tired and so damn beautiful it hurts. “We did it, Banks.”
“We did.” I carry her over to the couch and sit down with her straddling my lap.
My hands slide under the hem of her shirt, stroking warm, smooth skin.
“I meant what I said on the road. I’m keeping you, Anniston.
When this mess with my family is done, I want you in my life.
Every single day. I want mornings where I wake up with you in my arms. I want nights where I fall asleep listening to you breathe.
I want the quiet life and the dangerous one, as long as I get to have them with you. ”
Her eyes shine with unshed tears. She cups my face with both hands, thumbs brushing over the stubble on my jaw.
“I want that too. So much. I love you, Banks Hawthorne. Grumpy protector and all. I love how steady you are. I love how you make me feel safe even when the world is falling apart. I love how you look at me like I’m the only thing that matters. I love you.”
I kiss her again, slower this time. Deeper. The kind of kiss that says forever instead of just tonight. She sighs into my mouth and rocks against me, and suddenly the relief turns into heat. My hands tighten on her hips as I pull her closer, letting her feel exactly how much I need her.
We don’t make it to the bed.
I strip the shirt off her right there on the couch, mouth finding her breasts, sucking and licking until she’s arching and moaning my name.
Then I remove her jeans and panties. She tugs at my shirt until I yank it off, then her hands are everywhere, tracing every scar, every muscle like she’s memorizing me.
When I slide my fingers between her thighs she’s already soaked and ready.
“So wet for me,” I murmur against her neck, voice rough. “Always so ready, baby.”
She gasps as I push two fingers inside her, curling them slowly while my thumb circles her clit.
I watch her face the entire time, loving the way her lips part and her eyes flutter half-closed.
I add a third finger, stretching her gently, and she rides my hand with soft, desperate rolls of her hips.
“Banks… please…”
I pull my fingers out and replace them with my cock in one smooth, deep thrust. We both groan at the same time. She’s so tight, so warm, so perfect. I stay buried deep for a long moment, savoring the feel of her around me, before I start moving in long, slow strokes.
“I love you,” I whisper against her mouth as I thrust deeper. “I love you so damn much.”
She clings to me, nails digging into my shoulders, meeting every roll of my hips. “I love you too. So much.”
We move together, unhurried and tender. There’s no rush tonight.
No danger pressing in on us. Just us. I kiss her through every moan, every gasp, telling her how beautiful she is, how perfect she feels, how I’m never letting her go.
When she comes, she cries out my name, clenching around me so sweetly it pulls me over the edge right after her.
I bury myself deep and stay there, pulsing inside her as pleasure washes over us both.
Afterward, I carry her to the bedroom and lay her down on the bed. We clean up quickly, then curl up together under the thick quilt. She tucks herself against my chest, leg thrown over mine, and I wrap my arms around her like I will never let go.
For the first time in months, I feel peace.
We talk quietly in the dark for a long time.
About the future. About where we might live once everything settles.
About visiting Sadie once it’s safe. About maybe getting a dog and a house with a big porch where we can sit and watch the mountains.
Normal things. Real things. The kind of life I never let myself want until her.
I’m just starting to drift off, her breathing slow and even against my skin, when my encrypted phone vibrates on the nightstand.
I reach for it carefully, not wanting to wake her. A new security alert from the perimeter system. Motion detected at the tree line.
I sit up slowly. Anniston stirs beside me. “What is it?”
“Motion sensor,” I say, already pulling on my jeans. “Probably a deer. But I’m going to check the feed.”
She sits up, clutching the sheet to her chest. “I’m coming with you.”
We head down the hall together. I grab my pistol out of habit and turn on the security monitor connected to the exterior cameras. The feed loads. At first I see nothing but dark trees and moonlight filtering through the branches.
Then a figure steps into the clearing.
Tall. Broad-shouldered. Moving with a slight limp. Blood on his torn shirt. Graying hair. A familiar scar above his left eye.
My father.
Billy Hawthorne stands in the middle of the clearing, looking directly at the camera like he knows exactly where it is. He’s alive. He’s here. And he looks like he’s been through hell and back.
Anniston gasps beside me, her hand flying to her mouth.
On the screen, my father lifts his gaze to the lens. His voice comes through the speaker, low and exhausted but unmistakable.
“Boys… you shouldn’t have come looking for me.”
Then the feed cuts to black.
Still not done with Halo City…