24. Chapter 24
Caroline
I was absolutely not going to become a victim again.
The decision came in the parking lot of my office building with my keys clenched between my fingers and my pulse hammering hard enough to make me lightheaded.
Nothing was happening.
That was the worst part.
No unfamiliar car idled near the exit. No stranger followed me across the concrete. No footsteps echoed behind me.
Still, I stood beside my car and stared at the security camera above the stairwell door while every old instinct screamed that I was trapped.
The garage had too many shadows.
Too many concrete pillars.
Too many places someone could stand without being seen.
My phone felt slippery in my hand. Colt had texted four minutes earlier.
You outside yet?
I should answer.
I knew that.
Instead, I stared at the screen while memory folded over reality.
Marcus asking where I was.
Marcus checking the time.
Marcus wanting proof.
Marcus calling again when I took too long.
My lungs tightened.
This was different.
Colt was different.
The threat was real.
I knew all of that intellectually, and none of it stopped my body from remembering what it felt like to have every movement tracked by someone who claimed it was because he cared.
“Caroline?”
I flinched hard enough that my keys hit the pavement.
Rochelle stood several feet away, a casserole dish balanced against one hip.
“Jesus.”
“Sorry.” Her eyes moved over me, taking in the phone, the keys on the ground, the fact that I was standing beside my car without opening it. “You okay?”
The automatic answer rose.
Fine.
I swallowed it.
“No.”
Rochelle nodded once, like I had told her the weather.
Then she set the casserole on the hood of my car and picked up my keys.
No platitudes.
No touching me without asking.
No insistence that everything would be fine.
She handed them back.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“Bullshit.”
A startled laugh escaped me.
Rochelle leaned against the car beside mine.
I looked around the garage.
“Ghost found another surveillance gap. Colt wants someone with me every time I leave the apartment. Sweet changed the rotation again. There are cameras outside my home and office, trackers in the vehicles, check-ins every time I change locations.” My throat tightened.
“And the worst part is that I understand why.”
“That usually makes things harder.”
I looked at her.
She shrugged. “Easy to fight a cage when the person building it is an asshole. Harder when everybody loves you.”
The word caught somewhere inside me.
Loves.
I looked away.
Rochelle did not seem to notice.
Or she was kind enough to pretend.
“I spent years rebuilding my life,” I said.
“After Marcus. After my father. I learned how to go places alone again. How to stop checking every lock three times. How to sleep without listening for footsteps.” I tightened my fingers around my keys.
“Now someone actually is watching me, and I feel like I’m becoming that woman again. ”
“What woman?”
“The one who waits for someone else to decide whether she’s safe.”
Rochelle studied me for a long moment.
Then she nodded toward the phone still in my hand.
“You going to let this break you, or are you going to fight back?”
The question hit differently than reassurance would have.
I looked at her.
“Fight how?”
“Don’t know.” She picked up the casserole. “That part’s your problem.”
I stared at her.
Rochelle smiled.
“You’re a therapist. Figure it out.”
Then she walked toward the elevator.
I stood alone in the parking garage with my pulse still too fast and Colt’s unanswered message glowing on my screen.
You outside yet?
I typed back.
Yes. Safe. Going home.
Then I opened a second conversation.
Ghost, I need a favor.
***
Ghost refused to teach me in a conference room.
I discovered that the following morning when I arrived at the clubhouse and found him waiting beside an unremarkable gray SUV.
He tossed me a set of keys.
I nearly dropped them.
“What’s this?”
“Lesson one.”
I looked from the keys to the vehicle. “You could try explaining things.”
“Could.”
He opened the passenger door.
Apparently, he was not going to.
I climbed behind the wheel.
Ghost settled beside me with a coffee and the expression of a man who had already accepted that I was going to irritate him.
“Where are we going?”
“Drive.”
“Helpful.”
“Turn right at the gate.”
I started the engine.
For the first ten minutes, Ghost said almost nothing.
He directed me through residential streets, onto a frontage road, then toward downtown. Every time I asked what I was supposed to be doing, he told me to drive.
By the fourth turn, irritation had burned through most of my anxiety.
“Is the lesson that kidnappers are less dangerous if I die of frustration first?”
Ghost took a drink of coffee.
“Blue sedan.”
My hands tightened on the wheel.
“What?”
“Behind us.”
I checked the mirror.
Three vehicles back, a dark blue sedan moved with traffic.
“How long has it been there?”
“That’s what I’m asking you.”
I looked again.
“I don’t know.”
“Exactly.”
The word stung.
Ghost pointed toward the next intersection. “Left.”
I turned.
The sedan followed.
My pulse changed immediately.
Not panic.
Close.
“Is that one of yours?”
Ghost looked out the passenger window.
“Does it matter?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
I stared at him.
“Eyes forward.”
I obeyed.
“People think surveillance detection means spotting the creepy guy who’s been behind them for twenty miles,” Ghost said.
“Usually doesn’t work like that. You look for patterns.
Same vehicle after unnecessary turns. Same face in different locations.
Somebody moving when you move and stopping when you stop. ”
I checked the mirror again.
The sedan remained behind us.
“What do I do?”
“First? Don’t lead them home.”
My stomach tightened.
“Second, don’t panic and start driving like an idiot. If they don’t know you’ve seen them, that’s an advantage.”
The light ahead turned yellow.
“Go through.”
I did.
The sedan followed.
My heartbeat climbed.
Ghost remained infuriatingly calm.
“Next right.”
I turned.
“Next right.”
Another turn.
“Again.”
I looked at him. “We’re making a box.”
“Good.”
The sedan appeared behind us.
My mouth went dry.
“They’re following.”
“Maybe.”
“We made three right turns.”
“Could be coincidence.”
“You don’t believe that.”
“Doesn’t matter what I believe. Matters what you can establish.”
I tightened my grip on the wheel.
“What now?”
“Your decision.”
I glanced at him.
Ghost lifted his coffee.
“I’m not driving.”
For one second, anger flashed.
Then I understood.
This was the point.
Not memorizing a protocol.
Choosing under pressure.
I looked ahead.
Gas station on the corner. Busy intersection beyond it. Police substation three blocks east if I remembered the neighborhood correctly.
I took the next left.
The sedan followed.
“Phone,” I said.
Ghost handed me mine.
I did not call Colt.
That realization mattered.
I opened the secure group Sweet had created.
Possible tail. Blue sedan. Heading east on Franklin toward public location. Ghost with me.
A response appeared almost immediately.
Received.
I kept driving.
“What else?” Ghost asked.
I checked the mirror.
“Description. Plate if I can get it safely.”
“Good.”
“Don’t stop somewhere isolated.”
“Good.”
“Create distance and time.”
Ghost finally looked at me.
“Better.”
The sedan turned away two blocks later.
My entire body sagged.
I pulled into a crowded pharmacy lot and parked.
For several seconds, I could not move.
Ghost took another drink of coffee.
I turned on him.
“That was one of yours.”
He said nothing.
“You absolute asshole.”
“Did you spot it?”
“Eventually.”
“Did you lead it home?”
“No.”
“Did you freeze?”
I opened my mouth.
Stopped.
No.
I had not.
The realization moved through me slowly.
Ghost set his coffee in the cup holder.
“You don’t need to become me. You don’t need to outfight Colt or memorize every tactical possibility.” His voice was quieter now. “You need enough awareness to buy yourself time. Enough time for help to reach you. Enough time to make the next decision.”
I looked through the windshield.
My hands were trembling.
But I had made the next decision.
Then the next.
Then another.
“When do we do it again?”
Ghost smiled.
It was not a reassuring smile.
“Tomorrow.”
***
Nine days later, sweat ran down my spine as I stared at the woman standing across from me on the training mat.
Mara was five inches shorter than I was and approximately twice as terrifying.
“Again,” she said.
I bent forward, hands braced on my knees. “I dislike you.”
“Good.”
“My therapist voice says hostility can interfere with effective learning.”
“Your therapist voice talks too much.”
From somewhere behind me came a low laugh.
I straightened.
Colt leaned against the wall with his arms folded over his chest.
He had arrived twenty minutes earlier and, to his credit, had not interrupted once.
That was growth.
The fact that I knew how badly he wanted to was also growth.
“Something funny?” I asked.
“Nope.”
Mara looked between us. “You two done flirting?”
“We’re not flirting,” I said.
Colt answered at the same time.
“Definitely flirting.”
I glared at him.
His mouth curved.
Mara moved before I saw it coming.
Her hand closed around my wrist.
I reacted.
Turned into the grip instead of yanking away. Dropped my weight. Drove the heel of my free hand upward.
Mara released me before I made contact.
“Better.”
I blinked.
She nodded once. “Again.”
Pride warmed my chest.
Then I looked at Colt.
The smile was gone.
His face had become unreadable.
My pride cooled.
We trained another twenty minutes before Mara called it.
I grabbed my water bottle and towel, hyperaware of Colt standing near the door.
He had barely spoken.
That worried me more than an argument would have.
Mara disappeared toward the locker room.
I wiped my face. “Say it.”
Colt’s eyebrows lifted. “Say what?”
“Whatever you’ve been choking on for twenty minutes.”
His jaw tightened.
There it was.
I waited.
Finally, he said, “I don’t like watching somebody put their hands on you.”
“Mara was training me.”
“I know.”
“I asked to be here.”
“I know.”
I studied him.