Chapter 15 #2
My hand moves to the knife on the counter.
Not because I’m planning to answer the door with a kitchen knife, but because my body has gone into a mode I don’t fully control.
I move to the door and check the camera monitor Aldar installed last week.
The porch is empty. No person visible. But I can see a padded manila envelope sitting on the welcome mat.
“What is it?” Sloane calls from the couch. “Who is there?”
I don’t answer. I open the door and scan the street in both directions. Nothing. The neighborhood is quiet and so is the tiny park across the street. Manicured lawns, parked cars, morning sun on the mountains. Whoever left this is already gone.
I pick up the envelope. It’s light with no return address or postage. This was hand-delivered. I bring it inside and lock the door behind me. I open the envelope at the kitchen counter, standing so my body blocks Sloane’s view.
Photos spill out.
Sloane in the passenger seat of Ellie’s car at the In-N-Out drive-thru. That was yesterday. Ellie had talked her into getting out of the house for a quick food run—just thirty minutes, just to feel normal. Sloane’s face is clearly visible through the window, her auburn hair unmistakable.
The second photo is of the front of this house shot from directly across the road. The third photo is of Sloane visible through the front window, sitting on the couch with her laptop on her knees. This was also taken from the street, through glass that I was standing fifteen feet away from.
My vision tunnels.
And at the bottom of the stack I find a single typed note on white paper.
We know where you are. The story dies with you.
The sound that comes out of me isn’t civilized. It’s not the controlled growl I use around Sloane, the one I can modulate and soften. This is deep and primal and it makes the dishes on the counter rattle.
Someone was here, feet away from my female. Close enough to photograph her through the window while she worked, follow her on a thirty-minute drive-thru run and know our routines, schedules and blind spots.
While I slept with her in my arms and Zoe slept upstairs with Loki.
While I thought we were safe.
“Jonus?” Sloane’s voice is sharp. She’s sitting up on the couch, laptop forgotten. “What is it?”
My hands are shaking. The photos start to crumple in my fists. I force my fingers to relax. Evidence. These are evidence. Don’t destroy them.
My fist hits the wall before I can stop it. Plaster cracks in a spiderweb pattern. Not a hole—I pulled the punch at the last second—but close. My knuckles sting and I welcome the pain. It gives me something to focus on besides the red edges of my vision.
“Jonus.” Sloane raises her voice. “Show me,” she orders.
I grunt in response and bring the photos to her and lay them on the couch beside her. Watch her face as she processes each one.
My brave female doesn’t gasp or cry. She handles them by the edges—fingerprints, evidence—and studies them with the clinical assessment of a woman who’s been in dangerous situations before.
This is her journalist mode. I’ve seen this before, when she talked about the compound, the guards, the pit. She compartmentalizes and analyzes.
“Telephoto lens,” she says. “Professional quality. This isn’t some cartel thug with a cell phone camera. Aldridge hired a professional surveillance team.” She examines the drive-thru photo more closely. “This was yesterday. They followed us. Or they were already in position.”
“They were already in position.” My voice comes out flat and dangerously calm. “They’ve been watching for days.”
She exhales. “They found us.” Then she picks up her phone. “I’m alerting my group chat.”
I’m already on the phone calling my uncle. “Someone left surveillance photos on the front porch,” I tell him. “They know she’s here.”
A beat of silence. Then my uncle’s voice, low and deadly calm. “We’re coming over.”
Then I put out a text in our Irontree group chat letting them know what happened. This group chat includes all of us in Truckee, plus Keric who’s relocated back to Maine, and it includes Kelt.
Three minutes later there’s a knock—two sharp raps, then one, our agreed signal—and I open the door to Dane and Laurie.
The eldest Irontree and scans the room the way he’s scanned every room since I was a boy. His gaze lands on the cracked wall, then on me, then on Sloane on the couch. He doesn’t comment on the wall.
Laurie moves straight to Sloane. “Are you alright, honey?” She sits beside her on the couch and takes her hand. Not hovering, not fussing—just present. The way she’s always been for everyone in this family.
“I’m fine,” Sloane responds. “Mad, mostly.”
“Good. Mad is useful.” Laurie squeezes her hand and stays right where she is.
Dane picks up the photos from the counter, studying each one with the careful attention of a male who has lived through threats before. “Professional work,” he says quietly. “Not amateurs.”
“That’s what I said,” Sloane calls from the couch.
Dane glances at her with something like approval, then turns to me. “You’ve called Aldar?”
“He’s on his way back. And Kelt is standing by for a call.”
“Good.” He sets the photos down carefully. “Let’s wait for Aldar and then we talk strategy. All of us.”
While we wait for Aldar, I pace. I can’t sit still.
Every pass by the window I fight the urge to rip the curtains shut and barricade the doors and carry Sloane to the safe room and stand guard.
Dane stands near the kitchen, arms crossed, watching the street through the window with an expression that reminds me why no one has ever successfully threatened an Irontree without consequences.
Laurie remains beside Sloane on the couch, talking softly with her. At some point she gets up and makes tea for both of them without being asked.
Finally Sloane’s phone buzzes. She glances at it and something fierce crosses her face.
“What did they say?” I question.
“Anna answered first.” Sloane reads from the screen. “‘I know you might be thinking you need to leave, but really, it’s best to stand your ground. The Irontrees will keep you safe.’” She scrolls. “And then Ellie said, ‘Damn right we will.’”
Aldar arrives in under twenty minutes. He takes one look at the photos spread across the kitchen counter, one look at the cracked wall, and says nothing about either. He checks the security cameras immediately.
“Gap in coverage,” he confirms, jaw tight. “They knew the camera angles and stayed in the blind spots. This was planned reconnaissance.”
Kelt’s voice comes through the speakerphone, tight with controlled fury. “This is a warning shot. Aldridge wants her scared. He wants her to run. If he wanted her dead already, he wouldn’t have announced himself.”
“So what’s the play?” I growl.
“He’s hoping she bolts. Goes somewhere without orc protection. Somewhere easier to reach.”
Sloane speaks up from the couch, her blue eyes blazing. “Then I don’t bolt. I stay right here and finish the goddam story. He wants to scare me into silence?” She shakes her head. “He has no idea who he’s dealing with.”
I look at her—this female who climbed out of a pit with her bare hands and ran through a jungle with destroyed feet. No, Aldridge has no idea what he’s up against.
Aldar orders additional cameras to cover every blind spot.
“No more outings,” Kelt orders. “No matter how stir-crazy she gets. Curtains drawn after dark. Dane and Laurie are fully briefed and on alert in their house next door—their own safe room is stocked and ready. Two fortified positions are smarter than putting everyone under one roof when Sloane is the specific target.”
“Agreed,” Dane remarks.
“I’ll move to heightened surveillance tonight,” Aldar adds. “And I’m calling the local sheriff’s office to let them know what’s happened.”
“And I’m getting in touch with the Neighborhood Watch,” my uncle says.
The rest of the afternoon is tense. Dane and Laurie go home and stay there, with the exception of briefly escorting Zoe home after she gets off her school bus. Garlen and Ellie come home from work and see the pictures. Garlen’s expression goes stone cold.
Ellie’s hand instinctively moves to her belly and then she crosses the room and hugs Sloane hard. “We’re not going anywhere,” Ellie says fiercely. “None of us are.”
Zoe arrives home from school, oblivious and happy. We all keep it together for her. Dinner is quieter than usual. Sloane pushes food around her plate more than she eats, but she laughs at Zoe’s story about a boy in her class who tried to eat a crayon.
After Zoe goes to bed, Garlen works with Aldar to check the new cameras one more time. Aldar retreats to his room to continue coordinating. Ellie squeezes Sloane’s hand and heads upstairs with Garlen.
The house goes quiet.
I carry Sloane to our room and set her on the bed. Then I stand and check the lock on our bedroom window, scanning the dark back yard, with my hands braced on the windowsill.
My knuckles still throb from where I hit the wall.
“Come to bed, Jonus.”
I don’t move. “Someone was outside, possibly out back too.”
“And now you’re between me and the window. So come to bed.”
I turn. She’s sitting up against the pillows, those blue eyes steady on mine. Not frightened or panicked, just waiting for me. My female—and she is mine, whether she’s said the words yet or not—is looking at me with an expression that has nothing to do with fear and everything to do with trust.
“You should be afraid,” I say roughly.
“Of what?” She pats the mattress beside her. “The very same orcs who flew to Colombia to save me are right here in this house. I’m not afraid.”
I cross to the bed and lie down beside her. She immediately curls against me, as she does every night now, tucking herself into the curve of my body like she was designed for exactly this space. Her head on my chest. Her arm across my waist. Her legs tangled with mine.
My arms wrap around her and I bury my nose in her hair and inhale deep. Her scent floods my lungs and the rage, the fear, the murderous need to find whoever was outside that window and tear them apart—all of it slowly, slowly quiets.
She doesn’t say anything else. Just holds on.
I hold on tighter.
I love this female and I suspect she is falling in love with me too. And yet someone is coming to try and harm her. And when they arrive, I will be ready.