Chapter 9 #2
For one dangerous moment, my mind wandered somewhere it had no business going.
Another life. One where Charlotte hadn’t believed I was part of that ring of thieves.
Where the real culprit had been discovered, or where she’d simply decided to trust what she’d felt between us over the evidence someone had planted.
We could have been together for two years now.
Long enough to know whether I wanted to spend my life with her.
Long enough to be the one shopping for rings, planning proposals, celebrating engagements.
We could have been them .
The thought was so sentimental, so pathetically hopeful, that I wanted to find a mirror just to glare at my own reflection. Get it together, you fucking idiot.
“We’d better be going,” I said, and my hand found Charlotte’s waist before I could think better of it. “Congratulations again. Always good to see you all.”
“Is it?” Austin muttered into his glass, just loud enough to be heard.
Fair point. I didn’t make any effort to socialize with them outside of work.
Avoided the after-shift drinks, the casual hangouts, the team bonding that everyone else seemed to enjoy.
I had nothing against any of them personally.
But the last people I’d considered friends—brothers in arms, I’d thought—had turned on me the moment things got difficult.
My actual brother had watched me go down and done nothing.
I wasn’t making that mistake again. I wasn’t going to let myself believe I had a community, a support system, people who would stand by me when it mattered. That door was closed. Locked. Welded shut.
Everyone said polite goodbyes, and I guided Charlotte toward the exit with perhaps more urgency than was necessary. She glanced up at me as we walked, a knowing look on her face.
“They seemed genuinely excited about you joining them,” she observed. “That wasn’t just politeness.”
“We work together,” I said with a dismissive shrug. “It’s nothing more than that.”
Charlotte made a noncommittal sound.
“If you wanted to stay—” I started, then abruptly stopped. What was I doing? “Actually, we shouldn’t have lingered this long.”
“I don’t want to stay.” Her voice was quieter now, some of the sharpness fading. “They don’t actually care about me. They just met me.” A smirk tugged at her lips. “Besides, the cheerful one was definitely going to hit on me if we stayed much longer.”
“Austin?” I snorted. “He knows better than to try and take what belongs to someone else.”
The words left my mouth before I could stop them.
Charlotte’s cheeks flushed pink, and I could have kicked myself. She didn’t belong to me. She had, briefly, during our scene—that was the nature of the dynamic we’d negotiated. But outside of that room, outside of that context, she was her own person. My client. Nothing more.
The valet brought the car around, and I held the door for her until she was settled, then went around and slid into the driver’s seat.
“Tate should be finishing up with your electronics,” I said as I pulled onto the main road. “But from now on, we need to minimize how often you leave secure locations. No unnecessary trips. No—”
“I already told you.” Charlotte’s voice was firm, but not hostile. “I’m not giving up this story. I’m not leaving town. I will listen to you about security protocols, Kane. I trust you to keep me alive—that’s your job, and you’re clearly good at it. But I won’t abandon what Ruth died for.”
Frustration flared hot in my chest. “Do I need to fuck you harder next time? Keep you on the edge longer until you understand who’s in charge of your safety?”
“You’re talented,” Charlotte replied, utterly unfazed. “But nobody is that talented. Besides—” She turned to look at me, and there was steel in her gaze. “This is who I am. A dog with a bone, remember? You might as well get used to it.”
I wanted to snap back and remind her that stubbornness wasn’t the same as strategy, that determination meant nothing if she ended up dead.
But some small, inconvenient part of me also admired the hell out of her.
That relentless drive, that refusal to back down even when the smart move was to run—it was infuriating and impressive in equal measure.
She’d built her entire career on that tenacity.
Brought down corrupt cops, exposed scandals, given voices to people who’d been silenced.
Including me, technically. Even if she’d gotten the wrong target.
My phone buzzed before I could formulate a response. Tate’s name flashed on the screen.
“Hey,” I answered, routing the call through the car’s Bluetooth. “What’d you find?”
“Spyware on the laptop, just like we suspected.” Tate’s voice was calm, professional. “Sophisticated stuff, too. Based on the installation date and the infection vector, I’d guess someone cloned her phone within the last week and piggy-backed access when she synced devices.”
Fuck. Phone cloning was disturbingly easy. All you needed was the right equipment and a few seconds of proximity—standing behind someone in a coffee line or grocery store, or bumping into them on a crowded sidewalk. Charlotte would never have noticed.
“From the phone, they got into everything else,” Tate continued. “Email, cloud storage, the works. But honestly? That’s not what has me worried.”
“Spyware on all my devices isn’t what worries you?” Charlotte interjected, her voice sharp with disbelief.
“Oh—am I on speaker? Hi, Charlotte. Right, so, here’s the thing.
I took the liberty of scanning the building’s network while I was there.
” Tate’s tone shifted, becoming more serious.
“Piggy-backed onto neighboring Wi-Fi signals to get a broader picture. And there’s some very interesting activity coming from the apartment directly below yours. ”
Charlotte stiffened beside me.
“The tenant is supposedly out of town,” Tate continued.
“I pulled up his social media—he’s posting pictures from Zion National Park with college buddies.
Very wholesome. Very outdoorsy. Except someone is definitely using his apartment’s internet connection, and they’re doing it through a VPN, a proxy server, and a Tor browser. ”
I glanced at Charlotte, my confusion apparently obvious, because she translated Tate’s explanation for me.
“They’re using tools specifically designed to hide their IP address, browsing history, and physical location from anyone trying to track them.
Even their internet provider can’t see what they’re doing. ”
“I’m not saying whoever’s down there is googling ‘how to assassinate a journalist,’” Tate said drily.
“But when you combine the timing, the counter-surveillance measures, and the fact that the actual tenant is conveniently out of town? I’d bet good money you’ve got a professional camped out directly beneath Charlotte’s floor. Waiting.”
The word hung in the air. Waiting.
“I would strongly advise against returning to the apartment,” Tate continued. “If anyone goes back, it should be Kane alone, and only to grab essentials. In and out, nothing that looks like Charlotte’s coming home.”
“Where are you now?” I asked.
“The office.”
“Good. I’m bringing Charlotte to you. Walk her through setting up the clean devices so she can keep working without being tracked. I’ll handle the apartment and grabbing the important things before taking her to one of our safehouses.”
Her passport. Some clothes. Any documentation that couldn’t be replaced. If things escalated—if she really did need to flee—she’d need everything required to prove her identity and get across borders.
Charlotte had gone pale, but her jaw was also set with familiar determination as she stared at me. “This doesn’t change anything. The story is still going to print. One way or another.”
“Impressive,” Tate said, and there was genuine respect in his voice. “Most people would be on a plane by now.”
“Don’t encourage her,” I muttered.
“I don’t need encouragement,” Charlotte replied defiantly.
“I can tell.” Tate’s dry amusement was clear even through the phone’s speakers.
“I’ll let you two sort out the details. Just get her here safely.
She’ll be secure with me while you handle the retrieval.
Oh, and Kane? Watch your back at that apartment.
If they’ve got someone positioned below her, I’m sure they have eyes on who is coming and going out of her place. ”
“Noted.” I ended the call.
The car fell silent except for the hum of the engine and the whisper of tires on asphalt. Charlotte stared out the windshield, her mind clearly racing.
The assassin—because I had no doubt that’s what we were dealing with—would be waiting for her. Positioned in that apartment with a direct line to her floor, probably monitoring for the sound of her footsteps overhead or any sign that his target had returned back home.
If she didn’t show up but I did, he probably wouldn’t act, just like Tate had gotten in and out without incident. Engaging me would start a confrontation he hadn’t prepared for and reveal his position prematurely. He’d wait. Report back to his handlers. Adjust the plan.
Which meant I could get what we needed and get out.
I pulled into the parking garage beneath Noble and Associates and escorted Charlotte inside.
Tate met us at the elevator as we stepped off, and his eyebrows shot toward his hairline as Charlotte walked past him.
His gaze tracked from her—slightly disheveled, still flushed from her orgasms, and a few red marks visible at the edge of her collar where my mouth had been—to me.
I felt heat creep up my neck. Fuck.
Tate’s expression shifted into a knowing look as he glanced meaningfully between us.
“What?” I said quietly, my voice flat with warning.
“Nothing.” But the word was loaded with subtext, and the slight curve of his lips said he was filing this information away for later.
Nothing to see here. Tate was just newly in love with his girl Stella, drunk on happiness and seeing romance in every interaction around him. The man had hearts in his eyes half the time these days. He was projecting.
Not to mention the fact that he’d crossed every professional line in existence by falling for his client while working as her bodyguard, so he really wasn’t in a position to judge anybody else.
He also didn’t know the history between Charlotte and me. Didn’t know she was the journalist who’d destroyed my career, the woman I’d been falling for before everything went to hell, and the reason I’d spent two years trying to convince myself I didn’t believe in anything anymore.
And he sure as hell wasn’t getting that information from me now.
“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” I told him. “Location services are still active on my phone. You can track me if anything goes wrong.”
“Understood.” Tate’s expression sobered. “Watch your back. These people are clearly ruthless.”
I nodded and turned to leave, but Charlotte’s voice stopped me.
“Kane.”
I looked back. She stood in the doorway to the conference room, her expression complicated. She opened her mouth like she might say something—something real, something that mattered—but then she closed it again.
A muscle ticked in her jaw.
“Be careful,” she finally said.
I held her gaze for a beat longer than necessary. “Always am.”
Then I walked away, leaving her in Tate’s protection, and headed back into the night.
The drive to her apartment took fifteen minutes.
I spent every second of it running scenarios, cataloging entry points, calculating angles.
The assassin downstairs would have the advantage of position.
He knew the building’s layout, had probably studied Charlotte’s patterns and routines, and knew exactly which floorboards creaked overhead.
But I had training. And I had motivation. Because somewhere between the anger, the desire, and the complicated mess of our history, something had shifted between Charlotte and me tonight. I didn’t know what to call it yet. Hell, I didn’t know if I even wanted to name it.
But when Charlotte had told me to be careful, she sounded almost like she meant it, her tone genuine enough to crack through two years of bitterness and make me question everything I thought I knew about her.
Dangerous thought. Stupid one, too.
Yet as I pulled into her building’s parking lot and killed the engine, scanning shadows for threats, I couldn’t stop thinking about the possibility that I still wanted her far more than I ever should have.