Chapter 46 Trigger
Trigger
Iwoke up wrong.
No dream. No sound. Just the immediate, visceral certainty that something had changed.
My arm closed around empty space.
Cold sheets.
My eyes snapped open.
“Rylie?” I said quietly.
Nothing.
The cabin was too still. Not the good kind. Not the safe kind. The kind that presses against your ears and makes your pulse spike before you know why.
I sat up fast, pain flaring across my ribs where I’d taken a hit days ago. Didn’t matter. I was already moving.
“Rylie.”
I swung my legs over the side of the bed, scanning the room. Her boots weren’t by the door. The sweatshirt she’d been wearing was gone.
The note hit me next.
Folded once. Placed deliberately on the counter where I couldn’t miss it.
My hands shook when I picked it up.
I need to do this my way.
I love you.
Trust me.
The room tilted.
“No,” I breathed.
I was already reaching for my comms, my mind racing ahead of my body, cataloging possibilities. No alarms. No gunfire. No forced entry.
She hadn’t been taken.
She’d left.
“Havoc,” I snapped into the mic. “Status. Now.”
Static for half a second—too long.
Then: “Perimeter clear. No breach.”
“She’s gone,” I said. “Rylie’s gone.”
Silence exploded into motion.
Boots hit the porch outside. A door opened hard. Havoc was in the cabin seconds later, eyes scanning, reading the room instantly.
“She walked,” he said. Not a question.
“Yes.”
“Alone?”
I held up the note.
Havoc swore under his breath, low and vicious. “She didn’t trigger sensors.”
“She wouldn’t,” I said. My chest felt like it was caving in. “She knows how we think.”
I grabbed my jacket and my weapon in one motion. “Track her phone.”
Havoc was already on it. “Signal came on briefly about twenty minutes ago. Then went dark again.”
Twenty minutes.
That was a lifetime.
That was a head start.
Saint’s voice cut in over comms, sharp now. “Trigger, say again.”
“She made contact,” I said. “With Thomas.”
The words tasted like failure.
I paced once, twice, my hands clenching hard enough that my knuckles ached. I should’ve seen this coming. Should’ve known she wouldn’t sit quietly while the town paid the price for her existence.
“She thinks she’s moving the threat away from us,” Havoc said grimly.
“She is,” I replied. “Straight onto herself.”
Rage surged—hot, blinding—but beneath it was something worse.
Fear.
Not of Thomas.
Of losing her because she believed she had to be brave alone.
I slammed my fist into the counter, wood cracking under the force. “She trusted me to protect her.”
“And now she’s protecting you,” Havoc said quietly.
That stopped me cold.
“She loves you,” he continued. “This was her line in the sand.”
I forced myself to breathe. To think. To be the man she believed I was—not the one panicking because the woman he loved had stepped into the lion’s mouth.
“Lock the town down quietly,” I ordered. “No sirens. No alerts. We don’t tip him off that we know.”
“Already moving,” Saint said.
I picked up the note again, pressing it flat against my palm like I could feel her through it.
Trust me.
“I do,” I said out loud.
Then my voice hardened.
“But Thomas just made the biggest mistake of his life.”
I clipped my weapon into place and headed for the door.
Because Rylie hadn’t surrendered.
She’d challenged him.
And I was coming to finish it.