Chapter Seventeen Cole
I’m going to fucking kill him.
The idea of tearing Lars Winters limb from limb loops through my mind as I drive toward Murphy’s Diner, my hands gripping the steering wheel so tightly my fingers will ache when I eventually have to release it. He’s been following her, stalking her, and my entire being is screaming for violence.
For revenge.
I know everything about him. I know him better than he knows himself. It wouldn’t take much to find him tonight and teach him the same fucking lesson I taught Shitbag Steve.
The rational part of my brain knows a reaction like this is bad.
My instinct to protect Hailey morphed into an instinct to mete out justice in practically no time at all.
I went ballistic the moment I heard the fear in Hailey’s voice, and that dark part of me doesn’t give a fuck about recovery or healthy fucking boundaries.
I feel myself unraveling. And I don’t fucking care.
He threatened her, made her scared enough to call me, bawling hysterically. Of course my emotions are raging in overdrive. I want to rip the guy’s eyes out and shove them down his fucking throat.
My phone sits in the passenger seat, already connected to several databases I absolutely should not be accessing right now.
By the time I pull into Murphy’s parking lot, I’ve barely resisted the urge to call Hailey back and request permission to fucking kill him. It’d be too easy.
Her black SUV is already here, parked under a streetlight.
I knew she was smart, but it’s still a comfort to know she’s thinking about how much safer it is to be beneath the light, even in her scrambled mental state.
Through the diner’s windows, I can see her at a corner booth, hands wrapped around a coffee mug.
My heart sinks at the sight of her.
She looks small. Vulnerable. Nothing like the competent, confident woman who’s stolen my heart. The sight of her diminished by fear makes something feral roar to life in my chest.
I take a deep breath before entering the diner, trying to dial down the murderous thoughts radiating from every fiber of my being.
Hailey needs me to be fully present and emotionally available to her right now, not a barely controlled psychopath who’s already planning to erase her stalker’s existence.
This is feeling dangerously close to how Shitbag Steve made Emma feel. I can’t fucking take it. I can’t sit by and watch a goddamn predator make the perfect woman feel anything less than the queen she is.
“Cole,” she says as I approach, relief in her voice. The tension in her shoulders eases at my arrival, which calms me, too. I want her to feel safe with me. She is safe with me. “Thank you for coming. I’m so sorry for calling this late.”
I slide into the booth beside her, wrapping her in my arms.
The contact alone makes her sob, and all I can do is hold her. I bring one hand to the back of her head, gently stroking her hair while she cries into my shoulder.
“Please don’t apologize. I know you’re not okay,” I say when the tears begin to slow, then dry up entirely. Her face is pale, and she’s gripping my shirt like her life depends on it.
“I’m fine,” she says out of habit, then shakes her head. “No, that’s not true. I’m pretty shaken up.”
A server appears with menus, but I wave her off. “Just coffee for me, thanks.”
“More coffee?” she asks Hailey, who nods politely.
“That’d be great, thank you.”
“Could we get some wheat toast, too?” I ask, catching the waitress before she leaves. I turn to Hailey, who’s watching me through watery eyes. “You should try to eat something.”
“I don’t know if I can right now.” She sighs, running a hand through her hair.
“Coffee on an empty stomach might make you more anxious than you already are.”
I nod, though my heart isn’t in it. Once we’re alone again, I grab her chin between my fingers and bring her face up to look at me. “Tell me what happened. Everything. Start at the beginning.”
Hailey takes a shaky breath and begins recalling her encounter with Winters. With each detail, my rage builds exponentially. He knows too much.
“He knows we’ve been going on dates,” she says, her unsteady voice barely above a whisper as she fights back tears. “I don’t know how long he’s been doing this—how long he’s been watching me.” Her face pales even more.
My jaw clenches involuntarily. This sick fuck has been watching us. Even though he only has an eye on me as a byproduct of stalking her, it feels deeply personal. She’s not his.
“Did you file another police report?” I ask, working to keep my voice level.
“Not yet. I called you instead.” She meets my eyes. “I know that probably seems weird, calling someone I only just started seeing, but—”
“It’s not weird,” I interrupt firmly. “You did the right thing. This guy is sick.”
I’m going to make sure he never bothers her again. The fact that she called me instead of anyone else—instead of the police—makes me feel things I probably shouldn’t this early on in a relationship.
But I can’t help it.
I’ve got it bad for her.
And she needs me right now.
“The hospital banned him, but that doesn’t stop him from showing up at my apartment or following me around town.” Hailey’s hands are trembling slightly as she lifts her coffee mug. “I feel like I’m being paranoid, but—”
“You’re not being paranoid,” I say sharply. “He described things he wouldn’t be able to unless he’d seen them, Hailey. He keyed your fucking car after telling you he was watching you. I don’t think he’s done, especially if he’s been banned from the hospital now. He’s stalking you.”
The word tastes bitter in my mouth, thick with irony. Here I am, a card-carrying member of Stalkers Anonymous, getting righteously angry about someone else’s bad behavior. The hypocrisy isn’t lost on me, but it also doesn’t slow down my protective fury.
“What should I do?” she asks, and the helplessness in her voice nearly breaks me.
“First thing in the morning, you file that police report. Get this on paper and documented officially. The police won’t be able to do anything if you don’t report what’s going on.” I’m already thinking through the entire process. “Second, you don’t go home alone tonight.”
“I can’t ask you to do that for m—”
I cut her off before she gets too far into her head. “You’re not asking. I’m offering.” I meet her eyes directly, holding her dulled, blue-gray gaze. “If you’re comfortable with it, I’ll sleep at your place tonight. Just so you’re not alone while this asshole is out there, doing fuck knows what.”
She hesitates, and I can see her weighing her options.
“Just for tonight,” I add. “Until we can figure out next steps. I want to make sure you’re safe.”
“Okay,” she says quietly, fidgeting with her hands. “Thank you.”
The soft relief in her voice makes my chest tighten. She’s putting her safety in my keeping tonight. The weight of her trust feels both thrilling and terrifying.
We eventually give in and order more than the toast she hasn’t touched yet—scrambled eggs for her, a burger for me—and spend the next hour talking through how we can upgrade her security system.
I’m careful to make measured recommendations, instead of turning her apartment into Fort Knox like I want to.
She doesn’t need to know how deep I can go.
By the time we leave the diner, we have a plan for her security system, and we’ve made notes to give to the police in the morning.
We drive separately to her apartment, and I use the time to conduct a secondary security assessment of her neighborhood.
The Victorian house conversion sits on a tree-lined street with decent lighting but a few too many access points.
Her building has a front entrance, back stairs, and a side alley that could provide cover for surveillance.
And then there’s the fire escape leading right to her window.
“Home sweet home,” she says as I stand behind her, watching her unlock her door with unsteady hands.
I step inside first, scanning the apartment automatically. No signs of forced entry. Nothing out of place. Chewy chirps from his enclosure, and I feel some of my tension ease. If someone had been here, the ferret would be acting differently.
Probably.
I’m not actually sure how ferrets respond to intruders. Add that to the list of things to research later.
Hailey moves through the apartment like a ghost, checking windows, pulling curtains closed, avoiding her own reflection in the darkened glass. She looks exhausted—bone-deep tired from running on fear and adrenaline for hours.
“You should get some sleep,” I say gently.
“I know.” She wraps her arms around herself, and I instantly want to hold her. “I’m just… I don’t know if I can. Every time I close my eyes, I see his face. Hear his voice.” Her breath catches.
I close the distance between us and pull her against my chest. She melts into me immediately, her fingers curling into the fabric of my shirt.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I tell her. “I’ll be right here all night.”
She pulls back just enough to look up at me. “Will you… I mean, would you mind…” She takes a shaky breath. “I don’t want to sleep alone tonight. Will you sleep in bed with me?”
The vulnerability in her voice undoes me. I’d secretly wished she’d let me hold her all night instead of asking me to sleep on the couch, but I didn’t want to get my hopes up.
“Of course,” I say, brushing a strand of hair from her face. “Whatever you need, I’m here.”
What follows is strangely domestic for two people whose last make-out session in a muddy marsh led to the best sex of my life.
Hailey disappears into the bathroom to wash her face and change, and I do a final check of the apartment—windows locked, door secured.
I even check her closet for monsters. I make sure her phone is charging and set mine on the nightstand.
When she emerges in an oversize T-shirt, face scrubbed clean and hair loose around her shoulders, she looks younger. More fragile.
I want to kill Lars Winters with my bare hands.
Instead, I strip down to my boxers and climb into bed beside her, pulling her immediately into my arms. She curls against my chest, her head tucked under my chin, her palm flat against my heart.
“Is this okay?” she mumbles, already half-asleep.
“This is perfect.”
She’s quiet for a moment, her breathing starting to even out. Then: “Cole?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you for being here.”
“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”
It’s not a line—not something I’m saying to make her feel better. It’s the truth, raw and uncomfortable and real.
She falls asleep within minutes, her body going heavy and soft against mine. Exhaustion finally winning over fear.
I don’t sleep.
I lie there in the darkness, listening to her breathe, feeling her heartbeat slow and steady against my ribs.
Every few minutes, a sound from outside makes me tense—a car passing, footsteps on the sidewalk below, water moving through a pipe as people in other apartments go about their normal lives.
Each time, I wait until I’m certain it’s nothing before allowing myself to relax.
This is what I was made for, I realize. Protecting someone. Keeping watch while they sleep. Being the barrier between the woman I care about and anything that might hurt her.
Tonight, I’m exactly where I need to be.
Around four a.m., I carefully extract myself from Hailey’s arms to check the windows again. She stirs, reaching for me in her sleep, and I’m back beside her within seconds.
“Shh,” I murmur, pulling her close again. “I’m here. Go back to sleep.”
She mumbles something unintelligible and burrows deeper into my chest.
I don’t sleep for the rest of the night.
Instead, I watch the shadows move across her ceiling as the moon sets, and I think about Lars Winters. About his routines. About all the ways a man like him could simply…disappear.
The rage from earlier has settled into something colder. More monstrous and dark.
He made a mistake tonight. He showed his hand. Revealed how much he knows.
He’s confirmed he’s more than a nuisance—not just an unstable patient with boundary issues and a drug problem, but a genuine danger to the woman currently sleeping in my arms.
And I protect what’s mine.
The thought surfaces without permission, and this time I don’t push it away. I let it sit there, heavy and possessive and probably a massive red flag.
Mine.
Outside, the first gray light of dawn starts to filter through the curtains. Hailey shifts against me, still deeply asleep, and I press a kiss to the top of her head.
Lars Winters has no idea what’s coming for him.