Chapter 25
Harmony
The door clicked shut behind Asher and the quiet that followed felt strange.
Not peaceful, but stretched thin like something was waiting just beyond the walls.
Eric stayed close without crowding me, and I could feel the heat of him at my side.
The safety I should have felt in this cabin refused to settle.
My skin was still buzzing from adrenaline.
I pressed my hands together to stop the tremble. “I feel like I’m unraveling.”
Eric’s voice softened. “You’re allowed to feel that way.”
Allowed.
The word hit harder than he knew. I had spent so much of my life bracing for reactions, for anger, for consequences.
Feeling anything out loud had never been safe.
Now it frightened me for a different reason.
What if letting myself feel made everything I had been holding back crash through the surface?
I sat on the edge of the bed and breathed slowly until the room stopped spinning.
Through the window, I could still see Asher’s silhouette near the road.
He stood with a kind of restless stillness that reminded me of someone waiting for a storm they already knew was coming.
Pierre raised sons who could sense danger before anyone else noticed it.
No wonder they were all reacting the way they were.
Eric crouched in front of me. His hands rested lightly on my knees. “Tell me what you need.”
I wanted to tell him I needed everything. I needed sleep. I needed time. I needed the past to let go of me for once. But all those things felt too heavy to say out loud, so I focused on the smallest truth I could manage.
“I need to understand what’s happening. I need to know why Tremblay was here.”
Eric nodded. “We’ll figure it out. Knowing Becket, he won’t rest until he has an answer.”
He said it with certainty, but even he couldn’t hide the tension in his eyes.
The worry was new. Before, Eric carried his feelings quietly.
Now the fear was right there in the open, and it was for me.
My gaze drifted toward the table where the crushed thistle lay.
The sight of it still made my stomach twist. It had been on the cabin windowsill for who knew how long.
Watching me. Watching us. The thought sent a cold shiver through my body.
I leaned back a little. “Do you really think someone is following me? I keep thinking there has to be another explanation.”
“There might be,” he said. “But right now, the signs point to someone who wants to keep you scared and off balance.”
The truth of it settled like a weight inside me. My father’s world had always felt distant since his arrest, like something sealed behind glass. Now the glass felt cracked. Eric moved to sit beside me, and when his shoulder brushed mine, relief flooded me in a way I did not expect.
“You’re not alone,” he’d repeated that line a few times now, it almost sounded like a mantra.
I swallowed; my throat tight. “I keep waiting for this to blow over, but every time I think it’s quiet, something else happens.”
“That’s why we handle it piece by piece. One thing at a time,” he assured.
We sat like that for a few minutes, our breathing the only sound in the room. Outside, the orchard wind shifted, brushing against the cabin walls as if trying to get inside. Then it hit me. A memory I had been pushing down since the trial.
“There’s something else,” I said softly.
Eric’s attention sharpened. “Tell me.”
“When I turned in the files, the officer I gave them to told me something that never made sense at the time. He said another name kept appearing in the logs. Not Vesper. Someone else. Someone who ran through the shadows of the same network. Someone older than Vesper. Smarter. More patient.”
“What name?” Eric asked.
“I never saw it. He was never allowed to show me. He only hinted it was a ghost account, something dormant until suddenly it wasn’t. He said someone had been cleaning up digital footprints. He was trying to get the name out of me, but I had no idea who it could be. It sounded important.”
Eric stiffened beside me. “Cleaning up Marcel’s mess.”
“And mine,” I said. “Anything that tied back to me. Some of the threads I saved were gone by the time the police tried to trace them.”
Eric exhaled slowly.
“Someone knows I kept copies,” I said with a shiver because what I had done was equal to my execution if I didn’t act fast enough to end my father.
I had managed to get my father behind bars, but I underestimated how easy it would be for him to get out and how angry Olivier would be with me for putting him there.
Before Eric could respond, my phone buzzed on the table. A single vibration. Not loud, but sharp enough to slice through the quiet. My heart lurched. Eric reached it before I could. He checked the screen and his expression darkened.
Unknown sender.
Encrypted attachment.
No text.
Every muscle in my body tightened.
Eric looked at me. “Is this the same app as before?”
“Yes.” My voice barely came out. “It was buried. I didn’t even realize it could still be activated.”
“What do you want to do?” he asked, placing the ball in my court.
I swallowed. “Open it.”
He hesitated only a second before tapping the file. A single image loaded, pixel by pixel.
My breath slipped out in a trembling rush.
The photo was taken that morning. At the orchard fence. Eric’s truck in the background. Me stepping out of the cabin. The angle was slightly tilted, almost artistic if it had not been so chilling.
Taken from a distance by someone who was already watching. A cold, sinking dread washed through me. I felt the bed tilt under me, even though it didn’t move.
Eric’s jaw clenched hard. “This was taken today.”
“I know,” I whispered.
“That means someone was here long before Tremblay showed up.”
His voice was tight, controlled, but the anger beneath it pulsed like heat. The photo shimmered for half a second and then a line of text appeared beneath it.
You’re making this difficult.
My hand flew to my mouth. Eric stared at the screen with a calmness that looked like it cost him everything.
“Harmony,” he said quietly. “Pack a bag.”
My heart thudded once and then again, faster each time. “Where are we going?”
“Back to the main house. We’re going to need reinforcements. I don’t carry a gun. But my father and Becket do.”
“You think it’s safer?” I asked.
“Yes.” One word that was so certain.
Outside, tires crunched over gravel. My pulse jumped, but then Asher’s shadow passed by the window. He was still keeping watch. Still alert. Still scanning the tree line like a human alarm system.
The smallest part of me unclenched.
Eric reached for my hand. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
I truly wanted to believe him. I wanted to climb into that promise and hold on with both hands. But fear had a way of softening even the strongest words. I stood slowly and grabbed my jacket. My hands shook, but I forced them steady as I collected the few things I had brought.
Eric handed me my phone. “We’ll deal with this. All of it.”
I nodded. “I know,” I replied, even if I wasn’t sure we could.
He offered his hand again, and this time I took it. His warmth grounded me, steady and real. The picture was still burned into my mind as we stepped toward the door. Someone had been watching long before we realized it. Someone who knew exactly how close they could get.
And whoever they were, they were not done yet. Not even close.
The walk from the cabin to the truck felt longer than it should have.
The cold pressed against my skin, sharp enough to sting, but not sharp enough to distract me from the feeling crawling up my spine.
Eric kept me close without rushing me. Every few steps his eyes flicked toward the orchard rows, searching the shadows as if he expected someone to step out.
Asher stood near the end of the gravel drive; his posture angled toward the road.
He did not look at us, but the subtle tilt of his head told me he was tracking every sound.
“How long are you staying?” Eric called to him.
“As long as I need to,” Asher replied without turning around. He didn’t know the extent of the threat. He only read our anxiety and nerves, and he was here to stay as long as we needed him.
A knot loosened in my chest. The Thorne men had a way of making fear feel smaller just by being present.
Eric helped me into the truck and shut the door. The moment the lock clicked, something inside me settled. Not fully. But enough. He slid behind the wheel, started the engine, and kept his hand on the gearshift for a moment before driving.
“Everything is going to be okay,” he said, wanting to be reassuring.
“You don’t know that, Eric. The kind of people we are dealing with. . .” I blew out a breath. “I didn’t want to bring this kind of trouble to your house.”
“You’re not bringing danger to me,” he said. “You’re letting me protect you.”
He said it so simply. So certain. The certainty made something warm push through the cold inside me. As we left the orchard, the headlights cut over the quiet stretch of road. Frost glimmered like scattered glass. I pressed my palm to my thigh to keep my hands from shaking.
“Whoever is doing this,” I said quietly, “they know how to get close without being seen.”
Eric gripped the steering wheel a little tighter. “Then we get ahead of them.”
“How?”
“We talk to Becket tonight. Then to my father.”
My heart throbbed once. “Pierre is already worried. I don’t want him thinking I’m a threat.”
“You’re not a threat to anyone here,” Eric said. “But you’re in danger, and that matters to him.”
I swallowed hard. “Does he know about the file I turned in?”
“He knows more than you think,” Eric said softly. “But this is different.”
He did not explain further, and I did not push. There was a heaviness in his voice I wasn’t ready to unpack.
The road curved, bringing us closer to the Thornes’ main house.
Warm light glowed from the living room window.
It felt like stepping toward a different kind of world, one I didn’t know how to belong in, but desperately wished I did.
When Eric parked beside the house, he turned to me before I could take off my seat belt.
“You stay with me,” he said. “Tonight, and as long as you need.”
My breath caught. “Eric…”
“You can argue with me tomorrow,” he said softly. “Not tonight.”
The gentle conviction in his voice unraveled something deep in my chest.
I nodded.
Inside, the house was quiet. The soft scent of cedar and something warm, maybe spices, filled the air. Eric closed the door behind us and locked it.
“Let’s get you settled,” he said.
He led me down the hall to his sister’s room, which was vacant and had become more of a guest room, but when he opened the door, I realized he was hesitating. The bed was neatly made, untouched. The room was colder than the rest of the house.
“You don’t want me here,” I said quietly.
“That’s not it.”
“Then what is it?” I asked nervously.
He rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t want you alone. Not tonight.”
A soft, unexpected warmth spread through me. “Eric…”
“I’ll sleep on the floor if you want,” he said quickly. “Or in the chair. Or outside the room. I just…” He paused, searching for the right words. “I need to know you’re okay.”
The sincerity in his voice hit me like a wave.
I took a small step toward him. “I don’t want to be alone.”
Relief flickered in his expression. He turned off the guest room light and led me to his bedroom instead.
My heart fluttered with something that felt both terrifying and grounding.
His room was warm, lived-in, with soft dim light and the lingering smell of pine soap.
When he shut the door, the quiet wrapped around us.
He rummaged in his dresser and handed me a pair of soft sweatpants and a long-sleeve shirt.
“Here,” he said. “They’ll be more comfortable.”
I took the clothes and went to take a shower in the bathroom.
Just a quick one to wash the stress of the day off, but it didn’t relax me.
Not for a second. I slipped on Eric’s clothes and took a deep inhale of the scent, which reminded me of him.
When I returned, Eric stood by the window looking out toward the fields.
His shoulders were tense, his silhouette strong and protective.
“You’re watching for whoever it is,” I said.
“Yes,” he answered.
There was no hesitation in the word. No fear. Just resolve.
I stepped closer. “Do you think he’s out there?”
“I think he knows where you were this morning,” he said. “But he does not know where you are now. And he won’t find out.”
Something in his tone wrapped around me like a shield. Eric turned, and when he saw me standing there in his clothes, something softened in his eyes. Not lust exactly. Something deeper. Something that lived just beneath the surface when he looked at me.
“Harmony,” he said quietly, “come here.”
I trudged over to him barefoot. He lifted a hand to my cheek, gentle and warm. His thumb brushed my skin like he was memorizing the shape of me.
“We’ll take this one step at a time,” he murmured.
The truth in his voice anchored me, steadied me. He wasn’t just talking about the danger. He was talking about us. He was worried about moving too quickly and scaring me off. That much I could tell. What he didn’t know was how much I cherished him, cared for him. That never changed and never would.
I rested my forehead against his chest. His arms came around me, slow and protective. His heartbeat thudded beneath my ear, strong and certain, and for the first time since the thistle appeared, I felt like maybe I could breathe again.
The danger wasn’t gone. The fear wasn’t gone. But I wasn’t facing it alone anymore.
Not tonight with him holding me like this.