Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
CADE
Ileave her standing there, hands slipping from my jaw.
Her stare lingers, even intensifies, as I head to the main house.
The walls vibrate with post-incident hysteria—people running, phones pressed hard to their ears.
Munro is barricaded in the study with Daniel.
I let myself in. My clearance beats his now, and he knows it.
He doesn’t get up when I enter. He doesn’t even offer me a chair, just glares from behind a heap of press releases and a laptop with three encrypted chat windows open.
The mask has dropped; the Senator is gone.
His lips are pressed bloodless, and his jaw works as he tries—and fails—not to betray fear and outrage.
He looks not just out of his depth, but as if he's barely treading water, picturing headlines, morgues, futures dissolving.
“Explain how this happened?” His voice is still caught on that post-shooting note.
“Your security detail is soft, and your perimeters are worse. Last night, two of your local hires left their posts to drink in the machine shed. The shooter entered undetected through the orchard—your media team even flagged the press line on Eventbrite. If Munro was the target, he passed four clear chances. He was after her from the start.”
He knows I’m right. Daniel blanches, knuckles white on his tablet, and Munro’s eyes narrow, throat bobbing hard as he swallows the implications.
The two of them work through the new world order: This was not about the campaign, or optics, or the old man’s shot at a legacy.
This was about Delilah. Munro’s offense is raw, like a wound, his hand trembling as he balls it.
“Don’t posture, Cade. You said you were the best. That was your pitch.”
“Not a pitch. Fact. If I hadn’t acted, your daughter would be in a trauma bay or a bag.”
He grips the desk so tight the wood creaks. “You have children, Mr. Walker?”
I shake my head.
“Then you don’t know what it’s like.”
“Wrong,” I say. “I know exactly what it’s like. That’s what you pay me for—because my job is to act like I care more than you, prioritizing her safety over everything else. From now on, you’re done making decisions about her security. You handle the press. The rest falls to me.”
Daniel’s mouth works, jaw fluttering as if he’s forcing down words he can’t say. Munro’s gaze flickers, then drops to the desk—for the first time, the weight of all his years sits heavily on his face. His nostrils flare as he exhales, tension bleeding out in one defeated nod.
“Fine. What do you need?”
“Full sweep of all staff by a team from Lone Star. No exceptions. Delilah is to be relocated to the guest house ASAP—with no one but pre-cleared support personnel within fifty yards. No unscheduled appearances, no press releases, no photo ops. All communications outside this house come through me.”
Daniel attempts a feeble “There’s an event in San Luis—”
“Cancel it.”
“We can’t just—”
“Cancel it. Or someone else will.” I stare him down. He doesn’t blink.
Munro exhales through his nose, already a smaller man than he was in the breakfast photos online. "Anything else?"
“No alcohol for Delilah or staff. No unsupervised time outside the new perimeter. Starting now, her personal preferences take a backseat—her survival is our only goal.”
He recoils at that—whether from my blunt authority, the ugly accuracy, or both. His jaw clenches, and a muscle jumps in his cheek. Either way, I’ve got what I need.
There’s a sterile efficiency to the guest house when I do my own sweep.
I clear every closet, every vent, every inch of crawlspace.
There are four bedrooms, a functional galley kitchen, one locked liquor cabinet (emptied already), and a living room with absurdly fancy throw pillows.
I pace the layout, set up my own monitoring gear, and triple-check the door and window sensors.
I could hold this place with five people, but for now, it’s just me. That’s how I want it.
Delilah arrives limping, blank-faced. She says nothing as I unlock the door, brushing by me to sit on the sectional, arms wrapped around her knees. The wound on her thigh shows through the makeshift bandage. I give her a moment before moving in.
There’s no TV. No music. The only sounds are the faint hum of the AC and her ragged breathing—a sharp, irregular rhythm, verging on panting.
She stares out the window, eyes wide but unblinking.
The last time I saw someone look like that, he’d been blown off his feet by an artillery round and was still waiting for the pain to catch up.
I set my kit down and crouch next to her. “Let me see the leg.”
She stretches her right leg. The bandage is soaked, red, and messy. Her skin shows shock—trauma, not cold. I clean the wound, ignoring her flinch at the sting.
“You treat all your clients like this?” she says, flat.
“Only the uncooperative ones.” I check the cut. It’s clean, superficial, but nasty. I wrap it tight, use a butterfly closure, and surgical tape. All business.
She watches my hands. “They’re shaking.”
“Doesn’t matter.” I bandage her up and get to my feet. “You need to rest.”
She scoffs. “That’s not going to happen.”
I nod. “I’ll be in the next room. No one gets in or out without me knowing.”
She shakes her head, a single disbelieving laugh. “You’re serious.”
“Completely. Until we find out who’s after you, I decide what keeps you alive.”
Her shoulders relax a fraction—not much, but a tremor leaves her jaw, and her grip on her knees slackens, the implication starting to register. I check the bandage one more time, then leave her to her silence.
I post up in the hall. Hours drag, broken only by ground sweeps and team radio updates. Security is my anchor, the repetition almost meditative. Ranch staff move quietly, the rhythm of the estate broken.
In the evening, a light goes on in her room. I knock—two raps—and enter without waiting.
She's in bed, but she's not sleeping. She's propped up against the headboard, phone in hand, the blue glow illuminating her face in the half-dark room.
Her thumb flicks upward in a mechanical rhythm, scrolling through a feed of news stories and tabloid headlines.
It takes three seconds to find the video of her near-miss, already edited down to a meme format with garish yellow text and red circles.
The clip loops: her walking, the flash, my body colliding with hers, both of us hitting the ground hard.
She's watching herself almost die, over and over.
I sit down in the leather chair across from her, the cushion exhaling softly beneath my weight. "You shouldn't watch that."
She holds the screen up, lips twisting. “Good angle. You really went for it.”
I scan her. “Need something for the pain?”
She shakes her head. “Not pain. Not really.”
There’s a long pause. She puts down her phone and looks at me.
“Did you ever freeze, Cade?” she asks. “Out there, with the enemy. Did you ever just… stop?”
“Everyone does,” I say. “If they say they don’t, they’re lying.”
“And then you keep going?”
“There’s no alternative.”
She nods, and for the first time since we’ve met, she seems older than her years.
I stand, chair scraping the floor. I check each window latch, then the door, running my fingers over the lock. The security light pulses green in the corner. "I'll be right outside," I say. "Anything you need, call for me—your voice only. Don’t answer the phone, even if it’s your father."
She doesn’t answer, just pulls the blanket up over her knees and watches me do one final check as I leave.
"Stay till I’m asleep," she says, quietly.
“Wasn’t planning on moving.”