Chapter 3 Eliza
THREE
Eliza
FIRST CONTACT
A hand grabs my arm from above—strong, calloused, uncompromising.
I’m yanked out from under my desk with enough force to send me sprawling, my knees hitting the floor hard enough to bruise.
Pure panic drives my fist toward whoever’s attacking me, and I connect with something solid—a jaw, maybe—before another hand covers my mouth, cutting off my stream of “No no no no—”
“Cerberus Security.” The words are quiet, controlled, and whispered directly in my ear. Male voice. Deep. Authoritative. “Morrison sent me.”
Morrison. FBI. Help, not harm.
My body goes limp with relief so suddenly I nearly collapse, but strong hands steady me against what feels like a tactical vest. The man holding me smells like gun oil and soap, something woodsy underneath, and he’s solid as a wall. Warm. Alive. Here to save me, not kill me.
He releases my mouth, and I finally get a clear look at my rescuer.
Oh. Oh my.
He’s tall—easily six-two—with dark hair and the most intense green eyes I’ve ever seen.
Not the kind of green you find in nature, but something deeper, more dangerous.
Arctic ice over deep water. The fluorescent lights cast shadows across his face, highlighting cheekbones that could cut glass and a jaw that belongs on ancient statuary.
He stands with perfect stillness, that kind of controlled readiness I’ve only seen in documentary footage of special forces operators.
Every line of his body radiates coiled power—broad shoulders filling out a tactical vest, arms that clearly know their way around a weight room, thighs that—I should not be noticing his thighs right now.
But I am. God help me, I am.
My gaze drops lower before I can stop it, and heat floods my cheeks. The impressive bulge behind his tactical pants has nothing to do with weapons or equipment. Everything about him screams dominant male, from the way he holds himself to the careful control in every movement.
He looks exactly like my fantasies. The gladiator who wouldn’t ask permission. The warrior who’d simply take. The kind of man who could make me stop talking with just a look—or better methods.
“Can you run?” His voice cuts through my inappropriate cataloging of his physical attributes.
I nod, not trusting my voice yet.
“Stay quiet. Move when I move. Stop when I stop. Understand?”
Another nod. He releases me fully, and I immediately miss the contact. Which is insane. People are trying to kill me, and I’m having absurdly sexual thoughts about my rescuer.
“Thank God, I thought—Morrison said someone was coming but—are you really—who are you—are those real guns—”
His hand covers my mouth again. “Quiet. Now.”
The footsteps in the hallway are getting closer. Heavy boots. Multiple sets. They’re almost at my door.
He pulls me behind him, positioning his body between me and the door. One hand moves to his weapon while the other keeps me pressed against the wall. His body heat radiates through the tactical vest, and despite everything, I notice the solid wall of muscle protecting me.
The doorknob rattles. They’re checking if it’s locked.
He guides me silently toward the back corner of my office where an old supply closet door connects to the adjacent classroom. I’d forgotten it existed, hidden behind a filing cabinet. How does he know the building layout better than I do?
We slip through just as the main door splinters open. He eases the closet door shut behind us, and we’re plunged into musty darkness that smells like old textbooks and dust. Through the thin door, I hear boots storming into my office.
“Empty. Target’s not here.” A harsh male voice, accent I can’t place.
“Check the computers. See what she was working on.”
His hand finds mine in the darkness, squeezing once. A signal to move. We creep through the connecting classroom, my heels impossibly loud on the old wooden floor despite my attempts to walk on my toes. Every step sounds like thunder to my ears.
“Where are we going—who were those men—is Morrison okay—why do they want me dead—”
“Quiet,” he breathes against my ear, and the warmth of his breath sends an inappropriate shiver down my spine.
We reach the classroom door. He checks the hallway, then pulls me out and to the left, away from my office. His hand on my lower back guides me with gentle pressure—turn here, faster now, stop. It’s like a dance where only he knows the steps.
The Gothic architecture of Georgetown, which has always felt like home, now feels like a maze. These stone walls that sheltered my academic pursuits suddenly seem to close in. The narrow hallways that once felt cozy now trap us with limited escape routes.
Behind us, shouting. They’ve discovered we’re not in my office.
Without warning, he yanks the fire alarm on the wall. The piercing shriek makes me jump, instinctively pressing closer to him.
“Chaos,” he says simply. “Misdirection.”
Of course. The alarm will force any remaining security to investigate, and the men who are after me will have to account for emergency responders. It buys us time and confusion.
He pulls me through a door marked “Authorized Personnel Only.” The maintenance corridor beyond is narrow, forcing us closer together.
Exposed pipes run along the ceiling, and the air smells of industrial cleaner and dust. The fire alarm is muffled here but still audible, adding urgency to our movement.
“Who are you?” The questions pour out despite his earlier command.
“Cerberus Security, like the three-headed dog that guards the underworld? Is that supposed to be reassuring? Because mythologically speaking, Cerberus isn’t exactly friendly.
He prevents the dead from leaving, which technically makes him more of a prison guard than a protector, and—”
He stops so abruptly that I collide with his back. Solid. Warm. Immovable.
He turns in the narrow space, and suddenly we’re face-to-face, inches apart. Those green eyes bore into mine with an intensity that steals my breath. This close, I can see flecks of gold in the green, the faint shadow of stubble along his jaw, the way his mouth—
“Dr. Wren.” His voice is low, controlled, but holds an edge.
“Nine professional killers from an organization called Phoenix are hunting you through this building. They want to extract information about what you decoded, then kill you and make it look like suicide. We need to move fast and silent. So for the love of God, shut up.”
The words are harsh, but something in his expression isn’t. I see respect there, mixed with frustration and something else—awareness. The same awareness that’s making my skin tingle everywhere he’s almost touching me.
I open my mouth to respond—probably to explain that verbal processing is actually a recognized cognitive strategy and that suppressing it could impair my ability to think clearly—
His finger presses against my lips. Warm. Calloused. Gentle despite everything.
“Please,” he says, and something about that single word, the way his voice drops when he says it, makes me nod.
For the first time in my adult life, I actually want to be quiet. Not because I have nothing to say—my mind is racing with a thousand questions and observations—but because this man, this dangerous stranger who smells like violence and safety combined, told me to.
That realization terrifies me more than the killers hunting us through Georgetown’s Gothic halls. I’ve never obeyed anyone’s commands, never wanted to surrender control, but something about his absolute authority makes me want to comply.
He removes his finger from my lips slowly, his eyes tracking the movement. The air between us crackles with tension that has nothing to do with Phoenix and everything to do with the way we’re looking at each other.
Then distant shouting breaks the spell. Phoenix is systematically searching the building despite the fire alarm chaos.
“Move.”
His command shocks me, and I instantly obey.
He leads me deeper into the maintenance corridors, through a confusing series of turns that have me completely lost. The passages seem to run between the building’s walls, probably original to the construction. The air gets colder, damper, and I realize we’re heading down.
“The basement?” I whisper, proud of myself for managing just two words.
He nods, approval flickering in his eyes. Maybe I can learn to be quiet after all.
We descend narrow metal stairs that creak under our weight. The basement is a maze of mechanical rooms, storage areas, and the building’s heating system. Massive boilers hum and clank, creating enough noise to mask our movement.
He leads me to what looks like a maintenance closet but opens to reveal another passage—this one leading to the utility tunnels that run beneath campus. The entrance is hidden behind a false panel that he seems to know exactly how to open.
“How do you know about—”
His look silences me more effectively than his hand ever could. Right. Quiet.
The tunnel is concrete, cylindrical, maybe six feet in diameter. Pipes and cables run along the curved walls. It smells of earth and dampness and age. He guides me inside, his hand on my elbow steady and sure.
We move about thirty feet in, far enough that the entrance is barely visible in the darkness behind us.
There’s a metal grate here, part of the tunnel’s original construction, designed to section off maintenance areas.
He pulls it across behind us with a metallic scrape that echoes in the confined space.
He produces a length of wire from one of his vest pockets and secures it in place.
To a casual search, we’re behind a locked maintenance barrier. To a thorough search—well, hopefully Phoenix won’t be that thorough. Not down here in the dark.
“We wait here,” he says, voice barely audible.
“How long?” I manage just two words again. Look at me, learning.
“Dawn.”
That’s it. One word. But I understand. Phoenix will search all night, but daylight brings witnesses—students, faculty, campus security. They’ll have to pull back or risk exposure. In darkness, we’re hunted. In daylight, we might have a chance.
I slide down the curved wall to sit on the cold concrete. He remains standing, alert, weapon ready. Protecting me even though he doesn’t know me, even though I can’t stop talking, even though I’m probably the worst person to protect in the history of protection details.
“Why?” I ask, then bite my lip. One word. That’s progress.
He looks down at me, and something in his expression softens fractionally. “It’s what I do.”
Four words. More than I expected.
I pull my knees to my chest, wrapping my arms around them. The motion makes me smaller, and I see his jaw tighten. He shrugs out of his jacket—not the tactical vest, but a black jacket over it—and drapes it around my shoulders without a word.
It smells like him. Gun oil and soap and danger.
It smells like safety.
For now, in this tunnel beneath Georgetown, with killers hunting above and dawn hours away, I’m safe. Because this man won’t let anything happen to me.
I just have to learn to stop talking long enough to stay alive.
The hardest challenge of my life, and it has nothing to do with the PhD I earned or the code I cracked.
It has everything to do with trusting this silent warrior who makes me want to be quiet just to hear him breathe.