His chest tightened, not just with professional focus but with something more personal, heavier. “We’ll protect them.”
Her eyes widened slightly at the we, at the promise he hadn’t meant to speak out loud.
For the first time, she didn’t look at him with only suspicion. She looked at him with the faintest trace of reluctant belief. And it unsettled him more than her anger ever had.
He was about to turn back to the keys, to give her space to breathe, when one of the side monitors flickered. A small alert pulsed red in the corner.
Watchdog’s head snapped round. Clara followed his gaze, her brow furrowed.
On the screen, a phone lit up. Her phone. The one he’d locked down and routed into the system the moment she was brought inside.
It pulsed again with an incoming message.
Clara stepped closer, tension rippling through her body. “That’s mine.”
He tapped the keys, pulling the attachment onto the main screen. The image filled the monitor in an instant.
Lena. Sitting at a café table, her wavy hair falling around her face, laughing at something out of frame.
And opposite her, unmistakable even in the grainy photograph, Oliver.
Clara’s stomach plunged. “No,” she whispered, the word breaking on her lips.
Another message pinged beneath the image.
Come home, or she’s Dead.
Clara’s breath caught, a strangled sound escaping before she could stop it.
And Watchdog’s blood ran cold.
Chapter 14
The image seareditself into her mind. Lena’s easy smile, her carefree laugh, her hand curled loosely around a coffee cup, sitting opposite Oliver as if nothing were wrong.
Her chest seized. She staggered back from the monitor, shaking her head, words tumbling out without form. “No. No, she can’t. She doesn’t even know him. She doesn’t.”
A low voice cut through her panic. “Clara.”
Warmth surrounded her in an instant. Watchdog’s arm tugged her in, firm but not forceful, pulling her tight against him. She resisted for a heartbeat, then sagged, her body betraying her terror. His chest was a wall of heat and muscle beneath her cheek, rising and falling in slow, steady breaths.
“Nothing will happen to her,” he murmured into her hair, the words low, certain, a vow rather than comfort. His arms tightened fractionally. “I won’t let it.”
The certainty in his tone sank into her bones, cutting through the rising tide of fear. Against all reason, she believed him.
Her ear pressed to his chest, she heard it, the strong, steady beat of his heart, rhythm against rhythm, grounding her. Thescent of him wrapped around her: clean soap, machine oil, a faint trace of leather. It was masculine and solid, achingly safe.
Her fingers curled into his shirt before she realised it, clutching him as if she could anchor herself there. Memories flickered, his body shielding hers in the alley, his voice calm in the chaos, his arms steady even when everything else was falling apart.
Slowly, her panic ebbed, replaced by something else entirely.
When she lifted her head, his eyes were already on her. Close. Too close. His gaze swept over her face, lingering at her mouth.
The air shifted, charged, as if the whole room had narrowed to the space between them. Her breath caught.
His hand still rested against her waist, the touch innocent, steady. And yet…she felt the faint flex of his fingers, the subtle shift of muscle beneath his skin. Electricity jolted low in her belly, sharp and undeniable.
She wondered, just for a second, what it would feel like to close the gap, to taste the mouth that hovered so close to hers.
