“When you were changing in Oliver’s room, did you look around? Try to search anything?” I needed to know if damage control was necessary.
“No.” Her voice came out small but certain. “I figured he was recording. The dress… I had to get completely undressed to put it on. I knew they were watching.”
The image of her vulnerable, exposed to Oliver’s cameras while she changed, made my hands curl into fists. But she’d been smart, so damn smart. “You did exactly right.”
We stopped at the edge of the compound, watching dust swirl where the Suburban had disappeared down the mountain road. Lightning flickered in the approaching clouds. Through the rising wind, I could hear Snake shouting orders near the weapons bunker, Diesel’s laugh carrying from somewhere nearthe training grounds. Oliver was gone, but his men remained, always watching.
“We could search his office,” Mia said quietly, something desperate creeping into her voice. “While he’s gone. Everyone’s getting ready for the storm, hunkering down. Probably no one would notice.”
She was right. This was the perfect opportunity—Oliver gone, his personal security reduced, everyone distracted by storm prep. I could get into his office, find documentation about the weapons sales, buyer lists, anything that would help the investigation.
“You’re right,” I agreed, already planning the approach. “This is excellent timing.”
We started back toward the main lodge, moving casually like we were just seeking shelter from the rising wind. The gathering darkness from the storm would provide additional cover. But as we reached the lodge’s shadow, that familiar cold settled in my gut.
That feeling from Kandahar, from Fallujah. The silence before an IED detonated.
I stopped walking, trying to identify what my gut was telling me. I looked around. Everything looked normal—men securing the compound, the storm approaching. Oliver gone with his security detail. For the first time since we got here, nobody was paying much attention to us.
That meant we should proceed, right?
But that familiar warning—tight as a fist around my spine—insisted disaster hovered just a breath away. Something was off. This felt too easy. Too perfect.
Mia’s big brown eyes stared up at me. The wind whipped at her hair, her dress. Shoes notwithstanding, she looked like she was ready to entertain guests. To be the perfect trophy hostess. Exactly what Oliver wanted.
That didn’t surprise me. He’d already proven himself freaky as fuck.
What surprised me was that he’d left immediately after arranging his little doll in her pretty dress.Thatwas what wasn’t sitting right in my gut.
I pulled Mia closer, pretending to shield her from the wind while my fingers ran along the collar of her dress, searching for what I was almost certain had to be there. My fingertips found it—barely noticeable unless you were looking for it. A small disk, no bigger than a button.
A tracker.
Not recording us, just showing our location. If we went anywhere unexpected—Oliver’s office, the weapons cache, anywhere outside our established pattern—he’d know instantly.
This whole morning had been theater. The clothes, the breakfast invitation, leaving us here seemingly unguarded. All of it designed to see if we’d take the bait.
I showed her the device, watched comprehension dawn in her eyes, followed by something worse—the last thread snapping.
Her hands started to shake. Really shake, not the fine tremors from before but full-body shudders. Her breathing went ragged. Another surveillance device. Another test. Another vulnerable situation where she’d had to strip naked while strangers watched. Another close call that could’ve ended with both of us dead.
She was done.
“I can’t,” she whispered, and it was the first time she’d admitted it out loud. “Coop, I can’t do this anymore.”
She pressed her palms against her eyes, trying to hold herself together through sheer will. But I could see her fracturing, could see the strong, smart woman who’d survived this long finally hitting her absolute limit.
Thunder rolled across the mountains. The first fat drops of rain hit the dirt, each one heavy with the promise of the deluge to come.
I looked at the tracker in my hand. At the storm building overhead. At Mia coming apart in front of me, needing just a few hours of peace, of safety, of being somewhere she could breathe without performing for hidden eyes. She needed to reset before she lost her grip on her tightly held control.
Fuck all of this. I was going to give her what she needed.
Chapter 13
Coop
The tracker fell from my fingers into the dirt. Every instinct screamed to crush it under my boot heel, but that would tell Oliver we’d found it. Instead, I picked it up carefully and clipped it back exactly where it had been on her dress collar. Let Oliver think his test had worked, that we’d never noticed. But now we knew.
