“Vehicle two northbound,” Sterling said. “Going the speed limit. Nothing out of the ordinary.”
“Vehicle three also heading north,” Cullen added.
“Vehicle one heading east,” Dove confirmed.
Dawson clapped his shoulder. Quick. Hard.
Buddy’s pulse hammered as Dawson pulled out into traffic, far enough behind to look harmless, close enough to pounce the second he had an opening.
This wasn’t surveillance.
This was war.
And Buddy Ballard wasn’t losing a single one of them—not Fallon, not Linda, not the girls whose names he didn’t even know yet.
Not today.
The road thinned as they left the town limits, the noise of the fundraiser falling away behind him. Live music faded into engine rumble. Laughter into wind. The shift in sound sharpened the world around him—like someone had twisted a dial and stripped everything down to threat and motion.
Dawson’s SUV hummed under them as he guided it six car lengths behind the vehicle Fallon had been forced into. Any closer, and they’d tip their hand. Too far, and Buddy would lose sight of her. Neither option sat well. Nothing about this night sat well.
Buddy kept one hand braced against the dash, the other curled tight in his lap. Fallon’s SUV drifted through the last stretch of marina traffic. Every time its brake lights flared, Buddy’s chest locked.
His phone vibrated.
Unknown number. But he knew who it was, and in that instant, the world narrowed to the screen.
Buddy answered. “Hello?”
A low chuckle slid through the speaker—soft, pleased, dangerous.
Like EJ had been waiting for the moment Buddy picked up.
“There he is,” EJ said, his voice a lazy coil of satisfaction. “I was starting to think you’d let someone else answer your calls.”
Buddy’s molars ground together. He kept his gaze locked on the SUV ahead—the one that held the woman he loved—while the monster behind the voice dripped poison into his ear.
“What do you want?” Buddy asked. Not polite. Not patient. A barely leashed snarl.
“Oh, don’t rush this,” EJ said. “I want you to understand where we stand.” A pause. A breath. Like he was savoring the moment. “You really think you can follow me without consequences?”
Buddy’s fingers dug into his knee. He didn’t look at Dawson. Didn’t blink. “Where are they?”
“Who? The girls? Your girlfriend? Or Linda?”
“All of them.”
“Well, Linda,” EJ said lightly, like they were discussing the weather. “She’s right here with me. Terrified little thing. She begged for her son, you know. Thought he, or you, or some guy by the name of Dawson might come and save her.”
The air left Buddy’s lungs in splinters of terror. He forced it back in.
“And Fallon, well, you know she’s here, too,” EJ said. “And she’s exactly what I hoped—what I remember—brave, stubborn, still trying to keep her chin up. I’m almost disappointed I have to break her… but rules are rules.”
A white-hot flash detonated behind Buddy’s ribs. His voice came out low, lethal. “If you so much as touch her?—”
“Oh, I’ll do far more than touch her,” EJ said. “But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.”
Buddy’s heartbeat slammed against sternum, tight, pounding, a war drum in his own chest.
