She's quiet for a long moment. When she speaks, her voice is softer than I've heard it.
"I dated Dominic Castellano's cousin in law school. Lorenzo. We were engaged for almost a year before I discovered he was laundering money through his practice." She laughs, but there's no humor in it. "I almost married into the family that's now trying to kill me. When I saw Dominic pull that trigger, I recognized him because he kissed my cheek at a Christmas party six years ago."
The revelation lands hard. "Does the marshal know?"
"No one knows. It's not relevant to my testimony, and I was afraid it would compromise the case." Her eyes find mine. "You're the first person I've told."
The weight of that trust settles over me. She gave me a secret that could destroy her credibility, and I gave her the guilt I've carried for five years.
Dangerous. This is dangerous.
"Thank you for telling me." It's inadequate, but it's all I have.
"Thank you for listening." She stands and starts clearing plates. "Now. Teach me about this panic room. I want to know every protocol, every contingency, every worst-case scenario you've planned for."
I watch her move through my kitchen, putting away dishes and wiping down counters. She's rebuilding her walls, and I should let her. Should rebuild my own.
Instead, I’m sitting here wondering what it would feel like to watch those walls come down completely.
CHAPTER FOUR
VIVIAN
Day five in the wilderness, and I'm starting to understand why people become hermits.
There's something about the silence up here that gets under your skin. Not the oppressive silence of an empty apartment or the artificial silence of noise-canceling headphones. This is a living silence, filled with wind through pine needles and distant bird calls and the creak of trees settling into cold. It's the kind of silence that makes you hear your own thoughts clearly for the first time in years.
I'm not sure I like what I'm hearing.
Deck has me on a brutal training schedule. Up at six for a perimeter run. Breakfast. Firearms practice. Lunch. Hand-to-hand drills. Dinner. Security briefings. Sleep. Repeat. My body aches in places I didn't know could ache, and I've developed calluses on my palms from the Glock that would horrify my manicurist.
But I'm getting stronger. Faster. More confident in my ability to defend myself if everything goes wrong.
Today, Deck decided to switch things up.
"Tracking," he announces over breakfast. "You need to learn to read terrain."
"I'm a federal prosecutor, not a park ranger."
"You're a potential target in wilderness terrain. If you have to run, you need to know how to move without leaving a trail, and how to follow one if necessary."
So now I'm crouched in the underbrush behind the cabin, staring at a patch of dirt that apparently contains information I should be able to interpret.
"What do you see?" Deck is beside me, close enough that I can feel his body heat cutting through the morning chill.
"Dirt. Some leaves. A rock."
"Look again. What disturbed the leaves? What direction are the pine needles pointing? Is there moisture under that rock that suggests it was recently moved?"
I squint at the ground. After a moment, I start to see patterns.
"The leaves are pushed to the side. Something moved through here heading..." I trace the pattern with my finger. "That way. Toward the stream."
"Good. What kind of something?"
"How would I know that?"
"The depth of the impression. The spacing. The way the vegetation is broken." He points to a spot I missed entirely. "Deer. Probably a doe, based on the size of the track. Moving at a walk, not running."
