Page 9 of The Cost of Silence

She walks out into the street like she owns the daylight.

Smaller than I expected. Lighter on her feet. Coat cinched at the waist, a tote bag dragging down one shoulder. Dark hair twisted up, but a few strands keep breaking free. She doesn’t bother to fix them. The kind of woman who underestimates her beauty, and how much people look her way.

She pauses to talk to an older guy at the door, probably a colleague. She laughs at something he says.

Of course she laughs like that, bright, easy, like she’s never had to clean blood off her hands.

I track her from a distance as she starts walking. She doesn’t check mirrors or shadows. Doesn’t notice me. If she were mine to protect, I’d tan her ass for being this oblivious.

Halfway down the block, she stops short and crouches. A grocery bag split open near the curb, oranges everywhere. I step out of my car and get closer.

And she kneels. Bare knees on filthy concrete, picking them up, helping some old woman who can’t bend far enough. No cameras, no audience. Just her.

For a second, I think it’s a performance. But she doesn’t even look around.

It shouldn’t irritate me. It does.

People who wear soft edges get cut first.

Then the air changes, a low growl of an engine pushing too hard.

Old habits take over before thought does. My senses focus, tuned in to threat.

The black car leaps the curb. Isabella turns toward the noise, wide-eyed, too slow.

I move. One arm around her waist, pulling hard, both of us hitting the ground behind a parked van. Her breath catches, a soft, shocked sound against my neck.

The car clips the curb and roars away. Gone in seconds.

Her body is pressed tight against mine, warm, trembling, the faint sweet scent of her perfume cutting through exhaust and concrete. There’s a heartbeat against my chest that isn’t mine. It shouldn’t register. It does anyway, sliding under my skin before I can stop it.

For a second too long, I don’t move. I just feel.

Then I curse under my breath and shove to my feet, hauling her up by the arm. “You always this reckless,” I bite out, “or did you wake up looking for trouble?”

She stares at me, disoriented. “You.”

“Yeah, me.” My voice is low, sharp. “You write a story that paints a target on your back and then walk around alone? Are you really that stupid?”

Her eyes narrow, heat flashing there. “You think this was about my article?”

“I know it was.” I jerk my chin toward the street. “You dig deep enough, you’ll hit things that bite. Don’t act surprised when they do.”

“I did my job.”

“You did more than that.”

“I told the truth.”

“Truth doesn’t try to run you down.”

She squares her shoulders; her breath unsteady, but her chin high. There’s a flush across her throat, defiance or adrenaline, maybe both. It draws my eye before I can stop it. The shape of her mouth, too soft for someone who writes like she does.

I drag my gaze away, annoyed at myself for noticing any of it. “You want to play martyr, fine,” I say. “Just stay the hell away from my family while you do it.”

“I’m not afraid of you.”

“Maybe you should be.”