Saint frowned. “She’ll notice.”
“I know.”
And when she did, she’d draw conclusions that would hurt worse than the truth.
I turned back toward the bar, eyes scanning the room one more time.
Thomas thought he was isolating us.
What he didn’t understand was that Rangers didn’t break under pressure.
We adapted.
We closed ranks.
And when the time came—
We hit back.
Hard.
44
Rylie
Iknew something was wrong before anyone said my name.
It was in the way the room shifted when I entered the café. Not silence—conversation kept going—but it thinned, stretched tight like fabric pulled too far. Laughter ended a beat too early. A chair scraped back when someone stood a little too quickly.
I told myself I was imagining it.
Trauma did that. Made you see a threat where there wasn’t one.
Still, I felt it.
The waitress—Molly, who’d known me since I was sixteen—hesitated before smiling. It wasn’t unkind. Just… careful.
“Morning, Rylie,” she said. “Usual?”
“Yes,” I replied, matching her tone. Polite. Light.
Normal.
I took a seat near the window. Trigger had argued about me coming into town, but I’d pushed back. I needed to feel human again. Needed to reclaim pieces of my life that weren’t wrapped in security protocols and whispered conversations.
For a few minutes, it almost worked.
Then I caught fragments.
“…not her fault, but—”
“…danger follows some people…”
“…Rangers brought it here…”
My stomach tightened.
I stared into my coffee, the surface trembling slightly—not from fear, I told myself, but anger. This was my town. These were people who had waved at me from porches, brought casseroles when my mom was sick, and hugged me after they thought my engagement fell apart. They didn’t know I was forced into that engagement.
