“Cassie. Check. Your. Window.”
The absolute certainty in his voice moves my feet. Keeping the spray trained on him, I back toward the living room window and pull the curtain aside one inch.
Three black SUVs. Idling at the curb. Lights off.
2:48 AM.
My pulse hammers in my ears.
“They’re waiting for the surveillance team to confirm you’re alone.” I turn back to him. He hasn’t moved. He’s letting me look. Letting the reality of the trap register. “We need to move. Now.”
“Who are you?”
“Diego Martinez. Callsign Halo. I do extractions for people Phoenix wants dead.” He reaches for me.
“Don’t touch me.” I yank away.
“Then move.” The command snaps like a whip. “Get dressed. Shoes you can run in. Leave everything else.”
I don’t. Can’t. My apartment suddenly feels like the only solid thing in the universe. Out there—with him, with the SUVs, with whatever Phoenix is—is chaos. Unknown. Dangerous.
In here, I’m Cassandra Brennan, Esq. I have a deposition in six hours. I have a life.
“I can’t just?—”
“You don’t have a choice.” He pulls a phone from his pocket. Glances at the screen. “Sixty seconds. They’re moving to the stairwell.”
The building’s stairwell.
My building.
“Get dressed. Grab your wallet. Nothing else.”
“I need my case files?—”
“Dead lawyers don’t win cases.”
The words land like a slap, and the blunt cruelty of it shocks me into motion.
He’s already moving toward my bedroom. “Thirty seconds. Move, or I carry you.”
The arrogance unfreezes me. “You will not?—”
He disappears into my room.
I follow. He’s opening my closet. Pulling out jeans. A sweater. He tosses them at me.
“Get dressed.”
Why am I doing this? Because a stranger broke in? Because of the SUVs?
Because Emily warned me. If I stop answering, run.
“Turn around.”
He does. Doesn’t argue. Just turns and starts shoving things into a backpack—wait, that’s his backpack.
My hands shake as I pull off my sleep shirt. This is insane. I’m getting dressed because a man who broke into my apartmenttold me to. Because three SUVs are parked outside. Because deep down, in the part of me that’s been ignoring every instinct screaming danger for the past week, I know he’s right.
