I nod at the duffel bag. “Keep packing. You’ve already ruined everything that could’ve been.”
She closes her eyes like the words stab straight into her, and the sight guts me. I hate myself for causing that kind of flinch, for being the one who put that look on her face. But I still turn away. Because she pushed. And this time—I let myself fall back.
I walk out of the room with steps that feel heavier than they should be, fury and helplessness grinding against each other inside my ribs. I know damn well this isn’t her. This is fear talking. Trauma talking. Years of being hunted, talking. But none of that changes the brutal truth echoing through my chest: I don’t know how to save someone who won’t let herself be saved.
I make it halfway down the stairs before the anger hits me full force. Not at her—Christ, never at her. At the situation. At the fear. The way trauma teaches people to swing at the hand reaching for them, to fight the very thing trying to help.
Outside, the warm air wraps around me as I step onto the porch. I shut her door gently behind me. Not a slam. Never a slam. Just a soft click that feels like defeat.
I just need distance.
Because if I’d stayed another minute, my temper would’ve met her panic, and that’s a collision no one walks away from.
I stand on her porch, jaw grinding, chest tight, rain starting to spit against the wood rails. I drag a hand over my face, forcing breath into lungs that don’t want to work properly.
She thinks I’m leaving her.
She thinks pushing me away will keep her safe.
She has no idea who the hell she’s talking to.
I step off the porch and walk, slow and deliberate, down the path toward my own place. Every muscle in my body is coiled tight, my pulse a low, dark thrum.
I can’t help someone who refuses my help.
But I sure as hell can eliminate the threat that’s hunting her.
By the time I reach the shadow of my house, something in me has already snapped into place—the old part, the dangerous part, the part built for tracking and ending men who hurt people.
I pull my phone from my back pocket and scroll until I find the name I haven’t used in almost a decade.
Sam Mercer.
The bastard answers on the first ring, like he’s been waiting.
“Maddox?” he drawls. “Jesus, man. I thought you were dead.”
“Not yet,” I say, voice flat, dark. “You working these days or still rotting on a beach somewhere?”
“Depends who’s asking.”
“I’ve got a mission.”
A beat of silence.
Then, warmer: “What kind of mission?”
I stare at Lucky’s house through the trees — lights off, curtains drawn, a fortress built by terror.
“The kind we used to be good at,” I say quietly. “Hunting. A private hunt.”
Sam whistles low, a sound threaded with recognition. “Target?”
My teeth press together, my jaw tightening until it aches. “Sex offender.”
There’s a pause—long enough for the old ghosts to rise between us. The kind of silence men like us understand without filling: shared scars, shared choices, shared consequences.
When Sam speaks again, his tone has dropped into something steadier, more dangerous. “Victim?”
