He leveled a stare at me. “You’re thinking like a homeowner. Start thinking like a SEAL again.”
It landed, like it was meant to. I squared my shoulders, refocused.
We went through the rest—windows, attic hatch, the utility room. Every flaw, every soft spot. The more they called out, the clearer it got: I’d tried to build a safe place by civilian rules, and now it was time to rewrite the book.
Thunder rolled, lazy and mean, the kind that meant business. The air was getting heavy; the storm would hit by dusk.
We started to brainstorm. Macon wanted a perimeter alarm with tripwires and shotgun shells; Burke pushed for trail cameras with IR sensors, plus a thermal drone if I could swing it. I went for layered defenses—motion detectors on the fence, floodlights wired to an override in the master bedroom.
“You want escalation?” Burke asked. “Or deterrence?”
“Both,” I said. “But not at the expense of Jojo. He’s…sensitive to this stuff.”
Macon grunted. “He’s an omega. Bet he knows the smell of adrenaline from a hundred yards.”
I ignored the dig, because it was mostly admiration. Jojo was a lot of things, but fragile wasn’t on the list.
Burke jogged back to his truck and came in with two Pelican cases, each one black and stamped with government surplus stencils. He popped them open with a click that sounded like unlocking a gun.
“Brought some toys from my contractor days,” he said, lips twisting up in a dangerous smile. Inside: enough surveillance gear to make the NSA jealous.
He doled out headsets, trail cameras, and a thermal monocular that looked like it belonged on a spaceship.
We moved as a unit—Burke up the ladder to the hayloft, Macon outside to run cable along the rafters, me to the fuse box to kill power while we spliced in a new alarm relay. Every task was a handoff, the rhythm so familiar it made my teeth ache.
At one point, Burke lost his grip and tumbled off the loft, landing in a heap with a laugh so loud the horses in the next stall startled. He brushed off the straw, then pointed at the camera he’d wedged in the beams. “Motion-sensing. Catches anyone within two hundred feet, even in pitch black.”
Macon ran wire through the storm window and sealed it with putty. “You’ll want to check the batteries every two days. Cold drains them fast.”
I set the new lock on the east door, then reinforced it with a crossbar Macon had cut from a fence post. “That’ll hold,” I said, and for the first time in days, I believed it.
By the time we were done, the barn was no longer a soft target. It was a fortress. Every camera was synced to a cheap burner phone Macon had pre-programmed. If anything crossed the property line, we’d know about it before they got within a hundred yards.
We stepped back to admire the work, hands on hips, sweat dripping even in the cold.
“Not bad,” Burke said. “Almost makes me nostalgic for the old days.”
Macon shot him a look. “I’ll pass on the sand and the mortars, thanks.”
I wiped my palms on my jeans, felt a surge of pride in the ugly, patchwork security we’d built. “Let’s get the sensors up by the house, then we can eat.”
Macon cocked an eyebrow. “Food still as good as last time?”
“Better,” I said. “Jojo’s a professional.”
Burke’s smile softened. “Guy’s a keeper.”
I felt the truth of it in my bones.
We loaded up and stomped back to the house, boots mud-caked, faces burning with the promise of battle.
Let Hargrove come. We’d be ready.
If the barn was a war room, the kitchen was a sanctuary. Jojo had gone full panic-chef, prepping enough food to feed a high school wrestling team in the middle of a famine.
The aroma hit us in the foyer—yeasty bread, slow-roast chicken, the hidden sharpness of black pepper that clung to the tongue. There were three different vegetables, two kinds of potatoes, and a chocolate cake cooling on the windowsill like a fuck-you to anyone who doubted his credentials.
He darted from counter to oven with the energy of someone running a triage tent, barely registering us as we stomped the mud off our boots. Only when I snared him by the waist did he freeze, eyes wild.
