Two weeks of dust covered the glass coffee table. Everything else looked exactly as he’d left it. Nothing moved. Nothing changed. Nothing waited for him.
He dropped the duffel by the door and walked to the kitchen table, his body moving on autopilot while his mind replayed the last fourteen days. Three states. Dozens of false leads. Zero results.
The informant had sworn Brennan was heading to Eugene. Hunter remembered the conviction in the man’s voice, the specific details that made it seem solid. On his first night there, exhausted after driving six hours straight, fumbling for his hotel key card in the dark, his phone had slipped from his pocket and cracked on the pavement two stories below. Dead on impact. He’d spent two weeks with a burner phone, chasing what turned out to be nothing but smoke.
Hunter collapsed into a kitchen chair and pulled the new smart phone from the plastic bag from the electronics store. The setup process was mindlessly familiar. Choose language. Connect to WiFi. Sign into his account.
“Restore from backup?” He clicked yes.
The phone hummed quietly, progress bars filling as apps began downloading. Email. Weather. Banking. News. All the normal detritus of modern existence flowing back into the device. Hunter watched with detached irritation as the icons populated the screen in neat rows.
Then he saw it. Mate.com. A red notification badge mocked him from the corner of the app icon.
That morning. The distraction.
His jaw clenched as he tapped the app. It opened to a splash screen, then loaded his profile. There, at the top of the screen: “You have a 100% match! View profile to connect.” The timestamp read two weeks ago, Friday, 6:45 AM.
While he’d been distracted by a dating app, Brennan had been able to evade him. His professional focus had been sacrificed for personal weakness.
Hunter didn’t even look at who had matched with him. His thumb pressed down on the app icon until it wiggled, then hit the X to delete. The phone asked if he was sure. He was.
The app vanished, taking the notification with it. Good. He didn’t need distractions. He didn’t need reminders of what he couldn’t have, shouldn’t want. The mission came first. Always had. Always would.
Hunter tossed the phone onto the table and stood, his body protesting the movement. Two weeks of living in his truck and cheap motel rooms had left him feeling like roadkill. He could smell stale sweat, old coffee, and the musty scent of too many hours in a closed vehicle.
He stripped on the way to the bathroom, leaving a trail of travel-worn clothing across the apartment floor. The shower sputtered to life. Hunter stepped under the spray and let his head fall forward, water sluicing over shoulders knotted with tension. The heat worked into his cramped muscles, washing away the film of failure that seemed to coat his skin.
His mind drifted to the notification he’d just deleted. A 100% match. His fated mate.
What would that even be like? Coming home to someone who actually gave a damn whether he lived or died?
Hunter pressed his palms against the shower wall, water running down his back. He’d seen the mate bond between Dom and Valeria. The way they moved in sync, the subtle touches, the looks that said entire conversations without words. It must be nice, having someone to let your guard down with.
The thought made him angry at himself. Soft. Weak. This was exactly why he’d deleted the app. These kinds of thoughts got operators killed. Got witnesses killed. Got everyone killed except the bad guys who never stopped to moon over mate bonds and fairy tale endings. Hunter cranked the water to cold, letting it shock the stupid thoughts out of his head. He had a job to do.
After his shower, he toweled off and pulled on dark jeans and a black henley. It was the kind of nondescript outfit that let him blend into backgrounds and shadows. His reflection in the closetmirror looked haggard. Two weeks of beard growth, shadows under his eyes that seemed permanent now. He was forty-five years old and checking a dating app like some desperate teenager.
He turned away from the mirror and headed downstairs to Steel Protection. Time to go to work.
Hunter pushed through the door into the main operations room. The office was filled with monitors, tactical boards, and the controlled chaos of a private security firm that operated in the gray areas law enforcement couldn’t touch.
“You look like shit,” Dom said by way of greeting. The alpha of Steel Protection stood by a tactical board, arms crossed, assessing Hunter with sharp eyes. “When’s the last time you slept?”
“Chased Brennan’s trail through three states,” Hunter replied, ignoring the question about sleep. “Nothing solid.”
“Two weeks for nothing.” Dom’s tone carried frustration but not blame. “That informant screwed us.”
“Every lead went cold. Eugene, then Redding, then Reno.” Hunter moved to stand beside Dom, both men staring at Brennan’s photo centered on the board. “Brennan was probably never there.”
“Could’ve been intentional. Feed us bad intel, keep us busy while they reorganize.”
Hunter’s laugh was bitter. “Every meth cook in three states looks like Brennan when you’re desperate enough.”
Dom clapped him on the shoulder, the gesture brief but solid. “Not your fault. Bad intelligence is worse than no intelligence.”
They stood in silence for a moment, both studying the board.
“The day you left,” Dom said, pulling out his tablet, “there was an incident.”
