Page 59 of Gunnar

The room is silent except for Mattis’s breathing through the speaker. I can feel the tension radiating from Hawk, Damon, and Jagger with the collective rage of men who have done deplorable things to predators who dared harm someone they love.

“And Devyn?” I ask, the question barely more than a whisper, though I already know the answer. My gut has known since my instincts screamed at me when we ran into outside the tailor. The way he looked at her like property he had been denied never sat right with me.

“Colton has been here as long as she has,” Mattis confirms, and I hear the triumph in his voice mixed with the horror. “It took a lot of work, but I found a PGP encryption key that ties from the dark web site back to an email address linked to him. The same encryption protocol, the same digital signature. It has to be him, Gunnar. The shrine, the photos, the notes… It’s all Colton Cross.”

“Son of a bitch,” I breathe, the words escaping in a rush of air. “We’ve got him.”

The relief is immediate and overwhelming, replaced almost instantly by a rage so pure it makes my vision blur. Colton Cross. The smug bastard who deemed me invisible is the same one who’s been watching her, photographing her, and fantasizing about her death. He’s the monster who’s been haunting her life, and he’s been hiding in plain sight this whole fucking time.

“We need to move on this,” Hawk insists, his voice calm but his eyes burning with the same fury I feel. “Tonight.”

I shake my head, forcing myself to think past the red haze of violence that wants to consume me. “No. We need to be smart. He’s a high-profile celebrity. We can’t just bury this one in the desert. If he disappears, people will notice. Questions get asked. We need finesse, not just force.”

“Finesse?” Jagger asks, hopping off the table, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. “The guy is a fucking piece of shit. He’s called your girl a whore and has a fucking shrine to her murder. And you want finesse?”

“I want him fucking dead,” I snap, turning on him. “But I want Devyn safe. I want this done in a way that doesn’t put her at risk. One that doesn’t bring the law down on us or turn this into a media circus she’ll never escape. Yes, I want finesse.”

Damon steps forward, his voice measured and reasonable. “Gunnar’s right. If we go in guns blazing, we become the story. And if Colton has contingency plans… And let’s all be real, a guy this paranoid and obsessive, definitely has contingency plans… Then Devyn becomes collateral damage in a way we can’t control. That’s a narrative that not even Mattis can spin.”

“So what do we do?” Hawk asks.

I pace to the window, staring out at the darkness beyond, at the ocean that stretches to the horizon. Colton is out there somewhere, probably in his Hollywood Hills mansion, reviewing his latest photos of Devyn and planning his next move. He thinks he’s safe. He thinks his fame protects him, that his money insulates him, and his carefully constructed persona makes him untouchable.

He’s wrong.

“We go tomorrow,” I say, turning back to face my team. “Crack of the day, when he’s likely to be home and he’ll be complacent. We go in quiet, prepared, and we end this. Permanently.”

“Permanently,” Jagger repeats, with a. dark hunger in his voice that matches my own.

“One of us stays behind,” I continue, my mind working through the logistics and contingencies. “With Devyn. She can’t be alone, not now, not when we’re this close. And if something goes wrong, if he has security we don’t know about, she needs protection.”

“I’ll stay,” Damon says immediately, accepting the burden of this necessity. “I’m the best in close quarters combat. That makes me the best position to defend the house if he has friends we don’t know about. And I’m… I’m the most level-headed. If she asks questions, if she figures out something’s happening, I can keep her calm.”

He isn’t wrong there.

I nod, grateful for his sacrifice and understanding of what’s at stake. “Hawk, Jagger, you’re with me. We go in the morning, early. We don’t give him a chance to run, hide, or call for help.”

“And then?” Hawk asks, though we all know the answer.

“And then we make sure he never threatens her again.” My voice is flat and final. “We make sure he never looks at her, thinks about her, or ever breathes her fucking name again. We bury him so deep the world forgets he existed.”

The plan takes shape over the next several hours, details of entry points, alibis, contingencies, and determining how best to make a famous man disappear without leaving traces that lead back to us. Mattis feeds us information—blue prints of Colton’s house and security systems—through closed channels. By the time we finish, gray is creeping in at the edges of the darkness in the sky. I stand and stretch, knowing that in a few short hours I’m going to kill a man for the crime of loving what belongs to me and coveting what he can never have.

But right now, I have other responsibilities.

I climb the stairs slowly, my boots heavy on the hardwood, each step taking me further from the violence we just planned and closer to the woman who makes it all worthwhile. When I open the bedroom door, I find her sitting on the edge of the bed, dressed in one of my oversized shirts. “Well?” she asks, her face snapping toward me. “What did Mattis find?”

I cross to her and kneel before her so I can look into her eyes. And because I want her to see the truth in mine. “I found who’s been hurting you,” I share, choosing my words carefully. “And I’m going to make sure he never does it again.”

She stares at me, and I see the questions forming in her beautiful little head—demands for details, names, and explanations. But then she seems to read the darkness I’ve been trying to keep from her in my eyes, and she simply nods.

“Okay,” she whispers, her hand coming up to cup my cheek.

I pull her into my arms, holding her tight, feeling her heartbeat against my chest. Knowing that I’m going to kill him to spare her from the violence he is so intent on inflicting, I hold her in silence as I make a promise to myself.

She’ll never know the details, see the blood on my hands, or be forced to understand the depths I will sink to protect those that I love.

Tomorrow, I’ll become a monster… And she will never have to know.