Page 63 of Hunted in the Silence

Relief detonated in her chest so violently it almost took her knees out.

“Here,” she called, her voice breaking. “Fire escape. East face.”

A beam of light snapped upward and found her. Footsteps below—fast, certain, fueled by fear and fury—and then Cole was there, taking the stairs two at a time. He reached her on the last landing, hands on her face, her shoulders, cataloging the cut, the missing jacket, the tremor in her breath. All of it in two seconds. Maybe less.

Above them, the footsteps stopped.

Cole looked up. His hand went to his weapon.

“Devlin.” A growl. A promise.

Brynn followed his gaze. Devlin stood on the landing above them, one hand on the railing, looking down with a finality that said he’d already decided how this ended.

“Agent Maddox,” he said. “She broke my window.”

“Step down,” Cole commanded, seeing no humor in the situation. His weapon was up and level. “Hands where I can see them.”

Devlin looked at Brynn for one long moment. She held it, because she had faced every hard thing he’d ever put in front of her and she was not going to back down from this one.

Whatever he saw in her face, he absorbed the truth of it.

Then he put both hands up and, with a subtle smirk, he continued past them and down.

Below, in the parking lot, Carson was already coming around the corner of the building with Finn behind him, and a chorus of voices and radio noise followed. Brynn stood on the fire escape landing and watched Andre Devlin walk down toward the people who were going to put him in handcuffs and she breathed.

In through the nose. Out through the mouth.

Slow and deliberate.

Trusting his partners to handle the rest, Cole tucked his gun back into its holster and turned to Brynn. He took her hands in both of his and looked at them, at the marks the zip tie had left, and then he looked at her face.

She looked back at him.

Below them, Carson had Devlin at the bottom of the stairs and Finn was on the radio, voices clipped and efficient as they brought him into custody. But up here, none of that mattered.

What mattered was Cole.

He held her hands like he needed the physical proof she was real, warm, alive. His palms were rough and shaking just enough that she felt it, and when he looked at her, there was nothing guarded left in him. No distance. Just the raw, unfiltered expression of a man who had come terrifyingly close to losing something he hadn’t let himself name until this moment.

And she felt it hit her—hard, deep, and all at once. Relief so fierce it almost hurt. The kind that loosened everything she’d been holding tight. The kind that made her chest ache with a warmth she’d been trying not to acknowledge, not yet, not until she knew she was safe enough to feel it.

But she felt it now. She felt him.

The way he looked at her like she was the thing he’d been searching for in the dark. The way his thumbs brushed her knuckles like he was memorizing her. The way his breath shook when he exhaled, long and heavy, as if he’d been holding it since the moment Devlin laid hands on her.

She didn’t pull away. She didn’t even think about it.

Her fingers tightened around his, and something inside her opened—quietly, irrevocably—because she was alive, and he was here, and Devlin was in handcuffs below them, and the world had finally stopped tilting.

Cole stepped closer, closing the last inch between them, and she let him. His forehead touched hers, gentle, grounding, and she felt the warmth of him, the steadiness, the relief pouring off him in waves he wasn’t trying to hide.

“You’re okay,” he breathed, not quite a whisper, not quite a statement. More like a confession.

She nodded, her throat tight. “I’m okay.”

He closed his eyes for a second, just one, and she felt the tremor of it—felt the way he was letting himself believe it.

Below them, Carson called something to Finn. Metal clanged. Radios crackled. The world kept moving.