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“Hired local talent—according to Sawyer,” Mav says. “He ran their faces through facial recognition, and about two dozen different charges popped for each one.”

“Fantastic. I have IDs on the guys who ran into us. I’ll get them to him once we get back.”

“Hired talent—do you mean assassins?” Dahlia asks, her eyes wide.

“Let’s get out of here, and we can talk more.” Zane starts around toward the driver’s side, so I open the back door and wait for Dahlia to slide in before going in after her. Mav gets into the passenger seat, and Zane pulls away, merging onto the surprisingly quiet highway.

“What’s the status on Marooney?” I ask Zane.

“They were waiting until everyone went into their rooms for the evening. Should be getting her out in the next hour or so.”

“Everything calm?”

“Sawyer hacked the security feed, so he has eyes on her. Said all looks fine for the time being.”

“They’ll wait until it’s quiet before moving in on her again.”

“Why are they going after her at all?” Dahlia asks. “Because she called the police?”

“I think it has more to do with what she knows about Prescott,” I reply.

“Sawyer is digging into him, too. He’s got quite a few skeletons in his closet, but we’re trying to find out if there’s something more to all of this or if it’s just that Dahlia was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Zane says.

“If she were, I doubt they would have hired someone to come after her.”

“Those are my thoughts, too.”

Zane takes the exit toward Stormwatch Landing, and I keep my gaze trained out the window.

Four days and someone has already tried to kill her—again.

Between the two guys I handled and the ones Mav and Zane dealt with, whoever is after Dahlia sent a total of five hired guns. There’s a whole lot more to this story, and someone is desperate to silence what she knows. Trouble is, even she has no idea what that is.

“We need to get you to a hospital,” I tell Dahlia.

“No,” Dahlia says. “Please. I’m fine. Just sore.”

“We need to see if you have a concussion.”

“I don’t have any of the other symptoms. Please, I don’t want to go back.”

Zane looks at me through the rear-view mirror, his expression concerned.

But Dahlia is adamant. And right now, getting her somewhere secure is priority number one. Since I haven’t had the chance to check out that doctor at the hospital, it might be best to keep her off the radar as long as possible. “We can video call Lani Hunt when we get back to my place. If she says we need to go, we’ll go.”

“Who is Lani Hunt?” Dahlia questions.

“The sister of some friends of ours out of Texas. She’s a doctor. Can you agree to that? If she says you need to be seen⁠—”

“Then I’ll go,” Dahlia replies softly. “But I really, really don’t want to be anywhere near a hospital right now. I just want to feel safe.” The last words are whispered so faintly that I nearly miss them.

Reaching over, I cover her hand with mine. I know it’s a mistake, but it’s as much for my comfort as it is for hers. She turns her hand beneath mine and links our fingers. The fit is just as I expected it to be: perfect.

“Turn here,” I tell Zane, gesturing toward the private road that will take us down to my cabin.

No one—not even my team—knows where I live.

I kept it that way, not because I don’t trust them but because keeping them safe was a top priority for me.