Page 56 of The Scout

On my front fucking stoop.

I turned away from Elias, forcing myself to breathe before I did something stupid. Losing my shit wouldn’t get me the information I needed.

But then Marcus walked in, told me that Isabel had left, and my temper fucking snapped.

“You let her leave?” My voice was low, deadly.

Marcus narrowed his eyes. “She’s not a prisoner, Ryker.”

“She should be.”

Marcus scoffed. “You think locking her up is going to solve this?”

“No,” I bit out. “But letting her wander around Charleston with a fucking target on her back sure as hell isn’t going to help.”

“She needed space,” Marcus said, crossing his arms. “And I wasn’t about to manhandle her back into the house.”

“You should have stopped her.”

“She’s not your property, Ryker.”

Something ugly twisted in my chest. Not my property. Maybe not. But she was mine, whether she realized it yet or not.

I took a slow step forward, towering over him, my body humming with barely restrained fury. “You want to know the real problem, Marcus?” I asked, my voice dangerously calm. “Someone was watching her.”

His eyes flickered. I had his full attention now.

“In the pool,” I continued. “She was being watched. Someone was close enough to send her a text message. Someone was close enough to see her.”

Marcus exhaled sharply.

“Emergency protocol. Now,” I ordered.

Marcus held my gaze for a long second, then nodded.

With that, the room snapped into motion. Elias started typing furiously, locking down digital access, while Marcus barked orders to the rest of the security team. Dominion Hall was built for situations like this. We expected war. But war was supposed to happen over there. Not here.

I ran a hand down my face, exhaling to cool the thumping in my chest.

I needed to find Will. I needed to figure out who the fuck was watching Isabel. I needed to keep my family safe.

And underneath all of that—like a goddamn disease—was the hunger still burning through me.

I could still feel her skin under my hands. Could still smell her, taste her.

She had fucked me senseless, and now I couldn’t fucking think.

I was in a fuckworld of shit.

There were seven of us.

Seven sons, raised rough, hardened by circumstance, shaped into men by war. We had all served, all bled, all walked the line between life and death so many times that it became second nature. We didn’t just survive in chaos. We thrived in it. Just like Dad.

I had been a SEAL. A scout. A point man.

The one in the lead. The one who stepped forward when others hesitated. The one who took the calculatedrisk, knowing that one wrong move could mean everything going to hell in an instant.

I liked the job.

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