Page 53 of Loco

“Make sure your security’s always up,” he ordered. “Cameras, sensors, all of it. And keep those generators fueled—if they cut the power, you don’t want to be scrambling in the dark.”

I gave a tight nod. “Already on it.”

He hesitated, then added, “You need to talk to Sayla. Word’s getting around.”

I tensed. “What kind of word?”

He scratched the back of his neck. “Someone heard she was at your place during the snowstorm, and then a neighbor saw you both on the porch and started talking. Now people are wondering if you two are together.”

“Shit,” I muttered.

“Yeah,” Kai said. “I like her, Roque. I’m not saying this to be an ass—I’m saying it because you’ve got a target on you, and if people think she matters to you, that puts her in the blast zone.”

I rubbed the bridge of my nose, heart rate ticking up a notch. “Her house is almost done,” I told him. “The contractors cut through a pipe again and flooded half the kitchen. She’s been staying at her sister’s place until it’s fixed, but I can monitor her easier once she’s back there. I’ll tell Bond to keep an eye out in the meantime,” I added. “Just in case.”

“Do that,” Kai said. “Last thing we need is her getting caught up in this mess.”

The thought slammed into me so fast it made my stomach lurch. Something I’d shoved to the back of my mind, buried under everything else we’d been dealing with. But now it came roaring back with brutal clarity.

The knife in Sayla’s tire.

It had happened the day before I brought the kids back home, so with everything that’d happened since there’d been just enough time for it to be forgotten and chalked up to bad luck or maybe a petty act of vandalism. But what if it wasn’t random?

Rubbing my temples, my jaw tightened as the panic crept in. I growled the words before I could stop them. “What if they already got to Sayla?”

Judd’s head snapped toward me, his whole body tensing like I’d pulled a trigger. “What?” he barked. “What the hell happened?”

“The knife in her tire,” I forced the words out like they were shards of glass.

Kai tilted his head, frowning as he stared at the patch of grass near his boots. “You think it’s connected?”

I didn’t answer with words, I didn’t need to. The look on my face told him everything he needed to know.

He exhaled slowly. “Now that you mention it... yeah. You could be right.”

Judd’s eyes narrowed. “Did we ever get anything back on the prints from the knife?”

Kai shook his head slowly, already pulling out his phone. “No, and with everything else going on, I didn’t push it. But I’ll call Kapono and have him cross-check them against the ones we pulled off the envelope. Quietly. We don’t want to light anything up.”

“Good,” Judd muttered, pacing a few steps like he was trying to burn off the sudden jolt of tension. “If it’s the same prints, then this whole thing’s already been bleeding into your personal life for longer than we realized, Roque.”

I nodded stiffly, my mind spiraling. The idea of Sayla being targeted—just for being close to me—hit harder than I wanted to admit. But panic was a luxury I couldn’t afford right now.

Panic clouded your judgment, and it made you miss details. It got people killed.

I closed my eyes briefly and pulled in a long, steadying breath. Then another. Slowing everything down before it broke loose inside me.

Focus. Breathe. Control the variables.

“I’ll talk to her tonight,” I said finally, my voice steadier than I felt. “And I’ll make sure Bond knows to keep someone close. If they’re testing the edges, I want them to know we bite back.”

Judd, leaning against his truck with his arms crossed, finally spoke. “We all need to sweep our vehicles, homes, phones—everything. We need to assume they’ve planted something. Hell, assume they’ve plantedeverything.”

“Agreed,” I said. “We can’t afford surprises.”

We didn’t linger long. The conversation wound down like a fuse burning low—tight, quick, and ending in silence. We drove back to the PD together, pulling in with neutral faces like we’d just wrapped up a field check.

Inside, we found a couple of uniforms milling about, and Kai played his part without missing a beat.

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