Page 88 of Cyclone

“Then why now?” she asked. “Why break cover? Why me?”

I looked at her.

Dead-on.

“Because you’re the one that got away.”

Her breath hitched, but she didn’t argue.

Instead, she nodded toward the map spread out between us. “We need to make himthinkwe’re coming unglued. We go quiet. Stop reacting. Pull back surveillance. He wants control? Let him have it—for now.”

“And then?” I asked.

She met my eyes.

And there was steel behind hers.

“Then we take it all back.”

Jude leaned forward and circled a point on the map—a hiking trail near a remote overlook,where the cameras were broken and cell signal dropped to zero for about half a mile.

“He’ll push me into isolation,” she said. “That’s how he worked before. Observed first, then cut off communications. No noise. No help. He needs silence to do what he does.”

I nodded. “So we give it to him.”

“But on our terms,” she added.

She looked up at me, her eyes sparking now—not with fear, but with focus.

“I can stage a pattern,” she said. “A subtle withdrawal. Miss a few calls. Skip our usual runs into town. We tone down house security—not really, but we make itlookthat way.”

“We leak something on a closed channel,” I added, catching on fast. “Make it seem like you’re slipping. That the pressure’s getting to you. ThatI’mpulling back too—like you’re getting left behind.”

Jude’s smile was sharp. “He’ll eat that up.”

We moved faster now—years of training snapping into place like muscle memory.

She pulled up a floorplan of the house on her tablet and marked weak spotswe wanted him to thinkwere vulnerable—a stuck fence gate, motion lights that sometimes failed, and a window latch we’d “forgotten” to fix.

“We plant audio,” I said. “Just enough chatter for him to pick up if he’s still running mics. Let him hear you crying. Let him hear me not coming home.”

Jude arched a brow. “That’ll take acting.”

I grinned. “You think I can’t fake a bad mood?”

“Not for long,” she said dryly. “You get too grumpy and I’ll throw you into the woods myself.”

I laughed—but the truth was, underneath the adrenaline, I was proud of her.

This wasn’t a woman being hunted anymore.

This was a woman laying a trap.

And I’d never wanted anyone more.

I leaned in, voice low. “We do this together. You don’t breathe without me knowing. You don’t move without backup within five seconds.”

She gave a little nod.

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