Page 36 of Ranger's Honor
I obey.
He grabs his phone, fires off a text I can’t see, then paces toward the windows. Checks the locks. The blinds. Every movement deliberate.
“He’s been watching,” I whisper, the words scraping out of my throat like broken glass.
My knees weaken as the full weight of the violation hits me. My throat tightens to the point of pain, ears ringing like a silent alarm has gone off inside my skull. It’s more than panic; it’s a visceral shutdown, as if my body is trying to reject the knowledge outright. I feel gutted; exposed in a way I’ve never known, as if every intimate thought, every plan, every kiss has been laid bare. My breath hitches. A flush of nausea climbs up my chest. I wrap my arms around myself, like I can physically hold in the fury clawing beneath my skin.
He stops pacing and meets my eyes. “Yes,” he says, sensing the extent of my distress, and placing a calming hand on my shoulder, drawing me into his body.
“Do you think he saw…”
“I don’t care what he saw.” His voice is a snarl now, barely restrained. “I care that you’re not safe.”
“I didn’t know. Gage ran two full sweeps...”
“Gage didn’t catch it because it was embedded in the image metadata. Low-level. Smart. Subtle. Neither you nor Gage missed it, Kari. The Reaper's good. If he wasn't, we'd have caught him a long, long time ago. There's no telling how long it's been on there.”
He's right. I know he's right, but it means the Reaper is smarter than we thought. More patient. More surgical. And now we’re exposed.
“We have to get out,” I say, standing. “My place could be compromised.”
“It probably is.”
“So we go to Gideon's...”
“No.” He’s shaking his head before I finish. “Gideon’s house isn’t secure anymore either. If we’re being watched, if he’s this deep—we can’t risk dragging your brother or the others into it until we’ve isolated the breach.”
“Then where?”
Dalton goes silent. His jaw flexes. I can see the calculation behind his eyes.
“There’s a safe house on Bay Point. Old stilt place, retrofitted two years ago. Runs on a satellite uplink, fully tied into Team W’s systems, but buried deep enough it doesn’t show on any public or utility grid. No wireless signals to trace. It’s off-map.”
“Can we get there without being followed?”
“We’ll find out,” he says grimly. “Pack a bag. Nothing digital. No phones. No laptops. No Kindle. If the Reaper has eyes on us, I’m not giving him a goddamn window to get into position.”
I nod, my throat tight. I head for the stairs, but before I reach the landing, he calls after me.
“Kari.”
I turn.
His expression is steel—but his voice is rough-edged, stripped bare. Something in it hits me low, right where fear and longing collide. I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t this—a man holding himself together for both of us. And somehow, that makes it worse.
“You did good. Catching it.”
I swallow hard and nod. But his praise doesn’t touch the fear crawling along my nerves. Because if I hadn’t caught it in time, he’d already be dead, and I’d be bleeding out beside him.
CHAPTER 14
DALTON
Kari’s footsteps pound up the stairs, the sound sharper than it should be in a house that feels too exposed.
I grab my go-bag from where I left it in the utility room—the canvas worn, the strap frayed from years of hard travel—and drop it onto the kitchen island with a solid, familiar thud. The zipper rasps open, sharp in the quiet, revealing the contents like a soldier laying out his armor. The scent of gun oil and leather hits me, grounding, anchoring.
Each item I grab—cash, burner phone, weapons, encrypted comms—isn’t habit. It’s ritual. I don’t pack light. I pack lethal. Fast, efficient, precise. Every motion mirrors the adrenaline building in my veins as I load the essentials.
