Page 30 of Deadly Hope
“Defensible position. Clear sightlines. Multiple evacuation routes.” He parked, eyes still tracking their surroundings. “But yeah. Beautiful too.”
Olivia sighed, gathering her emergency bag—the one she’d hoped never to need when she’d packed it at Deke’s insistence. Here she was, running from nameless threats, surrounded by armed professionals, about to spend who knew how long in what should have been a dream vacation spot.
And now it looked like it was all because Ben Prado had finally decided to tell her the truth.
“Ready?” Axel asked, hand on the door.
She looked up at the cabin again, at the warm lights someone—probably Izzy—had already turned on to welcome them. In another life, this moment would have been the beginning of something wonderful.
Instead, it was just another reminder of how complicated her life had become.
16
The snow was falling harder now, dustingOlivia’s dark hair as she climbed the cabin steps. Axel kept his attention split between scanning the perimeter and watching her shoulders gradually sink under the weight of the day. She hadn’t said more than ten words since they’d left the Prados’ house.
He did a final sweep before following her inside, where Zara had already colonized the dining room table with enough tech to run a small intelligence agency. “Deke and Griff are on the perimeter,” he reported. “Ronan’s handling client calls with Marisol.”
“Found something,” Zara announced, not looking up from her screens. Kenji and Izzy crowded behind her chair as windows of data scrolled past. “Ben Prado’s financials are ... interesting.”
Axel watched Olivia flinch slightly at the invasion of her client’s privacy, though she tried to hide it. The motion was subtle—most people wouldn’t have caught it. But he’d spent years reading micro-expressions in high-stakes situations,and right now, she was radiating distress beneath her professional mask.
“Define interesting,” he said, positioning himself so she didn’t have to look directly at the screens.
“Multiple transfers through shell companies,” Izzy reported, tapping rapidly on her tablet. “All technically legal, but designed to be hard to trace. Someone went to a lot of trouble to make his money disappear into the system.”
“His wife’s accounts too,” Kenji added. “Though hers are more recent. Last six months.”
Olivia’s hands tightened on the strap of her bag. “I don’t think we should?—”
“Need to,” Axel cut in gently. “I know it feels wrong, but right now, their privacy isn’t as important as keeping them—and you—alive.”
She met his eyes then, and the conflict there made something in his chest tighten. He’d seen that look before, in operatives trying to reconcile mission parameters with their personal code. It never got easier.
“Got it,” Zara announced. “Primary accounts traced to—” She stopped, frowning at her screen. “That’s ... military? No, wait. Treasury Department?”
“Let me see,” Kenji leaned in closer.
Axel watched Olivia turn away from the screens, moving to stare out at the falling snow. Her reflection in the window looked drawn, haunted. He knew that look too—the weight of responsibility, of wondering if your actions had put others at risk. He’d carried it himself too many times.
The team needed to dig deeper, but first he needed to get some food into everyone. And maybe, over dinner, he could help Olivia understand that she wasn’t alone in this. That protecting people sometimes meant making hard choices.
He headed for the kitchen, already planning the meal hisgrandmother had taught him to make on nights when the world felt too heavy.
The kitchen was well-stocked—as in amazingly well-stocked. Axel figured there were full-on restaurants that didn’t have pantries as gourmet as Knight Tactical’s legendary safe houses. He pulled ingredients methodically: arborio rice, mushrooms, fresh herbs. His grandmother’s risotto had been her answer to everything from scraped knees to broken hearts. For a woman who’d survived three wars and raised five children alone, comfort had always come with a wooden spoon and precise instructions.
He was dicing onions when he sensed Olivia in the doorway. She had that particular stillness that spoke of someone trying very hard to hold themselves together.
“Can I help?” she asked quietly.
He nodded to the mushrooms. “Those need cleaning and slicing.” It would give her hands something to do, at least.
They worked in companionable silence for a few minutes, the steady rhythm of chopping punctuated by occasional updates from the dining room. He waited until she’d settled into the task before speaking.
“Something’s been bothering me,” he said, keeping his tone conversational as he stirred the rice. “Most therapists I’ve encountered—military ones, anyway—they come in armed with our complete files. Know everything about us before we walk in.”
Her knife paused briefly. “And you’re wondering why I didn’t know about Ben’s background?”
“Among other things.”
