Page 16 of Deadly Hope
The team filed out with practiced efficiency, leaving her alone with Axel. The conference room suddenly felt much smaller. He hadn’t moved, but she could feel his presence like a physical thing—steady, solid, refusing to be pushed away by her fear.
Her heart kicked against her ribs. Being alone with him was simultaneously the last thing she wanted and exactly what she needed. The attraction she’d been fighting sparked between them, complicated by gratitude and fear and a dozen other emotions she wasn’t ready to name.
“Olivia.” Just her name, soft and low.
She kept her eyes on the airfield, where the sun painted long shadows across the tarmac. “I know what you’re going to say.”
“Do you?” She could hear him shift in his chair, feel him watching her. “Because I’m pretty sure you’ve been arguing with some version of me in your head that isn’t actually me.”
That made her turn, meeting his steady gaze.
Something in his expression made her pulse quicken. Not just attraction, though that was certainly there, crackling between them like static electricity. No, it was the way he looked at her—like he saw past her professional armor, pastthe careful walls she’d built, straight to the woman who’d lain awake last night jumping at every sound.
She should leave. Thank him politely, drive home, and handle this herself. That would be the sensible thing. The professional thing.
Instead, she found herself sinking back into her chair, watching the way his shoulders relaxed infinitesimally at her decision to stay.
“Alright then,” she said softly, surprising them both. “Talk to me.”
Through the windows, the sun caught the mountains in amber light. But in here, the air between them felt charged with possibilities—and the promise that whatever came next might change everything.
10
Axel shutthe door behind him, quietly sealing out the muted bustle of Knight Tactical’s command hub. The overhead lights shot down white cones of light, landing starkly on the scattered paperwork atop a polished wooden table. Olivia sat with one hand braced on the table’s edge, her green eyes flicking toward him before lowering again.
He took a calm breath, forcibly relaxing his shoulders.
The faintest bruise peeked from under the collar of her shirt, a reminder of the hand that had clamped around her throat yesterday. Even now her posture was rigid, like she was bracing for a fight. Axel recognized it—the same tension he’d seen in rookies after their first firefight.
“Listen,” he began quietly, “I know you’re not thrilled about having extra security, but I’ve given your special circumstances a lot of thought. Let me walk through my plan.” He set a few printed pages in front of her to show he had a framework prepared. “We’ve got options.”
She folded her arms. “I’m willing to hear you out, but I’m not consenting to a Knight Tactical guard looming in my waiting room. My clients can’t handle that.”
Axel nodded, though part of him wanted to argue. “Understood. We want to protect you—not spook your clients, or sabotage your practice.”
A loaded silence crackled between them. The tension had layers: her rightful fear, her fierce independence, and the current that passed whenever they locked eyes. Last night, he’d glimpsed her from his truck, tension carving lines into her slender frame. That same worry lingered on her face now.
He cleared his throat. “Okay. First off, gear. We can set you up with a compact earpiece that you wear under your hair. You tap it to go live with me or anyone on call. No tap, no audio, so no possibility of us eavesdropping on your sessions.”
She lifted her gaze, interest flickering. “No automatic feed?”
“Nope. It’s silent until you activate it.” Axel slid a slim black device across the table. “This model’s small. Easy to hide. And if something goes wrong, all you have to do is double-tap this button.” He demonstrated on the earbud’s side.
Olivia picked it up, turning it over between her fingers. “So you wouldn’t hear anything unless I give you the signal.”
“Copy that,” Axel confirmed. “We take client confidentiality seriously. You need privacy. I get that. But if something goes sideways again, you’ll have immediate backup.”
She exhaled, shoulders easing a fraction. “All right. That’s … less invasive than I expected.”
He took that as progress and moved on. “Next: presence in your office. Ideally, we’d have someone in or near the waiting area so they can see if the intruder shows up. But your clients?—”
“Would panic,” she finished, her tone clipped. “Most of them are ex-military with PTSD. If they see what looks likeanother operative or a security guard, they’ll feel threatened. They’ll stop coming altogether.”
Axel wrestled with the urge to remind her that was exactly why she needed better protection. Still, he’d promised to respect her boundaries. “What if we station an operative outside? In a vehicle on the street or in a space you’re not using? We won’t watch who comes and goes—only monitor the exterior for trouble.”
She crossed her arms more tightly. “No visible guard. No one parked in my clients’ field of vision. Most of them arrive anxious enough as it is.”
He blew out a slow breath through his nose. This was pushing it. He hated the risk. But he caught a glimpse of the tension in her jaw and realized just how important this was to her. “Deal,” he said, voice low. “We’ll set up out of sight. If you can give us a spot behind the building or across the street where people won’t notice the truck, we’ll do that.”
