Page 69 of Beckett
She reached into her pocket, pulled out something with trembling fingers. A photograph. When I saw it, my blood went cold.
It was the picture from Draper’s—the one Hunter had taken for the tavern’s social media just days ago. All of us around the table, laughing, looking like we didn’t have a care in the world. But someone had destroyed it. Black X’s covered every face except Audra’s. Hunter, Jada, Lachlan, Piper, me—all obliterated with violent marks. Only Audra’s face remained, circled in red ink.
Fuck.
“This is how it starts,” she said, voice hollow. “First, the pictures. Then the escalation. I found it this afternoon when I went to get groceries.”
That explained the panic at dinner. The way she’d kept looking out the window. The trembling hands and barely touched food. She’d been sitting at my table, trying to celebrate my birthday, knowing someone was out there. Watching. Waiting.
My jaw clenched hard enough to crack teeth.
“I wasn’t followed back here.” Her words came out rushed, defensive. “I made sure. Drove around for hours, even went to the next town over. I was careful. I wouldn’t have come back if I thought… I wouldn’t put everyone at risk like that.”
Hours. She’d been driving around for hours, terrified and alone, possibly putting herself in more danger making sure she didn’t lead danger back to us. Back to me. The thought made something crack in my chest.
“You should have told me.” The words came out sharper than I’d intended, and she flinched. I forced myself to breathe, to soften my tone. “From the beginning. We could have been protecting you. Could have had security measures in place.”
“I couldn’t.” Her voice broke. “Don’t you understand? People get hurt when I stay. A waitress I worked with a few months ago? She got mugged. The mugger told heran eye for an eyeas he slammed her face into the ground and broke her nose.” She pointed at the paper in my hands. “That was the message forme.”
I looked at the paper again. Sure enough, on the back:An eye for an eye.
The threat assessment was automatic—escalating violence, psychological warfare, isolation tactics. Classic stalker progression with a sadistic twist. But beneath the analysis,fury burned cold and steady. This bastard had been terrorizing Audra, hurting innocent people to get to her.
“So you thought running was the answer? Just disappearing into the night?”
“It’s the only thing that’s worked.”
“Has it?” I challenged. “Because from where I’m standing, you’re nearly broke, terrified, and completely alone. That’s not working, Audra. That’s barely surviving.”
I’d barely survived once. After Rodriguez. After the guilt and the nightmares and the conviction that everyone would be safer if I just disappeared. I knew what barely surviving looked like, and I was looking at it now.
Her voice got quieter. “But at least no one else gets hurt.”
“What about you? You don’t think you deserve protection? Safety?”
“Not at the cost of—” She cut herself off, but I could fill in the blank. Not at the cost of someone else’s life. Not at the cost of mine.
“You think I can’t handle myself? Think my team can’t?”
“You don’t understand what he’s capable of.”
“Then tell me.” I stepped closer, close enough to see the gold flecks in her hazel eyes, the fatigue carved into every line of her face. Close enough to see she was at the end of her rope, hanging on by sheer stubbornness alone. “Tell me who he is. Tell me what we’re dealing with.”
“I don’t know who he is.” The admission seemed to cost her. “That’s the worst part. I have no idea. No face, no name. Just…someone who hates me enough to destroy my life, piece by piece. But I have no idea why.”
A ghost. She was running from a ghost. No wonder the cops couldn’t help. No wonder she felt so hopeless.
The tactical part of my brain was already sorting through possibilities, patterns, profiles. Revenge seemed the most likelyscenario, but nothing I knew about Audra suggested she was the type of woman who collected enemies.
Right now, the why didn’t matter. Only one thing did.
“You’re not running anymore.”
She started to shake her head, but I continued before she could argue.
“Listen to me. Hear me. You’re not alone in this anymore. You have me. You have my team. We run Warrior Security for a living, Audra. This—protecting people from threats—this is literally what we do.”
“But—”
