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She was safe. Hopefully asleep. And I couldn’t wait for the moment that I could call her and tell her that it was done. Though the battle wouldn’t be over. With the kind of protection that he had, keeping him in jail would be a struggle. But we had more than enough evidence for him to stay there.

We would make sure that he did.

He passed by the window again, and I kept my rage at bay. The plan was to wait for him to go to sleep for ease of entry, but it was getting late enough that we’d have to move anyway.

Jude’s voice sounded in my ear. “Any sign of him winding down?”

“No,” I whispered.

The five of us were spread around the cabin, in full mission mode. Our reconnaissance had told us about the simple security. A few cameras which we avoided, and some tripwires, which we also avoided. It was almost too easy. Was Nathan that confident in his camouflage that he didn’t think he needed the security?

Something about it bothered me, tingling under my skin like we were missing something. But I could see him. I had a scope, and he’d passed by the windows enough to confirm his identity. The breach plan was solid. Three through the front door, two through the back, subdue and clear.

The cabin itself was small. It wouldn’t take more than a few minutes to get control of it. “He has music playing. You guys hear that?” I asked.

“Yes,” Harlan said.

“If he’s not winding down, we might as well go in when we have sound cover.”

A few feet away, Daniel shifted in his hiding spot. “Probably a good idea.”

I breathed in the adrenaline that flooded me, the icy focus that only came when I was on a mission. Everything came into sharp relief. The air felt cooler, the sounds of the woods crisper. Every one of my muscles was ready to spring.

This was familiar territory. And even though I was glad missions weren’t my life anymore, part of me craved this. The easy teamwork and the singular collective goal. It was so much simpler than everything else.

We were armed, but I’d already made up my mind not to use my gun unless I needed to. The primal part of me wanted my hands on this man.

“On my count,” Daniel said, and I readied myself.

The numbers were soft in my ear. And then, as one, we moved. The team in the front of the house breached first. I heard the shattering of wood as they broke through the door, and Daniel and I were seconds later. The back door cracked under the force of Daniel’s kick, and I blinked away the brightness of going from nighttime into complete brilliance.

Music assaulted my ears, along with the shout of my friends as Harlan tackled him to the ground, Jude and Daniel breaking off into the other rooms to clear them.

And that was it.

There was no one else here, and I shut off the stereo as they came back into the room and confirmed that we were alone. My skin prickled. Something was wrong. This was too easy.

Harlan and Grant had him on the ground, the cuffs snapping over his wrists. My stomach plummeted. “Get him up.”

They hauled him onto his knees, and the world fell down around me. This man was not Nathan West. He looked enough like him that he could be his twin, and at a distance it had been nearly impossible to tell. Even through the fucking scope. This man could have been his twin, but it wasn’t him.

“Thank you,” the man says. “I don’t know who you are, but thank you.”

“Who are you?” Daniel asked. I couldn’t speak. I was locked in place, mind racing. This had been a trap.

“My name is Colin Harrington. I’ve been here for weeks. Or around here. Please, he has my family.”

The silence that surrounded us was so thick I couldn’t move through it. My voice was deadly quiet. “Who has your family?”

“Nathan West,” the guy said desperately. “He has a tracker on me. He took my wife and daughter. I have no idea where they are. If I don’t do as he says, they die.”

Fucking hell. This was the blond man that Charlie had seen around town. Probably the man that Evelyn had seen across from Deja Brew that had triggered her.

“You’ve been leaving flowers?”

He shook his head. “No. Just walking around. Wait, once I left some flowers at the coffee shop, but mostly I’ve been here or walking where he tells me to.”

I took a step closer, but Harlan’s voice cut through the red fog in my head. “Easy.”