Page 25

"Stay behind me."

Not an apology. Not approval. But in his world, this is permission. A silent contract forged in heat and chaos. It’s not comfort—but it’s control. And for now, it’s enough.

He checks the panel, pulls up the feed from the front porch. Deacon exhales. "A rose."

A chill skates down my spine, sharp as ice and threaded with dread, like the whisper of a blade just before it lands.

I press closer to the screen. "They’re taunting us."

"No. They're taunting me."

I whip toward him. "Oh, that’s rich. You think this is about your ego?"

"It’s about you. Which makes it my problem."

His voice is low, razor-edged—like it could cut skin if I flinched. But I don’t. A pulse of heat rolls through me, fury and something darker curling in my chest. My knuckles tighten around the grip of the Glock, grounding me. I meet his eyes, steady and defiant, unwilling to be the woman who folds in the face of fire. Not now. Not ever.

"Then maybe you should try listening instead of playing caveman. Because I have something."

He finally looks at me. Really looks. And it’s like grabbing hold of something raw and electric—his gaze a jolt straight to the spine, hot with tension, crackling with the things we haven’t said and the need neither of us can seem to shake.

"Talk."

I keep my voice even. "I dug into the bank accounts tied to the shell companies. There’s a pattern. At least six overlap with properties tied to the Devil’s Den. And one of them? It’s a shell that paid Sookie five grand. Two weeks before she died."

His brows pull together. "For what?"

"That’s the thing. It’s listed as a media consultancy. But the shell company is registered in the Caymans. Totally fake. Whoever’s behind this was either paying her off... or paying her to shut up."

He goes quiet. His eyes cut away, jaw tight, the muscle ticking like he's holding back a hurricane. And damn if that doesn’t just make him hotter. It’s the brooding, the barely leashed rage, the way his restraint crackles like a live wire under his skin—it shouldn't be sexy, but it is. Irresistibly, maddeningly so.

I press. "She was working on a story. She was getting too close. And someone made sure she stopped."

Deacon scrubs a hand down his face. "You think that’s what today was? You chasing Sookie’s ghost?"

"No. I think I was chasing the people who made her a ghost."

His gaze sharpens, narrowing with lethal intent. "What happened at the mall?"

The question punches the breath from my lungs. For a beat, all I can hear is the echo of my own pulse, loud and frantic in my ears. That same relentless gaze that pinned me to the wall now demands truth with the weight of a loaded weapon. My stomach tightens—not from fear, but with the punch of something raw and urgent, like my whole body is answering a question I didn’tknow he was asking. I need him to trust me. And the realization carves its way through me with the same intensity as the heat simmering in his eyes. And, God help me, how impossibly sexy he looks when he's brooding like this—intensity radiating from every line of his body, rage simmering under the surface like a storm barely leashed. It's a dangerous distraction. And I nearly made it worse.

I pause. Just a second—a flicker of hesitation, a stutter in my breath—but he sees it, reads it like a headline. The way his gaze sharpens, zeroing in on that blink of guilt, makes my pulse lurch. Heat coils low in my belly, furious and unnerved, because of course he catches it. Of course he always sees me.

"Don’t."

I sigh. "Some guy recognized me. Drew his weapon before I could blink. I didn’t provoke it. I barely spoke. He just... went cold."

His jaw clenches. "Had you not gone to Freeport alone, there's a very good chance it wouldn't have happened."

"There's no way to know that, Deacon. It was broad daylight. Public. I was armed."

"And if I hadn’t shown up?"

My silence is answer enough.

"Damn it, Sutton. You could’ve been killed."

"I know!"