Page 55

She turns, sauntering back into her living room. The shirt rides up the backs of her thighs, and I bite down a groan. Focus, Calhoun. Focus.

I follow her in, ignoring the smug way she knows I’m watching.

The place smells like vanilla and danger. Kari’s scent lingers in the air—vanilla, ink, and a trace of adrenaline, like parchment soaked in secrets and set on fire. The living room is cluttered with notes, red string tacked across corkboards, half-drained coffee cups, and enough data to make a tech analyst weep. She's been living, breathing, and bleeding this case.

And now she’s mine to protect. God help me.

“You gonna just stand there brooding or make yourself useful?” she mutters without looking back, plopping down on the couch, and tossing her tablet aside. One bare leg drapes over the armrest like a dare.

I shrug out of my jacket, drape it over the back of a chair. “I brood really well. It’s a specialty of mine. I even got medals for it.”

“Bet you have a drawer full of them,” she says, voice dry.

I do. Alongside the nightmares and the names I don’t say out loud.

I scan the room, noting the lack of security. No alarms set. Window half-cracked open.

“You left the back window open,” I say, nodding toward it.

“Needed air. Thinking fumes build up when I research.” She glances at me again, that mouth twitching at the corners. “Or is that part of the babysitter checklist too?”

I cross the room, flick the lock into place, and turn. “That’s the part where your babysitter doesn’t want to have to kill someone in your kitchen.”

Kari rolls her eyes. “So dramatic.”

“Try me.”

She goes quiet, and for a second, it’s just the hum of her hard drive and the distant sound of traffic outside. Then?—

“I found something,” she says, sitting up straighter. Her voice has that edge now, the one that means she’s about to show me something that’ll punch holes in my worldview. “Sutton was right. Sookie was onto something before she died. Something big.”

I move to her side without thinking, shoulder brushing hers as I lean over to look at the screen. My hand finds the back of the couch behind her, and suddenly we’re too close. She smells like warm skin and midnight trouble. She doesn’t move away. Neither do I.

“Encrypted communications. New drop box folders created after she died,” she murmurs, fingers flying across the screen. “Somebody’s still updating the files. That means someone else has access to her systems.”

“You trust the source?”

“I trust the encryption pattern. And I trust Sookie didn’t die for nothing.”

My jaw tightens. “So what’s the play?”

“I need to track the IP. Trace the user. Break their firewall and see what they’re hiding.” Her voice goes fierce. “But that’s going to make me a target.”

I nod slowly. “Then I stay.”

She finally looks at me full-on. No sarcasm. No sass. Just Kari—blue eyes, stubborn mouth, and that fragile thread of fear buried too deep for most to see.

“You know what you’re signing up for?” she asks softly.

I meet her gaze. “Yeah. A hell of a fight. And you.”