Page 31 of Beckett (Warrior Security #2)

Beckett

I’d gotten up to get a drink of water and had been standing at the kitchen window when I saw Audra’s car pull out and head toward the kennels.

My gut had clenched hard enough to crack ribs.

When I’d seen her actually take Jet inside the dog housing building, the wrongness I’d felt all evening crystallized into cold certainty.

She was running.

I’d driven straight to the entrance of the property, parked my truck across the exit, and waited. I knew it was just a matter of time. Sure enough, a few minutes later, she was headed toward me.

Now she sat frozen behind her steering wheel, staring at me through the windshield like I was either salvation or damnation. Maybe both.

I climbed out of my truck, leaving the headlights on. The harsh light carved shadows across her face when she finally opened her door and stepped out. Her whole body vibrated with barely contained flight instinct.

“Going somewhere?”

She lifted her chin, but her voice came out threadbare. “Just needed to take Jet back to the kennels. He was…restless.”

“At ten-thirty at night.”

“Dogs don’t keep regular hours.”

“Neither do people who are running. And you’re headed in the wrong direction if you’re going back to your cabin.” I moved closer, noting how she shifted her weight back, ready to bolt. “I’m sure if I checked, I’d see all your stuff packed in your trunk.”

Her throat worked as she swallowed. “I don’t have to explain myself to you.”

“The hell you don’t.” The words came out harder than I’d intended, making her flinch.

I forced myself to dial it back a notch.

“You were leaving. Without a word. After everything—after these past weeks, after—” I cut myself off before I said something I couldn’t take back. “Tell me what the fuck is going on.”

“It’s time for me to leave. I get restless. It’s time for me to move on.”

The words had exactly zero percent conviction.

“That’s bullshit, and we both know it. You put Jet in the kennel.

” I kept my voice level, but the accusation landed like a physical blow.

She wrapped her arms around herself, shoulders curving inward.

“You love that dog more than anything, and you just locked him up and were driving away. So don’t stand there and tell me nothing’s wrong. ”

Her breath hitched. “It’s complicated.”

“Then uncomplicate it.”

“I can’t?—”

“Fucking. Try .” Hanging on to my temper was getting more difficult by the second.

She shook her head, backing toward her car. “Please just let me go. It’s better for everyone if I just leave.”

“Better for who?” The pleading in her voice nearly undid me, but I stepped into her path, not touching but making it clear I wasn’t moving.

“For you? Because from where I’m standing, you look terrified.

For me? Because I’ll be damned if I let you disappear into the night without knowing why.

For Jet? I’m sure that dog is all but sobbing inside the kennel.

So tell me, Audra—who exactly benefits from you running? ”

Her composure cracked. “Everyone. Everyone is safer if I’m not here.”

The words sent ice through my veins. Safer ? This wasn’t about her. This was about protecting others.

“Safer from what?”

She pressed her lips together, shaking her head again. But I could see it—the emotional exhaustion beneath the fear, the weight of whatever she’d been carrying alone for too long. The same look I’d seen in my mirror for months after coming home.

“Audra.” I gentled my voice, the way I would with a spooked animal. The way Coop had talked to me when I’d been at my lowest. “What are you running from?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It does matter. It matters to me.”

“Why?” The word burst out of her, raw and desperate. “Why do you care what happens to me?”

“Because you matter,” I said simply. “And whatever’s got you scared enough to abandon everything, to leave Jet—it’s not something you should face alone.”

She laughed, but it was all broken glass and no humor. “You don’t understand. I’ve been facing it alone for a year. Running is the only thing that works.”

“A year?” The pieces started clicking into place. Not something recent. Not a bad breakup or a debt or a mistake. Something that had been hunting her for a year. “This isn’t about an abusive ex or something like that, is it?”

Her silence was answer enough.

“Audra, what’s really going on?”

She looked away, toward the darkness beyond the property lights. When she finally spoke, her voice was barely above a whisper. “I have a stalker.”

The words hung in the air between us as the pieces fell into place for me. A stalker. Someone who’d been hunting her for a year. Someone who’d driven her to sleep in her car, to take cash-only jobs, to be ready to run at a moment’s notice.

Someone I wanted to find and systematically take apart.

“Tell me everything.”

She shook her head. “There’s nothing to tell. He finds me wherever I go. Seattle first, then every small town I tried to disappear into. I move, he follows. I run, he finds me.”

“The police?—”

“I tried that.” Bitterness crept into her voice. “At first, there was no overt threat they could act on. He was too smart. Too careful. Never did anything they could prosecute.”

I caught the emphasis immediately. At first. “So there was no physical violence at the beginning. What about later?”

She touched the back of her neck, an unconscious gesture I’d seen her make before. Always when she was stressed. Always quick, like she was checking something was still covered.

“Later…things escalated.”

“He hurt you.”

Not a question. I could see it in the way she held herself. Someone had put their hands on her. Someone had hurt her badly enough that she’d been running ever since.

The rage that rolled through me was cold and focused, the kind I’d learned to channel in combat zones. Pure, lethal intent. But I couldn’t let her see it. Not when she was already on the edge of bolting.

“Is the stalker why you were living in your car when you got here?”

She nodded, arms tightening around herself. “I’ve used everything I had trying to stay ahead of him. Sold my car for a different one he wouldn’t recognize. Stopped using credit cards, stopped taking jobs that required paperwork. The cash Lark paid me yesterday is all I have left.”

Christ. She’d been surviving on nothing, constantly looking over her shoulder, never able to rest. And she’d still managed to smile, to work hard, to care for the animals. To let me close enough to?—

“Jesus, Audra.”

“I know how it sounds. Paranoid. Crazy. But he always finds me. Always.”

“What happened today?” I kept my voice carefully neutral, even though inside I was mapping out exactly how I’d track this bastard down. “Something set you off. Made you think he’d found you here.”

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 her an eye for an eye as he slammed her face into the ground and broke her nose.

” She pointed at the paper in my hands. “That was the message for me .”

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 likely scenario, 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—”

“No buts. You’ve been trying to handle this alone for a year, and where has it gotten you? Sleeping in your car, running out of money, running out of places to hide. That ends now.”

“I can’t ask you to?—”

“You’re not asking. I’m telling you. You’re staying.”

“People will get hurt.”

“People might get hurt if you leave, too. What happens when he follows you to the next town? To the next person who shows you kindness? At least here, you have trained professionals who know how to handle threats.”

She was wavering. I could see it in the way her shoulders had dropped slightly. The exhaustion was winning against the fear.

“Audra.” I made my voice as gentle as I could manage, fighting against every instinct that wanted to grab her and never let go. “You’re exhausted. You’re scared. You’ve been carrying this alone for too long. Let us help. Let me help.”

“Why?” The question came out as barely a whisper. “Why do you care so much?”

There were a hundred ways to answer that.

Because her brother had been my friend, had saved my ass more than once overseas.

Because she’d gotten under my skin in ways I hadn’t expected, hadn’t wanted, couldn’t resist. Because watching her with Jet, seeing her slowly start to trust, had awakened something in me I’d thought died with Rodriguez.

Because I was falling in love with her, and the thought of her out there alone made me want to burn the world down.

But what I said was, “Because everyone deserves to feel safe. And because you’ve got people here who care about you. Lark. Jet.” I paused. “Me.”

She looked up at me then, really looked at me, and I could see her walls crumbling brick by brick. Could see the moment she stopped fighting against the terrible weight of carrying this alone.

“Trust me,” I said. “Trust my team. We know what we’re doing. We can keep you safe while we figure out who this bastard is and how to stop him.”

“You can’t promise that.”

“I can and I will.” I let some of that cold rage leak into my voice, just enough for her to know I meant every word.

“This bastard thinks he can terrorize you into running forever. He’s wrong.

My team and I have handled worse threats than some coward who hides in shadows and leaves pictures on cars.

We know how to hunt. We know how to protect. And we’re very, very good at both.”

She was crying now, silent tears tracking down her cheeks. “I’m so tired of running.”

The words gutted me. I knew that weariness. It had nothing to do with sleep and everything to do with the bone-deep fatigue that came from constantly looking over your shoulder. From never feeling safe. From carrying fear like a second skin.

“Then stop. Stay here. Let us help you handle this.”

She stood there for a long moment, body trembling with exhaustion and fear and something that might have been hope. I watched her fight with herself, watched her try to find one more reason to run, one more excuse to keep carrying this alone.

I watched the moment she gave up. The moment she chose to trust.

“Okay,” she whispered. “Okay. I’ll stay.”