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Though Charlotte trusted them to keep her mother safe, Hawk could still see the tension in her shoulders and the small crease between her eyes.

Totally understandable—she’d gotten caught up in an extremely dangerous situation and, unlike Hawk, was unprepared for the havoc that kind of stress could wreak on a person’s nerves and emotions.

He’d been a forward scout during his time in the Marine Corps and had been deployed to one of the deadliest forward operating bases in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan. Having grown up learning to track and read terrain from his father and grandfather, being a scout was second nature to him. Part of his duties had been to take the lead to identify enemy targets, then communicate details about their personnel, firepower, and location coordinates to ground units and to help guide artillery fire.

During multiple risky deployments, he’d learned to compartmentalize, focus, and block out stressors in order to get the job done. Otherwise, he or his buddies could have ended up being sent home to their families in a flag-draped coffin. His work with OSI further entrenched that conditioning.

But he had a feeling Charlotte was a lot tougher than she realized. You don’t do the kind of work she did—talking to victims of trafficking and listening to their stories of abuse and survival—and not come away with powerful internal fortitude.

“Charlotte, I was actually going to call you today.” Dulce walked over, lifted an electronic tablet from her desk, and tapped the screen a few times. “I could really use your help with this difficult case.”

Hawk walked over, sat on the floor next to Remy, stretched his legs out in front of him, and crossed them at the ankles. His gaze continued to travel back to Charlotte.

Damn, his protective instincts with this woman were off the charts.

“I’d be happy to take a look at it.” Charlotte accepted the tablet from Dulce, tucked her hair over one ear, and her greenish hazel eyes traveled over the information on the screen.

Without looking up, she asked, “How long was she held captive?”

“Sixty-three days.” Dulce crossed her arms.

“That’s a very specific number.” She pulled her gaze up from the screen.

“If you go to her photos, there’s one of her arms.” Dulce reached over, tapped the screen, then pinched to zoom in on something.

“Are those—” Charlotte narrowed her eyes, turned to Dulce, and a look of horror marred her pretty features. “Are those … cut marks?”

“They are.” Dulce nodded. “The poor little thing kept count of the days by making tiny little cuts on her arms with a small piece of wire she kept hidden from her captors. By the time we found her, some of her wounds were so badly infected, she had to receive IV antibiotics.”

“That’s horrible.” Charlotte’s focus returned to the tablet. “Where is she now?”

“She’s at one of our safe houses near Kalispell, Montana,” Dulce said.

Hawk’s people lived about two and a half hours from Kalispell.

“Most of the kids we save have a difficult time adjusting, which is to be expected. But she’s having an especially tough time, and we can’t get her to open up.” Dulce’s voice became solemn. “It’s like she’s shut down.”

“Defense mechanism.” Charlotte looked up briefly, then returned her attention to the file. “She’s protecting herself from being hurt again.”

“Excuse me, Dulce, can I talk to you for a second, please?” Cole signaled for his wife to join him at the copier.

“I’ll be right back.” She walked over to him.

Charlotte was so laser-focused on the tablet, she merely gave Dulce a distracted nod.

Hawk could almost hear her brain clicking as she tried to figure out the best way to help. Her worry for herself had been replaced by her concern for the child. It was one of her strengths, but it could also be an exploitable weakness.

His boss whispered something to Dulce. She nodded and walked back over to Charlotte.

“Charlotte, since you’re here, if I can set up a video call with the director there in Kalispell, would you be willing to participate? I think she’d appreciate hearing your input on how to proceed.”

“Of course.” She looked at the tablet with a sad smile. “She’s such a precious little thing.” She lowered the tablet, and the concern and sadness in her eyes were nearly palpable.

Hawk had to fight the urge to walk over and wrap her in a comforting hug.

“Please tell me someone got the animals who did this to her,” she asked.

“We did.” Hawk’s jaw tightened at the memory, and he stood.

She pivoted toward him.

“It was a nighttime rescue, and I was the one who kicked in the door to where she was being held.” There had been no windows, and the damn room was dark as a tomb. “We had to use our flashlights to find her.”

They’d clicked them on and dragged the beams around the space until they found her.

“She’d wedged herself into the farthest corner of the room, partially hidden behind an upholstered chair.” Her legs had been drawn up tight to her body, her arms wrapped around them, and her face buried against her knees. “I hung back by the door while Calliope approached her.”

His teammate’s diminutive size made her less intimidating than the guys on the team, who were all over six feet tall. And Calliope had a gift when it came to dealing with victims.

She’d knelt down a few feet in front of the little girl and, in her gentlest voice, whispered, “You’re safe now, honey.”

The little girl had looked up at them with giant brown eyes filled with terror and streaks down her dirty face left behind by her tears. Hawk had wanted to hunt down and kill everyone who’d ever hurt her.

Hawk felt the same ferocity at the thought of someone hurting Charlotte.

“I’m so glad you found her.” Charlotte flipped open her messenger bag, dug out a leather notebook and pen, then clipped the bag shut.

“If you guys will excuse us.” Dulce looped her arm through Charlotte’s, and they headed toward the door.

Hawk hopped up from the floor and started after them. “Where are you—”

“Relax. We’ll be right down the hall, in the main conference room.” Dulce grinned. “She’s safe here, Hawk. Caleb did our security system.”

“You don’t honestly think I’d let my wife work in a building that isn’t locked up tight, do you?” Cole looked at him, one dark brow raised.

“You’re right. Sorry.” Hawk lifted his hands and stepped back.

In addition to being a tactical canine operator, Caleb O’Halleran was also a genius with security systems. If he installed one for ELC, then this place was more secure than Fort Knox.

Charlotte cast a quick glance over her shoulder at him just before the door closed behind them.

“Fuck,” he grumbled and scrubbed his hand down his face.

“You going to be okay working on this?” Cole grabbed the copies from the tray and walked over to him. “I mean, it’s obvious you’ve got feelings for her.”

“How can you tell?” He hadn’t talked about her to anyone but Eddie.

“It’s the way you look at her,” Cole said.

“Well, then, would you have wanted someone else working on Dulce’s case?” Okay, that was a shitty thing to say. “Sorry, don’t answer that.”

Dulce and Cole’s situation had been totally different. She’d been newly pregnant with his child when someone shot him and snatched her from right in front of her townhouse in Georgetown.

“Look, I know how hard it is to watch someone you care about being fucked with.” He set two stacks of papers on the table—the originals and the copies. “And since I’ve never seen you this spun up before, I just need to know your head is in the game.”

“I’m fine.” No way would he let someone else watch over her.

“Good.” Cole crossed his arms. “So, does she know you have a thing for her?”

Hawk shook his head.

The first time he met Charlotte, he’d been struck by the strangest sensation—a vision, really. They were walking hand in hand in the foothills not far from his family home on the reservation. The sun was glowing off of Charlotte’s beautiful hair, and her head was tossed back with laughter.

In the half dozen times he’d seen her since, he’d never experienced the vision again. But the same feeling of peace always washed over him.

His family’s burial ground was not far from the location in his dream, and his mother would probably say it was the spirit of his elders showing him his intended path. Whatever it was, he loved the way he felt whenever he was around Charlotte.

He felt … whole.

“Look, it’s none of my business, but if you have feelings for her, you should probably do something about it.” Cole spoke from experience. “What we do is dangerous, Hawk, and tomorrows are not guaranteed.”

Shit, other than when he was conveying tactical plans, that was probably the most words he’d ever heard his boss string together.

Cole was right. Hawk could die on his next mission and never know what, if anything, he and Charlotte could have together.

Hawk wasn’t one to hop from one woman’s bed to another. He preferred being in a solid relationship with one woman at a time. Something that had happened only twice in his life. He wasn’t sure why he hadn’t pulled the trigger on asking Charlotte out. Maybe it was the culture difference thing.

He was raised on the Blackfeet Reservation in Montana, and his adult life in the Marine Corps was bathed in the blood of battle. Whereas Charlotte grew up in the northeast with her single mom, her benevolent soul untouched by the ugliness of war.

Or maybe you’re just a chickenshit.

Cole’s phone rang on the table. He picked it up and tapped the screen.

“Hey, Sammy. Did you find anything?” Cole nodded and gave him a thumbs-up. “Okay, Hawk is here with me, so I’m going to put you on speaker.” He rolled back a chair, set his phone on the table, and they both sat down. “Go ahead.”

“Hey, Hawk,” she said.

“Hey, Sammy.”

“Okay, it took some doing, but I was able to gain access to one of the systems at HRA. Upon cursory examination, emphasis on cursory , it appears as if someone moved that file to an external server.” Computer keys clicked in the background. “My guess is, they discovered the file had been accessed and took steps to lock it down. At this point, I can only tell when someone accessed it and their passcode. I don’t have any visibility to the contents of the file.”

“Do they know it was Charlotte who accessed it?” Hawk asked.

“Unfortunately, yes, because she used her passcode to log in to the system.” Sammy clicked a few more keys. “It looks like she initially gained access on March twelfth at 8:17 p.m. and has looked at it four more times since, including last night.”

Today was June third, so her first look was about two and a half months ago.

She’d been scarce the past few months, and now he understood why.

“I scanned copies of these documents and just sent them to your encrypted email,” Cole said. “I’ll send the originals, the hard drive, and the knife to Beatrice so she can run forensics on them.”

“Hang on. Let me check.” Keys clicked in the background. “Okay, I got the email, and I’ve opened the attachment so we’re looking at the same thing.”

“From what I can tell by the dates on the list”—Cole flipped through the papers—“it looks like there were additional entries made after her initial discovery.”

He slid them over to Hawk and pointed at them. Sure enough, there were six additional inputs made to the data after the first time she accessed it.

“Sammy, why do you think they waited so long to move that file?” Hawk asked.

“It looks like the only reason they found out about the breach was because of a prescheduled, automatic system status check that ran four days ago.” That lined up with Charlotte’s timeline for when strange things began happening. “And from what I could see, that report is shared with HRA’s board of directors and their head of corporate security.”

“What do we know about them?” The leather squeaked when Cole sat back in his chair and propped an ankle on his opposite knee.

“Right now, all I have are their official bios from the website and Pennington’s from his time at the White House, but Casey is helping me do a deeper dive on each of them.”

Casey Mattox was another IT genius who worked for Jeffrey Burke, the powerful head of the National Security Agency.

“Burke loaned Casey out?” Before heading the Dark Ops division, Cole spent years working deep undercover for Burke.

Burke had been the one to convince Beck O’Halleran to create OSI after he left the FBI. He was also the godfather to Jonathan’s daughter. The man was very entrenched with the O’Halleran family.

“He said he owed us one for helping with his daughter.” A few months ago, the team had played a part in rescuing Burke’s daughter. “As soon as he saw the list of names in that file, he volunteered Casey. But he can only spare him for a couple of days.” She clicked more keys. “I did find out that HRA’s head of security, Vincent Kimball, has a reputation for being an overly aggressive asshole. He brought in his own crew of thugs, and they all answer directly to him. There are a lot of rumors floating around that Kimball has even killed to protect his boss.”

“His boss at HRA?” Cole sat forward.

“Not from what I’ve found so far, but I want to keep looking.” She continued, “Oh, and someone else accessed that file multiple times after Charlotte, and each date coincides with an entry on that list of donations. The last one was three days before the system status was run. Unfortunately, all I have is a passcode—no name—and I couldn’t find that information during my search. Which makes me think that information is kept on an internal server.”

“Are you saying you won’t be able to get to it?” Cole asked.

“There might be a way for Charlotte to find out whose passcode that is,” Sammy said.

“How?” Hawk asked.

“I can be on the phone with her, giving her a series of computer commands that should give me access to the internal server. Thing is …” She hesitated. “She’ll have to go into the office to do that.”

“What if she has her HRA laptop?” Knowing how conscientious she was, she probably took it home with her every night. “Can she access it that way, without having to physically be in the office?”

“Unfortunately, no. Her laptop has to literally be plugged into the system.” There was regret in Sammy’s voice. “I’m sorry. It’s really the only way.”

“Okay, go ahead and send what you have. We’ll let you know what we decide about the passcode,” Cole said. “Good work, Sammy.”

“Thanks.” Once again, keys clicked furiously in the background. “I’ll let you know when I find out more.”

“Sounds good.” Cole tapped the screen to end the call.

“I don’t want her going back there,” Hawk said. Especially now that they had confirmation that someone knew she’d accessed the file.

“I get that, but whoever else accessed that file is a part of this.” Cole set his elbows on the table and threaded his fingers together. “We need to know who they are. All of them.”

“Shit.” Hawk knew Cole was right, but he wasn’t letting her go alone. “Then I’m going in with her.”

“And just exactly how will you explain your presence?” His scarred brow lifted.

“I don’t know. I’ll say I’m her boyfriend.”

Cole seemed to ponder the idea. “Actually, that’s not a bad plan.”

“There’s a chance they’ve cut off her access to the facility.” A selfish part of Hawk hoped they had.

“Could be.” Cole tapped his index fingers together. “Or, if that security guy is as big of an asshole as he sounds like, he’s probably eager for her to show up there again.”

Yeah, that was exactly what Hawk was afraid of.