Page 65

CHAPTER 64

Kaden

FOUR MONTHS AGO

I think I’m having a mid-life crisis.

That usually happens around the age of thirty-five, right?

That’s the only explanation I can come up with for what I’ve done.

Michael Ashby was in an absolute state when we first called to say we were taking his daughter.

He rang Callum in a panic, desperate for advice from his new ‘friend in security’ he’d made a few weeks earlier.

Callum told him the only smart move was to pay.

But Ashby hesitated.

Tried to call his daughter.

Tried to warn her. We were faster.

One photo of her tied to a chair was enough.

He wired the twenty million and boarded his jet without thinking twice.

But then Callum recommended he hire a live-in bodyguard, until the cops ‘caught the perpetrators’.

They never will, not with how deep our hands are in their pockets.

He didn’t run it by me first. Just saw an opening to make extra coin on a monthly retainer.

And I respect the hustle.

I do. But it put me in a tough spot.

Because there was no way I was letting any of my men anywhere near her.

She is a temptress. I’ve fallen under her spell.

Completely. I’m already ruined.

So, I did something only someone having a mid-life crisis would do.

I told Callum I’d be her bodyguard.

And I have the experience; I’ve done it before.

Callum never questions me, but I know he wanted to.

We slapped a fake name on the file…

It wasn’t hard. I run the goddamn company.

Told Callum it was good to go back to the trenches every now and again and remember where you came from.

For optics. Said I’ll reassign her case when I get bored.

But I’m already in this too deep.

Too far gone. Too fucking hers .

I watch her as she steps out of her therapist’s office.

Her eyes catch mine.

It’s one thing trailing her from the shadows, but it’s something else entirely watching her in real time.

To watch her moving, breathing and blinking like the centre of gravity doesn’t know where else to settle.

Looking right at me.

I step forward. My hands clasped in front of me, posture rigid, as it should be.

Military precision, not too casual, not too stiff.

“Miss Ashby,” I say with a curt nod, keeping my voice smooth, deep.

“I’m Hunter. Your bodyguard.”

I chose the name because it’s what I am.

A hunter. And she’s always been my prey.

The name feels foreign in my mouth.

But I wear it anyway. For her.