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CHAPTER FIVE

T he silver moon hung overhead like a watchful eye, its light filtering through the cypress trees and casting eerie shadows across the water. Noah stood on the weathered porch of Gator’s fishing camp, his hand resting on the grip of his sidearm out of habit. Two hours had passed since Gator had disappeared into the early evening darkness, the low hum of his boat’s motor fading into the symphony of night sounds that filled the bayou. Gator had made sure Noah knew where the pirogue was stashed, tied up out of sight underneath the pillars holding the fishing camp above the brackish waters of the bayou.

Inside, Jennifer slept fitfully. He’d seen the exhaustion in her eyes, the kind that seeps into your bones and weighs on your soul. Four safe houses in just over two weeks. The latest one ended in flames and smoke, the acrid sent still lingered in his nostrils. Pretty soon they would run out of options, unless they left the city—if not the state—and the clock kept ticking toward her court date.

Wooden planks creaked beneath Noah’s weight as he shifted, his eyes automatically scanning the perimeter for any sign of movement that didn’t belong. It had been a long time, far too many years, since he’d spent any time within the cypress trees and dangerous waters of the bayou. Nothing but the occasional ripple from a gator or fish breaking the surface. Still, the unease in his gut wouldn’t subside.

Gator’s words echoed in his head: “They’re finding you too easily, nephew. Something ain’t right.”

He pulled the small electronic device from his pocket—a scanner designed to detect unauthorized transmitters. Gator had handed it over, knowing Noah would recognize it instantly. The thought of checking Jennifer for a subcutaneous tracker made his stomach turn. Was it possible the Amirs somehow got a tracker on her without her knowledge or consent? Another invasion of her privacy, another reason for her to feel like her life wasn’t her own anymore. He hated to be the one to even broach the topic with her, but at this point, he didn’t really have a choice. If they’d put a tracker on her belongings, it had been blown to smithereens when the apartment exploded, because they’d only grabbed the one duffel bag that he’d personally packed, and he knew nobody had touched it except him and Jennifer.

The humid night air was thick with mosquitoes, clinging to his skin like a second layer. Noah closed his eyes, drew in a deep breath, and suddenly he wasn’t in Louisiana anymore.

The desert heat was suffocating, dust coating the inside of his throat with each breath. Captain Donovan stood before their unit, his face a mask of determination as he outlined the extraction plan.

“This is strictly need-to-know,” he’d said, eyes scanning each of their faces. “The intelligence is solid. High-value target, minimal security. We go in quiet, we get out quieter.”

Six hours later, four of Noah’s team were dead. Ambushed. Someone had known they were coming. The intelligence wasn’t just wrong; it held the taint of a deliberate setup.

He could still see Donovan’s face through his scope two weeks later, as the captain met with the man their team had been hunting for months. No recognition registered when Noah confronted him after, just cold calculation in his eyes.

“You don’t understand the bigger picture, Temple,” he’d said. “Sometimes sacrifices are necessary.”

Noah woke up in a military hospital four days later with two bullet wounds and a pending dishonorable discharge for striking his commanding officer. The official report cited “insubordination leading to mission compromise resulting in fatalities and casualties.” Donovan made sure his version was the only one that mattered—or was believed.

A floorboard creaked behind him, pulling Noah sharply back to the present. He spun, weapon half-drawn before his brain registered Jennifer standing in the doorway, a quilt wrapped around her shoulders.

“Sorry,” she whispered, her voice raspy with sleep. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

He holstered his weapon, mentally cursing himself for being so jumpy. “You should be resting.”

“We both know that’s not happening.” She moved to stand beside him, her shoulder almost touching his as she leaned against the railing. “What’s that?” She nodded toward the device still clutched in his other hand.

Noah hesitated, weighing honesty against comfort. He wasn’t ready to have this conversation, but it needed to be done sooner rather than later. Meeting her eyes, he handed the device to her.

“It’s a scanner. Gator thinks…there’s a possibility that they might be tracking you somehow.”

Her laugh was short and bitter. “Tracking me? Like I’m some kind of animal? Are you saying they’ve tagged me? What’s next, they’re going to mount my head on their wall?” She shook her head, moonlight catching the golden highlights in her dark hair. “At this point, nothing would surprise me.”

“We don’t have to do this now,” he said, taking back the scanner and starting to slip it into his pocket. “It’s just a precaution.”

“No.” Her voice was suddenly firm, and he watched her let the quilt slip from her shoulders. “Let’s do it. We need to know.”

Their eyes met, and the determination he saw there reminded him why she’d survived this long. Jennifer Baptiste wasn’t just a witness; she was a force of nature disguised as an interior designer who’d accidentally learned too much about a horrific situation and couldn’t keep it secret.

“It won’t hurt,” he assured her, turning on the scanner. “Just stand still.”

He began at her head, moving the device slowly down her body, keeping a professional distance that felt anything but professional. It was intimate and invasive, though he never touched her. The scanner remained silent as he moved it over her arms, her torso, down her legs. Time seemed to slow to an agonizing crawl as he looked for a tracker, fearing the sound of the telltale beep.

“Nothing,” Noah confirmed, stepping back, simultaneously relieved and troubled. If she wasn’t being tracked, then how were they finding them?

Jennifer hugged the blanket tighter. “That’s good, right?”

“Yeah,” he agreed, not entirely convinced. “That’s good. And bad because we still don’t know how they’re finding you every time you move.”

She stood there in silence for a moment, then asked, “Where did you go before? When you were standing here alone, your mind was somewhere else entirely.”

Noah stiffened. “Doesn’t matter.”

“It does to me.” Her voice was soft but insistent. “You know everything about me—my life is an open book to you. But you? You’re a complete mystery, Noah.”

“That’s how it has to be.”

“Says who?”

The frustration in her tone caught him off guard. He turned to face her fully, surprised by how close she was standing.

“I’m just doing my job, Jennifer.”

“Is that all this is to you? A job?” She gestured between them. “Because it stopped feeling like a job somewhere between the second safe house and you shoving me through that apartment window right before it exploded.”

The air between them seemed to crackle with tension—not just from her words, but from everything unsaid. From the way her eyes lingered on his a second too long when he checked her for wounds. From the way his hand had instinctively reached for hers during the boat ride here.

“What I feel doesn’t matter,” Noah said finally, his voice low. “My job is to keep you alive until you testify. Anything else…complicates things.”

“Things are already complicated,” she whispered, taking a step closer. “I’m terrified every minute of every day. I don’t know if I’ll live to see next week. But the one thing—the only thing—that makes me feel safe is you.”

His resolve was crumbling, walls he’d built since Donovan’s betrayal developing hairline fissures. He should step back, remind her of the professional boundaries. Anything but what he was about to do.

Her breath caught as he reached up, brushing a strand of hair from her face, his fingers lingering against her cheek. Leaning forward, his lips a hairsbreadth from hers, he let out a soft sigh.

“Jennifer—”

The sudden, distant sound of a boat motor sliced through the moment like the sharp stab of a knife. Noah pulled back, instantly alert, reaching for his weapon.

“Get inside,” he ordered, all softness gone from his voice. “Now.”

Fear flashed across her face as she backed toward the door. “Is it Gator?”

“No. Different engine.” He strained to listen, years of training kicking in as he analyzed the sound. Noah pushed her gently through the doorway. “Stay low, stay quiet. You know where to hide if things go sideways.” Gator had shown them the small space hidden inside the back wall, behind the head of the bed, where there was a crawlspace barely big enough for one person, but assured them they could make it work if anybody dangerous showed up.

As the door closed behind her, he melted into the shadows of the porch, weapon drawn. The boat was still too far away to see, but it was approaching their camp. His mind ran through scenarios, calculating angles, escape routes, defensive positions. All his military training kicked in, surprising him. He hadn’t had much use for his skills at his mountain cabin in Tennessee of late.

Whoever headed their way had managed to find them in the middle of nowhere. That wasn’t luck or coincidence. Gator was right, there was a leak somewhere. They needed to make bloody sure it was plugged, and fast. Noah didn’t want to believe it was somebody at Carpenter Security, but other than his cousins, who he trusted implicitly, what did he really know about the rest of the men and women who worked there? As the sound of the boat grew louder, one thought crystallized in Noah’s mind with terrible clarity.

Knowing there wasn’t a tracker on Jennifer, it meant somebody was feeding information to the enemy. Someone who knew about Gator, knew he was helping Jennifer. Someone who knew about this place.

Now he had to figure out who.

The grand hotel suite overlooked the French Quarter, but Karim Amir had no interest in the revelry below, or the people partying in the streets. He stood at the window, one hand holding a crystal tumbler of untouched whiskey, the other scrolling through messages on his encrypted phone.

“Nothing yet from our men watching the bayou,” reported Vincent, the ex-military contractor who had proven himself useful over the past week. “They’ve kept Gator Boudreau and his family under constant surveillance, though the old man has given them the slip several times. Those swamps are like a maze, especially the deeper you get into them. If your target is out there, it could take time.”

Karim’s reflection in the window showed no emotion. At thirty, he was the youngest of the Amir cousins, but recent events made him feel every year of his age. Dark circles ringed his eyes, and his normally immaculate appearance had begun to fray around the edges.

“Time is the one luxury we don’t have,” he replied, finally taking a sip of the whiskey. He loved the taste of the American drink, though he was forbidden to indulge at their Dubai compound. It was a vice he planned to enjoy while here in the United States. “My aunt and cousin face their trial beginning in nine days. The witness must be eliminated before then.”

Vincent nodded, still standing at parade rest, his hands behind his back. Karim noted the military posture, nodding to himself. Good to know his money wasn’t being wasted.

“My men are the best. If she’s hiding in Boudreau’s territory, they’ll find her.”

The phone in Karim’s hand buzzed. His cousin Abdullah’s name flashed on the screen. With a barely perceptible sigh, he answered.

“Yes, cousin”

Abdullah’s voice was hard, authoritative. “It’s time to come home, Karim. This vendetta has gone too far. You’re drawing unnecessary attention to our legitimate businesses.”

“I’m simply protecting our family,” Karim responded, turning away from Vincent, lowering his voice. “Aunt Sayifa and Rashid—”

“Made their own choices,” Abdullah interrupted. “Choices that have jeopardized everything my father built. The American authorities have nothing that connects to our operations abroad. This is contained, and your actions only make things worse.”

Karim closed his eyes, knuckles whitening around the tumbler. “You would abandon them to American justice?”

“After what they did to me? Or have you forgotten the steps Mother and Rashid employed in an effort to keep me from leading our family? I am endeavoring to preserve what remains of our empire,” Abdullah replied coolly. “Return to Dubai immediately. That’s not a request.”

A tense silence stretched between them.

“I understand,” Karim finally replied, his tone carefully controlled. “I’ll make arrangements to return.”

“See that you do.”

The line went dead. Karim slipped the phone into his pocket, composed his features, and turned back to Vincent.

“Problem?”

“Nothing that concerns our arrangement,” Karim assured him. “In fact, we need to accelerate our timeline. Double the bounty on the woman and her protector.”

Vincent raised an eyebrow. “As I explained, I have multiple men watching the Boudreaus—”

“Triple it, then.” Karim drained his whiskey in one swallow. “I want confirmation of their deaths within forty-eight hours. No traces, no bodies, nothing that can be connected to me or my family.”

Vincent nodded, a cold smile spreading across his face. “For that price, my men will hunt them to hell and back.”

“Good.” Karim turned back to the window, watching the oblivious tourists below. “Because that’s exactly where I plan on sending them.”