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R hae couldn’t believe this was happening. Not now, not when things were falling into place with Denver.

She glanced at the door, the urge to escape flaring hot inside her very tight, hot chest. And right on cue, as if her daughter sensed her high emotions, the low grunts and noises of Navy fussing trickled down the hallway.

She swung toward the door, ready to go to her. But Denver blocked her path.

She plastered a hand over her chest in an attempt to still her heart. “Navy’s fussing.”

His eyes pierced her like a tactical laser. “The uncles and aunts have it under control. You’re staying right here. We are having this talk.”

The air between them crackled.

She stood stiff and silent.

He guided her to the long leather sofa, and she reluctantly sat. Denver leaned against the big wooden desk, his focus drilling into her.

“I know you’re hiding out on the ranch.”

His words punched her, rocking her forward. She threaded her fingers in her hair and stared at the grain of the rustic wood floor. “You can’t know that, Denver.”

“Oaks told me you’ve only left the property twice in six months to take Navy to a doctor checkup.”

Oh, god. They were watching her that closely?

She shook her head, casting off the thought of the Malones watching her. They were trained to observe the habits of the people in the security agency. And before that, they needed to be observant to stay alive.

She swallowed hard, saying nothing. What was there to say?

Denver continued. “You don’t even go into town for supplies. You have them delivered. That’s not just a cautious single mom. That’s someone hiding.”

The words hit her like a slap. Not because they were wrong.

Because they were dead-on.

Now the thing she was trying so hard to keep sealed was exposed under Denver’s scrutiny.

“Rhae.” His gentle tone brushed over her senses. “Who are you hiding from?”

She unthreaded her fingers from her hair and lifted her head to meet his gaze. Her heart thundered in her chest. The last thing she wanted was for Denver to know, because she knew exactly how he’d react. Denver Malone wasn’t one to sit still while someone he cared about was threatened.

“Rhae. Tell me who you’re hiding from.”

She issued a heated breath. “My father’s business partner.”

She felt him go dead still, each inch of sinew hardening to solid granite. Gone was the playful dimple in his cheek. In its place was a tendon flickering with tension as he locked his jaw.

He blinked just once. “What happened?”

Unable to look at him, Rhae’s gaze drifted to the computer and the website he’d just wiped her identity from. “When my parents died, he stepped in.”

“I didn’t know your parents were dead.”

“We never discussed our pasts.” Because there had been no future for them.

Except now a future was possible.

“They died in a car accident. I’m the quintessential orphaned child, right down to the reason behind me becoming a psychologist—to help people deal with heavy feelings I struggled with after it all happened.”

His stare settled on her, kind and coaxing. “Go on.”

“He helped out with legal stuff, house repairs, groceries. He was a fixture of my life, even as a legal adult once I didn’t need him anymore. He was kind…until he wasn’t.”

Denver’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t interrupt.

She couldn’t tell him everything. Couldn’t describe the way Robert Ravencroft had slipped into her life like a savior, then twisted her grief and vulnerability into something possessive and wrong.

She couldn’t tell him about that OB appointment, where Robert had shown up uninvited, offering to take care of everything . Pushing abortion like it was a business decision. Then when she refused, he offered to raise the child with her—his version of a perfect little family.

“I didn’t see it at first,” she whispered. “Then…he started showing up. At random places. Watching.”

Denver leaned forward. “Where?”

Her stomach rolled. “The daycare.”

His expression darkened instantly.

“I never told him where I enrolled Navy. But he was there. Outside, watching through the glass like he had every right.” Her voice broke. “I lost it. I pulled Navy out that same day. I couldn’t stay. I couldn’t risk it.”

His fists clenched at his sides, slow and controlled. His knuckles whitened.

“He freaked you out,” he said. “Now he’s freaking me out.”

She looked up at him then. From the set of his shoulders to the fire in his eyes, he was totally special ops bad-ass. She’d known it would come to this if he found out. And still, seeing it now made her breath hitch.

“I took the job here because I needed to disappear.” She pressed her fingertips into her temples. “I needed somewhere safe and private, off the beaten path, where someone like him couldn’t just walk in.”

Denver pushed off the desk, closing the gap between them. When he crouched in front of her, her throat tightened with tears she never let fall. He didn’t touch her, but his presence loomed, intense.

“You should’ve told me.”

“I didn’t want you involved.”

“Tough,” he snapped. “I am involved. I’ve been involved since I saw you in that goddamn barn and the instant I found out about Navy.”

The way he spoke, in that forceful tone, told her that he was already moving toward action.

“Why didn’t you tell me from the start? Tell my brothers?”

She shook her head. “I was trying to keep you all out of it. I didn’t want this to touch you too.”

“You think I give a damn about that? You think any of us do? We protect our own, Rhae. My job of protecting people isn’t done, remember?” His voice sharpened to honed steel with a lethal edge aimed at her stalker and not her.

He pushed to his feet and paced once, hands on his hips.

“Give me his name.”

She didn’t respond.

“I’ll find it either way,” he said, quieter now. “I’ll pull court records, dig through anything I can get.”

She believed him. After all, he already tracked down Navy’s birth certificate.

Rhae wrapped her arms around her middle. It was no use now. The secret was already bleeding out between them, and he wasn’t the kind of man who walked away from a threat.

“Robert Ravencroft,” she said softly.

Denver froze.

“That’s a hell of a name.”

She nodded. “He sold the business. Now he’s part owner of a chain of wellness spas, big on clean beauty and yoga retreats. His public face includes a charming smile and a spotless reputation. No one would believe he’s dangerous.”

“I believe it,” Denver said darkly.

She looked at him, her voice barely above a whisper. “What are you going to do?”

He turned sharply for the door. “Handle it.”

“Denver—” She stepped forward, alarm tightening her chest. “Please don’t rush into something. He’s not—he’s not someone who plays fair.”

Denver paused in the doorway, turning to her, his face unreadable. “I won’t make a move until I know exactly who I’m dealing with. But I will learn. I’ll find out everything I need. You’re not dealing with this alone anymore.”

Tears welled in her eyes but hung there, unfallen. “Don’t do anything reckless.”

He hesitated. For a moment, the strain in his face relaxed just slightly. “I won’t. But I’m not letting him keep you in a cage, either. That’s over.”

She nodded, not trusting her voice.

Denver’s gaze moved over her—relaxing, warming—before turning away. “I’ll catch up with you later.”

And just like that, he was gone.

She stood alone in the office, surrounded by silent screens and steady blinking lights. Horses meandered across the top of the Black Heart Therapy Ranch website. The land outside the ranch carried on untouched, quiet and calm.

But inside her, everything had changed.

The weight she’d been carrying for months had finally shifted. Not gone—never gone—but it was no longer hers alone to bear.

Denver knew.

And he wasn’t going to let this go.

* * * * *

Denver burst into his bedroom and shut the door behind him. For what he planned to do, he needed to be alone, away from prying eyes. In time, he would tell his family what Rhae told him.

Robert Ravencroft. He repeated the name to himself, carving it into his mind like a target.

This wasn’t just some asshole with a warped idea of family. Rhae had spent months hiding here on the ranch. And before that…hell, he didn’t know where she was.

Thinking of a strange man standing at the daycare window watching Denver’s child had him curling his hands into fists.

The man had been too involved in Rhae’s life, but no more. Denver was going to find him and put a stop to what he was doing.

Rhae had run long enough. Now it was Denver’s time to hunt.

His old childhood bedroom was like all the other rooms in the house, a mix of faded memories and new additions that reflected adult life.

At some point in his absence, Willow had removed his rickety old bunkbeds and replaced them with a king-sized bed.

The walls that were once gray had been transformed to a smokey blue the color of the mountain view through the window.

And there was a new desk butted against one wall. The first thing he’d done after his medical release was buy a laptop, and he opened it now, plunking into the desk chair to get to work.

He opened a privacy-focused web browser and got to work. First, he planned to find Rhae and then work backward to find the snake.

He sifted through social media, Google searches and made some deeper dives into the banks and city records. What he found…was nothing.

No checking accounts. No records on the car she drove. No networks with other professionals.

Essentially, Rhae had been a ghost until his sister added her to the Black Heart Therapy Ranch website. But now that he deleted that information, the link was dead.

Fuck. She was a dead woman walking. He was a dead man walking.

The sounds of the house faded into the back of his awareness as he continued to dig. When he found a bunch of search engine alerts set on her, a thread of certainty wove through him.

Leaning closer to the screen, he began tracing them, hacking them in reverse.