“Did you find anything?” I asked, tearing my gaze away from the road to sneak a peek at her.

She seemed pale. Worn. Like she’d come through a battle.

Her mouth tightened, her voice strained. “He knew the whole time. Knew what we were up to. Suspected me from the beginning. He caught me searching his office.”

Fuck.

Fear slammed into me. “Why didn’t you let me know? Why didn’t you press the button?”

“Because I had it handled. He wasn’t going to hurt me.”

“Fuck. Kate.”

“I was fine.” She hesitated. “We have bigger problems. He knows that you’re alive.”

Fuck.

“Your father knew, too,” she added. “He said that your father was the one who was sending me the papers. When he ordered the hit on your unit, he didn’t realize it was yours. I guess he felt guilty and started digging into the circumstances surrounding your death and realized you were still alive. I think he was trying to right the wrong he did to you, and my father had him killed to keep the truth from coming out. I’m so sorry.”

I clenched the steering wheel, my knuckles white, her words pouring through me. I wasn’t naive; my father was still a bad fucking guy, but if I could find solace in any part of this, it was the knowledge that for all of his many flaws, he’d attempted to do the right thing, even if it had been far too late. Even as it angered me to hear that he’d been willing to pull Kate into this, ready to risk her safety.

“How did you end things with him? He can’t have just let you walk out of his office.”

She was silent for a moment, and I knew her well enough to recognize when she was stalling.

“He threatened you, didn’t he?”

She sighed. “Yes.”

I was going to put a bullet in him.

“What did he say? Tell me exactly what he said to you.”

“He told me that you had a target on your back, and that if I sided with you, the target would be on me, too. He said that this thing is bigger than him and that he’s been protecting me—apparently the stabbing was a case of an overzealous attacker and not intentional—but if I continue to push, all bets are off.”

Fuck.

“I’m going to leave—”

“No,” Kate interjected.

“What do you mean, ‘no’? I’m going to get you killed.”

“You aren’t leaving. If you leave, I’m just going to keep investigating. I’m not giving up on this, whether you’re here or not. This is bigger than you and me, and I would never be able to live with myself if I didn’t expose him for what he’s done. How many innocent people will die because of him if we don’t do anything? How many people will lose their loved ones because of his greed? How am I supposed to live with that kind of blood on my hands?”

She was right, but she was also someone I loved. And I couldn’t lose her.

“You can’t save the fucking world. I know you want to fight, but you have to be smart about this, have to pick your battles.” My fingers gripped the steering wheel even tighter. “He’s been ahead of us every single step of the way. What do we have left? We’re all out of plays here.”

“I’m not giving up. You can stay and help me, or you can run, but either way, I’m seeing this through to the end.”

“Which is what, exactly? Your body lying in a morgue somewhere?” I snapped.

“It’s watching his power crumble. It’s us building a life together. It’s putting all of this behind us. Time is running out here. They’re getting desperate; killing your father was sloppy. If the authorities investigate his death too much, who knows what they’ll find? That tells me they’re losing control and willing to do whatever it takes to tie up loose ends.”

It told me they were beyond dangerous. You couldn’t predict desperate.

“I’ll take you back to your apartment, and then I’m going to go meet with the guy who was working for Intech,” I interjected. “I’ll press him harder. See if he has anything else he can give me. He’s the last lead we have.”

“I’m going with you.”

She was insane.

“Absolutely not.”

“Do you think I’m safe in my apartment anymore? We saw how easy it was for them to get into my place. I’m safer with you.”

I grimaced. Fuck. She was right; I hated leaving her alone. Jasper, the guy I’d had watching her when I was in Afghanistan, was on a job and there wasn’t anyone else I trusted. I could see if she could stay with Jackie and Will, but they wouldn’t be able to keep her safe if an assassin did come after her, and I doubted Kate wanted to put more people in danger.

“Fine. But we’re going in armed. We’ll go back to your place and get more supplies. I need to get the rest of my stuff from the hotel I booked when I came back to town. I didn’t trust the security on your apartment after the break-in, but we need to keep travel documents on us in case we need to leave.”

“Does this mean that you’ve accepted the fact that no matter where you go, I’m going with you?”

God help me, I had.

“Yes.”

“How long will it take to have documents made for me?”

“I started working on them before I left town last time.”

She shook a head, a smile playing at her lips. “So all of your protests were what exactly?”

“Me trying to get you to see logic and sense. Clearly I forgot how stubborn you are.” I took my eyes off of the road for a second, my gaze connecting with hers. “We’re in this together. Promise.”

She squeezed my hand and for a moment, it felt like we were kids again, like we could face anything as long as we were together.

It was late by the time we reached Kate’s apartment—just after nine. Now that her father had shown his cards, I didn’t want her staying at her place anymore. I needed to find a safe place where we could stay while we waited to see if we could get any information from my father’s former employee.

“Just grab whatever you need for a few days.”

“Should I stop going to work? I mean, how much of my routine needs to change here? Are we going underground now?”

She sounded scared, and I searched for some reassurance to give her.

“I don’t know. I think work is probably fine considering the security, but I would try to break up your habits a bit, make an effort not to frequent the same places. Patterns make it easy for someone to find you.”

I parked the car and opened the door for her a block away from her apartment building.

“I wish you would let me get the stuff for you.”

I was nervous about having her out in public, on edge about what her father would do next. I didn’t want to leave her alone in the car, but taking her with me seemed dangerous, too. Each option before me felt like a choice between bad and fucking worse.

Sometimes it was hard to distinguish between my days in Afghanistan and life back home. It felt like there was still a threat around every corner, like I was in someone’s crosshairs. And now I had Kate with me, dropped in the middle of a war zone.

I kept my body between hers and the street, tucking her against me in an attempt to shield her from any threat that could come her way. Adrenaline pumped through me, mixing with fear to create a cocktail that filtered into my veins. I kept my gaze sharp, scanning the streets, my fingers itching to grab the weapons I had on me.

Something felt off—a prickling under my skin and a tightening in my balls that fucked with my head.

“You okay?” Kate murmured, her hand reaching out and grasping mine.

I nodded with a sharp jerk. “Just ready to go inside. I don’t like being exposed like this.”

We lengthened our strides until we turned the corner, the glass doors of her apartment building a few feet away. I waited while she entered the security code and followed her into the lobby, my gaze sweeping the interior.

All clear.

We hit the staircase and I gave up the pretense of looking like a normal couple out for an evening stroll and grabbed the gun out of my waistband, clutching it in my hands with white knuckles while I led Kate up the stairs. With each step that took us closer and closer to her apartment, the hair on the back of my neck stood up, unease sliding down my spine.