Page 30 of The Maverick

“You don’t look surprised,” she said when he hung up.

“I’m not.”

“Why?”

“Because this would never stay inside your inbox,” he said. “This was always leading here.”

She swallowed. “To what?”

“To him making a move.”

Vanessa wrapped her arms around herself. “He thinks I belong to him.”

Hawke’s voice came low. “He’s about to learn differently.”

She looked at him, saw the calm behind the fury. Saw the man who never raised his voice but always finished thefight. And she hated that a part of her—the part that was still unraveling—felt safer now than she had in years. But safety didn’t mean the fear was gone.

Because this wasn’t over. This was just the beginning.

8

HAWKE

Hawke stood at the window, eyes narrowed, arms crossed over his chest. The woods beyond the cabin didn’t look any different. The trees swayed the same. The shadows stretched the same way they always did at dusk. But something was off. It had been off since the note.

He didn’t believe in coincidences. Not in their world. Not when a man got past two layers of security and dropped a threat on his doorstep without so much as a whisper on the cameras.

The cabin hadn’t been compromised… yet. But the message had been clear.

I see you. I see her. I’m close.

And if this guy had made it here once, he could do it again.

Hawke turned from the window and headed for the kitchen where Vanessa stood barefoot, still in his clothes, her red hair twisted up like she was trying not to let herself look soft. She noticed him coming and straightened.

He stopped just short of touching her. Let the silence say more than his voice ever could. She looked up, defiant as always, but her eyes didn’t challenge him.

They searched. Waited.

“We’re going to the Iron Spur,” he said.

She blinked. “What?”

He moved past her and pulled his phone from the counter, scrolling until the club’s private line came up. “Tonight.”

“You’re not serious.”

“I am.”

“You want to drag me back to the one place he probably expects me to go?”

“He’s already watching,” Hawke said. “It doesn’t matter where we are. What matters is what we show him.”

She frowned, folding her arms. “You want to bait him, using me as bait.”

“Yes.”

“And you think he’ll take it?”

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