Page 19 of Meet Cute or Your Money Back

“I brought three cameras with me,” Hunter says, pulling three small black cubes from his cargo pants pocket. “I can always get more and come back if we need them.”

Without waiting for me to agree, Hunter scales the tree, climbing it with the agility and silence of a panther. In seconds, he’s up above the broken branches looking down on them, examining even closer. Impressively, he didn’t snap a single one in his climb. “What’s this?” he asks and pulls a few spears of scrunched up tin foil, tossing them down to me.

“Tin foil,” I say, examining them.

“Someone was…snacking while surveilling?” Griffin offers, his tone only half-teasing.

I shake my head, unsure. “They seem clean of any food. And they’re shaped like… arrows?”

“Honestly,” Griffin says, “they look like a kids toy. Maybe Duke was climbing this tree himself.”

I press my lips together. “Maybe. I’d still rather be safe than sorry.”

Above us, Hunter grunts as he screws one of the cameras into the tree from above, disguising it among the leaves.

I don’t remind them that I already have security cameras around the backyard and the front door. But the window outside Duke’s room is an area I hadn’t considered.

I’m slipping.

I never would have let that sort of blind spot get by me before.

Hunter hops down from the tree as quickly and gracefully as he had climbed up, landing like some sort of superhero on the soft grass below.

“I’ll add the second camera down here at the base of the tree and I’ll put the other camera inside Duke’s room facing out the window. Sound good?”

“Fine,” I concede, stepping away from the tree with a last wary glance. “We’ll play it your way. But if there’s even a hint of something off...”

“We’ll handle it,” Griffin says, his deep voice firm. “Together.”

“Right,” I echo, taking a deep breath. “Together.”

“I’ll chop down the damn tree myself,” Hunter says.

In that moment, standing between the levity of Griffin’s reason and the solid reassurance of Hunter’s resolve, I don’t doubt we’ll find a way to protect what matters most. My son. Our peace. Whatever it takes.

“Do you have eyes on Drakon yet?” I ask Hunter, giving him a side-eye.

“Since yesterday?No.”

The itch to act flares up inside me, the urge to throw myself into the fray and hunt down whoever dares threaten us. I look up at the tree once more, wondering if it’s him. Does Drakon know we’re closing in? Does he know we’re onto him? “I want to join the stakeout with you this weekend.”

Hunter exchanges a glance with Griffin, and Iknow that look—they’re about to play good cop, bad cop on me. “Not yet, Thatcher,” Hunter finally says, his brooding eyes holding mine. “You’re too close to this. Emotions are high, and we can’t afford mistakes.”

“Come on, I can handle it,” I protest, but even as I say it, I feel the raw edges of my anger and grief, jagged and exposed.

“You haven’t read the file yet,” Hunter says simply.

He’s right. It’s still in the top drawer of my desk. “It hasn’t even been twenty-four hours since yougaveme the file?—”

“I’m notscoldingyou for not reading it,” Hunter corrects, his voice firm, but calm. “Merely pointing out a fact.”

“So if I read the file top to bottom by the weekend, can I join you on the stakeout?”

“More time, man,” Griffin chimes in, always the voice of reason wrapped in an easy smile. “We need to verify the intel, make sure we’re not walking into a trap.”

“But—”

“For Duke’s sake,” Griffin says, more firmly this time, clamping his hand to my shoulder with a weight meant to reassure me. “For Duke’s sake, we need to be sure this isn’t a setup. Yeah?”

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