Page 38 of The Tracker

She nodded. “And tonight?”

He stepped toward her, slow and deliberate.

“Tonight,” he said, voice low and rough, “you’re not just a guest here, or someone I’m protecting. You’re in my space now, Evvy—my world. That means my bed, with me. No more lines, no more distance. You stay, and you stay with me.”

She tilted her chin, eyes glinting with mischief. “What makes you think I ever had any plans not to?” she teased, shifting just enough for her hip to brush his.

He closed the distance between them, his hand sliding to the small of her back, possessive and sure.

“Careful,” he murmured, lips hovering near hers, “sassing can be a punishable offense, and I'll bet that gorgeous ass of yours would look really pretty painted bright red from a spanking.”

She grinned, lifting her chin, defiant and wicked. “Promises, promises. But you keep threatening, cowboy—one of these nights you’re going to have to stop talking and prove you can actually handle me.”

For a moment Dawson couldn't speak. She'd sassed him. In the middle of everything, she'd had the temerity to sass him. He threw back his head and laughed.

Outside, the storm kept gathering, the city’s lights flickering with every secret waiting to be unearthed.

13

EVANGELINE

Evangeline hadn’t expected to sleep, not really. But somewhere between Dawson’s possessive command and the heat of his body folded around hers, she drifted off—safe, sated, and held. For the first time in what felt like forever, her mind didn’t spiral with what-ifs and whispered betrayals. Just heat. His heat.

When she woke, the space beside her was warm but empty—just enough to know he hadn't been gone long. The morning light spilled across the bed, catching the faint imprint of his body on the sheets.

For a moment, she lay still, breathing in the lingering scent of him—leather, cedar, and something uniquely Dawson that clung to her skin like memory. A quiet pang tugged at her chest, unexpected and intimate. She stretched, sore in all the right places, and she smiled.

Then she saw the note on the pillow.

Back soon. Lachlan is on patrol. Don’t leave. - D

Bossy bastard, she thought with a half-smile as she pressed the note to her lips. Even absent, he was still managing to boss her around—still managing to make her feel something she'd spent most of her life avoiding: cherished. It irritated her more than it should and thrilled her more than she’d admit.

She sat up, rubbed the sleep from her eyes, and let herself replay the night. Not just the sex—the dominance, the roughness, the way he’d claimed her like she was the only thing that could keep him grounded. She didn’t scare easy, but last night had shaken her. Still, morning brought clarity. She padded over to Dawson’s spare laptop on the kitchen island, keyed in her credentials, and pulled up Shaw Petrochemical’s internal security archive. The system was slow, dragging through layers of admin shielding and outdated encryption like molasses, but she was used to coaxing information out of stubborn tech.

A list of surveillance logs from the week Peter died loaded slowly. She clicked the file for the executive wing and let the footage play. For the first few minutes, everything looked normal. People milling about, Peter stepping into his office, Ana, the Office Administrator, trailing behind him with a tablet. Then the feed stuttered. Froze. Restarted at a timestamp ten minutes later.

Her pulse spiked. She rewound it. Froze-frame. The metadata showed two entries—one original, one overwrite. The overwrite had come from an admin login routed through the guest Wi-Fi—someone piggybacked off a temporary badge.

She traced the login string. The user ID was anonymized but terminated with a string she recognized. Ana’s workstation tag.

Betrayal twisted in her chest. Ana had brought her coffee on the morning of her first board presentation, had once loaned her a pair of flats when her heels broke just before a major investor dinner. She’d always been in the background—steady, silent, loyal. Or so she thought.

Evangeline sat back slowly, the weight of what she'd uncovered sinking in. Whether Ana had acted alone or someone else had exploited her credentials, the result was the same—deliberate, professional sabotage from someone with insider access. Either way, it wasn’t just incompetence. It was coordinated. Clean. Professional.

Her chest tightened as she took it in. It wasn’t just a warning. It was a dare. A message that said: I see you. I know how you work. Come and find me. And twisted as it was, that sense of being measured—singled out—by someone dangerous unsettled her more than she cared to admit.

And then it all came rushing back—Peter’s pale face on her phone screen, blood slicked across the marble. The letter opener—her letter opener—abandoned like a signature she never meant to leave. The calculated horror of it, staged for maximum shock. And now, Ana’s betrayal, Langley’s duplicity, and the widening circle of suspicion that pulled tighter with every breath she took. Her stomach twisted as she pieced it together: this wasn’t just an attack on her. It was an inside job, orchestrated by someone who knew her world inside and out.

She poured a glass of orange juice like it was any other morning. Except it wasn’t, because someone had tried to frame her for murder, and she’d be damned if she let them get away with it.

Dawson returned twenty minutes later, tension clinging to him like a storm cloud. He dropped a small paper bag on the counter—kolaches and coffee, her favorites. The man was nothing if not efficient.

She raised an eyebrow. “You bribing me with baked goods now?”

His mouth twitched. “You respond well to incentive.”

“I respond well to orgasms, but pastries are a close second.”

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