Page 23 of Sawyer
“I’m fine,” I rasp, then curse the tremor in my voice. “Really.”
He cups the back of my head, foreheads touching, our breath mingling. “He breached the yard.” Fury vibrates through every word. “I will not let that happen again.”
The intimacy of the moment—his body still half-caging mine, Vanessa and Edgar whispering somewhere in the dark—should feel absurd. Instead it feels inevitable, like a note finally resolving after bars of tension. My palms slide up his ribcage, feeling the unyielding muscle beneath.
“Thank you,” I whisper. “For being the wall.”
His thumb brushes my cheekbone, softer than a sigh. “You make it worth guarding.”
Lightning forks through me—need, fear, gratitude, lust inextricably woven. I sway closer, nearly brush his lips, when Vanessa’s voice slices through. “Um, guys? Police are at the gate.”
Sawyer steps back, his mask of professionalism slamming down. He turns to Riggs, issues crisp directives. The lights snap back on, and the moment is lost.
Later there will be statements, sensor audits, sleepless hours. But right now his hand finds the small of my back, guiding me gently toward the study where we’ll wait for the detectives. The touch saysmine to protect, and my body answers so loudly it nearly drowns out the sirens.
I am in so much trouble, and not just from masked intruders.
Because somewhere between flash-bang and pulse-pound, I stopped seeing Sawyer Maddox as an impenetrable wall.
And started seeing him as the door I want to walk through—even if it’s markeddanger: keep out.
9
Sawyer
I’ve stood inside smoking blast craters that felt calmer than Camille’s foyer does right now.
Flashes pop as crime-scene techs photograph the splintered doorframe. Officers in Kevlar mill around, radios crackling, while Detective Hartley interviews Cam for the second time this week. My pulse thrums an ugly counter-rhythm. Anger. Shame. Even sharper anger. I was forty feet away when the lock blew. Forty. In my world, that’s daylight-bright failure.
Riggs watches my face from beside the entry console where he’s dusting the flash-bang shell for prints. He nods once—steady, brother—but doesn’t approach. He knows a live mine when he sees one.
“Mr. Maddox?” A uniformed officer snaps me back. “Your statement?”
“Already gave it,” I clip, then force a calmer addendum. “Happy to clarify timelines once your CSU’s finished.”
He mutters into a notepad, and wanders off. Too many bodies, too many questions, not enough answers. I scan the perimeter cam feed on my tablet—rewatching the breach frame by frame. Masked perp scales the gate’s side wall, thumps over the top, lands like he rehearsed the drop. He sprints across the courtyard, disables the camera with a handheld jammer—not a kid’s toy; high-frequency gear. Then he produces a slim jim, bypasses the deadbolt. Twenty seconds to entry. These aren’t scared stalkers. They're tactical.
My chest tightens.
I need air. I need Dean.
I slip through the library’s French doors into the courtyard. Night wind bites my sweat-damp shirt. I dial.
Dean answers. “Talk.”
“Perimeter breach at twenty-two forty. One intruder, male six-one, athletic. Deployed flash-bang, no lethal weapon brandished. Escaped on foot before patrol arrived. Damage to doorframe and foyer, no injuries.” My voice stays even but my hands tremble despite clenching them. “We had full camera grid plus ground sensors. He bypassed two feeds with a jammer, snipped one physical line. He knew the layout.”
Dean whistles low. “Ballsy. What’s the message?”
“Unclear. Could be pure intimidation. Could be recon like testing the response time.”
“How fast were local PD wheels?”
“Six minutes from silent alarm. He was gone in two. Left the shell, nothing else. We’ve got partial shoeprint and maybe fibertransfer from the jamming pouch.” I exhale. The night smells of rosemary and burnt magnesium. “I should have been there, Dean.”
“You can’t occupy every vector at once. You neutralized the threat, protected the principal.”
“Door’s still busted. That’s a fail.”
