I sit on the coffee table opposite her, elbows on my knees. “You could have died today.”
“Yes,” she says flatly. “I know.”
“Doesn’t bother you?”
She shrugs, but the bravado is gone. “It seems to bother you more than me.”
That shouldn’t feel like a compliment, but it does. I lean in, hands clasped, and even with a room between us, there’s no escaping her. She’s looking at me like she did before theshooting, but the intensity is doubled—stripped of rules, of bullshit.
“Why?” she asks.
“Why what?”
“Why did you jump when no one else did?”
Because if I lost you, every second of my life becomes a punchline. I can’t say that, so I just shake my head. “It’s my job.”
“No, it’s not,” she says, voice thin and hungry. “Everyone knows the senator takes priority. But you saved me.”
I can’t look away from her. “He’s not my priority. You are. I was hired to protect you.”
She laughs, raw and shaking. “Is that the only reason?”
I let the silence stretch. We both know.
Delilah uncurls from the chair, limping over until she’s right in front of me.
She’s so close I can see every freckle, her pupils a slow-focusing camera lens. I register the pain in her stance, left leg bent a little, weight shifting off the graze, but she stands in front of me anyway. The blood’s already dried in a strip down her thigh, dark against the pale skin. She’s daring me to touch her, but I know her game—she wants control.
And I don’t hand it over.
“Sit down,” I say. She ignores me and pushes between my knees. Her fingers come up, pressing at my jaw, cool and shaking. Her breath is mint and adrenaline, so sharp it stings.
“Say it, Cade. Why?” This isn’t a person who’s ever been protected in her life, not really. Shielded, handled, but never chosen. Now she wants the truth, the ugly kind. I let her grab my jaw and hold my eyes. Her touch is the only thing about her that’s hesitant.
“Because you matter.”
She doesn’t move away. Neither do I. The space between us goes taut, like a wire pulled too tight. The last thing I want to do is walk away, but I have no choice.
“We’re done for today. You should get some rest.”
CHAPTER FIVE
CADE
Ileave her standing there, hands slipping from my jaw. Her stare lingers, even intensifies, as I head to the main house. The walls vibrate with post-incident hysteria—people running, phones pressed hard to their ears. Munro is barricaded in the study with Daniel. I let myself in. My clearance beats his now, and he knows it.
He doesn’t get up when I enter. He doesn’t even offer me a chair, just glares from behind a heap of press releases and a laptop with three encrypted chat windows open. The mask has dropped; the Senator is gone. His lips are pressed bloodless, and his jaw works as he tries—and fails—not to betray fear and outrage. He looks not just out of his depth, but as if he's barely treading water, picturing headlines, morgues, futures dissolving.
“Explain how this happened?” His voice is still caught on that post-shooting note.
“Your security detail is soft, and your perimeters are worse. Last night, two of your local hires left their posts to drink in the machine shed. The shooter entered undetected through the orchard—your media team even flagged the press line on Eventbrite. If Munro was the target, he passed four clear chances. He was after her from the start.”
He knows I’m right. Daniel blanches, knuckles white on his tablet, and Munro’s eyes narrow, throat bobbing hard as he swallows the implications. The two of them work through the new world order: This was not about the campaign, or optics, or the old man’s shot at a legacy. This was about Delilah. Munro’s offense is raw, like a wound, his hand trembling as he balls it.
“Don’t posture, Cade. You said you were the best. That was your pitch.”
“Not a pitch. Fact. If I hadn’t acted, your daughter would be in a trauma bay or a bag.”