I just do it. Because Connor Brennan is coming.
“You’re being paranoid,” Dante says three days after the bombing, watching me review the new security protocols for the third time.
“I’m being prepared,” I correct, not looking up from the tablet in my hands. “There’s a difference.”
“Leo.” Dante sounds exasperated. “You’ve tripled security in less than seventy-two hours. You’re running background checks on everyone from the gardeners to the delivery drivers. You barely sleep. This is beyond prepared. This is?—”
“Necessary,” I interrupt, finally meeting his eyes. “Connor Brennan doesn’t negotiate, Dante. He doesn’t compromise. He takes. And Emma is his daughter. Of course he’s coming back for her.”
“Maybe,” Dante concedes, leaning against my desk. The cut above his eye from the explosion has been stitched, and there’s a bruise blooming across his ribs that I know is giving him hell even though he won’t admit it. I also received hell from his wife, Alicia. My ears arestillringing. “But you’re acting like he’s going to attack tomorrow. We don’t even know if it was Connor who planted the bomb.”
“It doesn’t matter who planted it,” I say impatiently, eyes back on my tablet. “Someone wants Emma dead. Someone else wants her back. Either way, this place needs to be a fortress.”
Dante studies me for a long moment, and I can see him putting pieces together. “You love her.”
My head jerks up to look into Dante’s assessing eyes.
“That’s not,” I start, but Dante holds up a hand.
“You love her,” he repeats, and there’s no judgment in his voice, just weariness. “Which means you’re not thinking clearly and you’re going to do something stupid and reckless when Connor does make his move.”
“I’m thinking perfectly clearly,” I argue, but even I can hear how defensive I sound. “I’m just making sure Emma is safe.”
“Emma,” Dante says, emphasizing her name. “Not ‘the asset.’ Not ‘Connor’s daughter.’ Emma. You hear yourself, right?”
I set the tablet down harder than necessary. “What’s your point, Dante?”
“My point is that you kidnapped her for revenge,” Dante says bluntly. “And now you’re in love with her, which creates a problem when her father inevitably comes calling with guns and demands. What are you going to do then, Leo? What happens when you have to choose between your vendetta and the woman you love?”
“It won’t come to that,” I say, but the words sound hollow even to me.
“It might,” Dante says quietly. “And you need to think about what you’re going to do when it does.”
He leaves before I can respond, and I’m left staring at the security protocols I’ve been obsessing over for three days, trying not to think about the question Dante just asked.
Because I don’t have an answer.
What worries me more than the security situation and Connor’s inevitable retaliation is Emma’s reaction to all of it.
She’s been quiet. Withdrawn. Not herself.
Emma Brennan is many things—fierce, stubborn, sharp-tongued, and passionate—but quiet isn’t one of them. The Emma I’ve come to know fills rooms with her presence, argues with me over breakfast, laughs at terrible jokes, and makes sarcastic comments.
The Emma that’s been wandering the house for the past three days isn’t her. And I don’t know how to fix it.
I find her in the library that evening, sitting in one of the reading chairs with a book in her lap that she’s clearly not reading. She’s staring at nothing, her eyes unfocused, and when I get closer I can see they’re red-rimmed like she’s been crying.
My heart seemingly cracks.
She’s wearing one of my shirts—she’s been doing that lately, stealing my clothes when she thinks I’m not looking. It’s too big on her, the sleeves falling past her hands, the hem reaching mid-thigh. Her dark auburn hair is pulled back in a messy bun with strands escaping to frame her face, and even with red eyes and tear-stained cheeks she’s so fucking beautiful it takes my breath away.
The late afternoon light hits her just right, making her skin glow, catching those gold flecks in her green eyes that I’ve memorized. She’s tucked her feet under her, and I can see the small scar on her knee peeking out from where my shirt has ridden up—the one from jumping off a too high swing when she was nine that she told me about during one of our late-night conversations.
I know her. Every scar, every habit, every expression. I know that she sleeps curled on her side with one hand tucked under her pillow, that she steals the blankets in the middle of the night without realizing it. I know that she reads in the bathtub until the water goes cold and she organizes books by color instead of author which drives me fuckinginsanebecause who does that?
I know she hates mint chocolate but loves dark chocolate, that she makes this specific humming sound when she’s content, and she paces when she’s thinking through a problem. I know that she’s stubborn and fierce and sharp-tongued, with a wicked sense of humor and zero tolerance for bullshit.
And I know that right now she’s hurting and wrestling with something that’s tearing her apart.