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“You’re leaving me down there?”

“I’m keeping you safe.”

“What if something happens to you?”

The question stops me.

She arrived at my home only hours ago. She doesn’t know me. She has no reason to care what happens to me.

But fear fills her face.

Not only fear for herself.

Fear for me.

“I’ve handled worse than a few men in an SUV.”

“You don’t know who they are.”

“I know they’re on my property.”

She doesn’t move.

“Sage.”

“What if there’s another way into the basement?”

“There isn’t.”

“What if they burn the house?”

“The room has an independent ventilation system and an exterior escape tunnel.”

Her mouth falls open.

“This isn’t a normal house.”

“We aren’t normal men.”

A sharp crack comes from outside.

Sage flinches.

“Gate camera is down,” Taylor reports. “The man at the call box destroyed it.”

That answers one question.

They aren’t lost.

I place my hands on Sage’s shoulders.

“Listen to me. You are not running tonight. You are not hiding in an alley, a diner, or the back of somebody’s truck. You’re going into the safest room on this property, and four men are going to make certain no one reaches you.”

Her eyes fill.

“I brought them here.”

“No. They chose to come.”