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I didn’t slide out from under the truck. I launched myself. I kicked off the asphalt, sending the creeper skidding backward as I scrambled to my feet. I was covered in grease, sweat, and dirt, but I didn’t care. I squinted toward the road. A black sedan with tinted windows was creeping down the driveway, hesitating as if the driver was checking house numbers.

It was happening. The bubble was popping.

I turned toward the porch. Sutton had looked up from her book, her eyes wide, her body frozen in that deer-in-the-headlights posture I hated.

"Inside," I barked. "Get inside and lock the door. Now."

I didn’t wait for her acknowledgment before I turned my attention back to the car. Not waiting for them to come to me, I marched down the driveway, my boots hitting the gravel with a heavy, aggressive rhythm. I made myself big. I squared my shoulders, let my arms hang loose at my sides, and walked directly into the center of the lane, blocking their path.

The car stopped about twenty feet away. Two shapes were in the front seat, obscured by the glare on the windshield. I closed the distance, my blood rushing with a primal, violent urge to destroy whatever was threatening the peace of the last few days. I had spent ten years learning to leash the part of me that wanted to fight, the part of me that had thrown punches in bar parking lots before I found the fire department. But right now, the leash was very thin. I stopped at the driver’s side window. I didn’t lean down. I stood there, a six-foot-three wall of grease-stained muscle, and waited.

The window rolled down slowly. "Excuse me," an old man’s voice quavered. "We’re looking for the Pelican Pointe rental?"

The adrenaline in my system stalled, crashing into a dizzying wave of relief. It wasn’t a hit squad. It wasn’t a paparazzo. It was an elderly couple in a rental car. The driver was a man in his seventies wearing a bucket hat and a bewildered expression. His wife was clutching a printed map in the passenger seat. Both stared at me, eyes huge. And I realized what they saw. A giant, dirty man with a face like thunder, standing in the middle of a dead-end road looking ready to tear the car door off its hinges.

I forced my shoulders to relax and dragged a hand down my face, consciously dialing back the aggression. Summoning the calm, steady voice I used to soothe frantic patients, I stepped a few inches back from the window. "You folks look a little lost." I offered a reassuring nod.

"Oh." The man swallowed hard, his grip loosening slightly on the steering wheel. "We were afraid of that. This isn’t Pelican Pointe?"

"No, sir, this is a private drive." I gestured back up the gravel lane. "But you aren’t far off."

"The GPS said to turn left," the woman offered, pointing a shaky finger at the dashboard screen.

"The island GPS has a terrible sense of direction." I shot them a small smile that felt shaky. "If you back up to the highway and take a right, you’ll go about two miles. Pelican Pointe has a big pink gate. You can’t miss it."

"Right. Okay. Thank you." The man shifted the car into reverse. "Sorry to bother you, son."

"No bother at all. Enjoy your vacation." I stepped backward onto the grass to give them plenty of room.

I stood in the middle of the driveway until the taillights disappeared around the bend and the sound of their engine faded into the ambient noise of the island. I stared down at my still-trembling hands—dirty, scarred, trembling with the residual energy of a fight that never happened. I hated it. I hated how quickly the monster had wanted to surface.

I took a deep breath, trying to slow my heart rate. It was just tourists. She’s safe. Nobody found her.

But the fear was still there, a cold knot in my stomach. Only now it wasn’t about her safety. It was the fear of losing her. Fear of the empty house waiting on the other side of her departure. I turned and rushed back toward the cottage. I needed to check on her. I needed to make sure she understood that she couldn’t just sit on the porch like a target. I needed to see that she was okay.

I took the porch steps two at a time.

"Sutton." I reached for the door handle, expecting it to be locked.

It wasn’t. And all that fear, anger, and the protective haze roared the rest of the way back to life. After a quick glance confirmed she wasn’t inside, I stormed to the side of the porch.

Sutton stood pressed against the siding of the house, hidden from the road but clearly visible to me. Pale as a sheet, her hands were clutching the hem of her shirt. Her eyes were wide and dark.

"I told you to go inside," I snapped, the anger flaring up again to cover the relief. "I told you to lock the door. What part of hide did you not understand?"

"I couldn’t." Her voice was shaky, but her chin was up. "I couldn’t leave you out there."

I hissed an exhale. "You couldn’t leave me? Sutton, I’m twice your size. I can handle a confused geriatric couple."

"I didn’t know who they were." Frowning, she stepped away from the wall and toward me. "I just watched you rushing toward them. You... I thought they might hurt you. I couldn’t just lock the door and wait to hear if you were okay."

She had stayed. She was scared to death—a pulse was jumping in her throat—but she had stayed because she was worried about me.

Something inside me snapped. The deliberate distance I had been maintaining, the professional boundaries, the logic all dissolved in a wash of absolute need. I closed the distance between us in two strides.

"You are infuriating," I growled.

I didn’t think about the grease coating my palms or the sweat dampening my shirt. I gripped her face, my thumbs pressing hard into her cheekbones to anchor her to the spot, needing the physical heat of her skin to prove she was actually standing right in front of me. She gasped but didn’t pull back. If anything, her gaze went hot.