“What’s he doing here?” Kate folded her arms and stared at the man who had lied to her for twenty-seven years.

“Kate, please, I’m so sorry.” David Adams entered the kitchen, moving with cautious steps toward his daughter.

She stood, her body slightly trembling as she held her coffee mug. “I don’t want to see you. Not yet.” She bit her lip as Michael entered from the living room, wearing faded denim jeans and a soft blue T-shirt that matched his eyes. “Why is he here?” She finally set her cup down on the counter, then strode past her father to face her steely protector.

“Jake insisted he come.” Michael shrugged at her. “David, maybe we should all sit down and talk.”

Kate’s face was hot. Fever hot. Her anger with her father ran deeper than even she had suspected. “David.” She didn’t have it in her to call him dad. With a feeling of satisfaction, she saw him flinch.

“Kate, I’ve been trying to reach you,” her dad said once in the living room.

“How could you lie to me all these years? You made me think Charlotte was a place of pain for you because Mom died giving birth to me. All these years, I believed that I killed my mother.” She touched her chest, fighting to breathe, to keep speaking. “I’ve felt guilty for Mom’s death my entire life.” Don’t cry. Don’t give in. She sat down on the brown leather recliner and pressed her palms against her knees, bracing for support. She didn’t want to break down in front of Michael, Jake, and Connor. She had to find her composure—she was unraveling and fast.

David came to her side and knelt before her. “I was trying to protect you. I didn’t know if her murder was premeditated or not. Who kills a pregnant woman? I worried about your safety, which is why I didn’t want you to come to Charlotte. I begged you not to come.” His voice was hoarse and his eyes a little red.

“Maybe if you had told me the truth, I would have been more prepared! Now I have some lunatic stalking me.” She gulped and steadied her gaze on Michael, who was standing a few feet away with arms crossed. He was staring steadily at her father.

“Just come home with me. You’ll be safe, I promise,” her father pleaded as his fingers draped over the arm of the chair.

“I’m not going to be safe anywhere, now.” She stood up, unable to stomach the proximity to her dad. He was a stranger to her.

“You have to trust me. Come home,” he said while standing back up.

Kate turned her back on everyone and approached the closed blinds. Just outside the balcony doors, Dustin Scott had focused a sniper rifle on her chest only the night before. “I want you to go,” she said, her voice breaking—pain slicing through her. Betrayed by her own father.

“I agree.”

Kate turned around to face Michael, glad he was on her side.

“I have one question for your father before he leaves.” Jake reached for a piece of paper that was lying on the side table by the couch. “Why did Nathan Williams call you last night?”

Kate stood still for a moment and turned around, allowing Jake’s words to wash over her. She noticed the muscles in Michael’s face twitch enough to showcase his disbelief at what Jake had said.

Kate shifted her attention back to her father, who appeared to have aged since she last saw him in New York. His forehead was riddled with lines, and his cheeks were a sallow color. “How—how did you know he called me? Are you tapping my phone?” He looked uncomfortable. Guilty.

“Not yours, but Nathan’s.” Jake handed David the paper. “Nathan was on the phone with you for three minutes around eight last night.”

David’s gaze flickered up from the paper as he shoved it back at Jake. “Nathan called me because he was worried about Kate. He told me that you all showed up at his office.”

“When was the last time you’d talked to him before that?” Jake inquired.

“I can’t remember, but it’s been years.”

“You don’t think Nathan had anything to do with Mom’s death?” she asked.

“I told your pals here,” David said, waving his hand in the air, “that your mom mentioned being followed, but I don’t think whoever followed her—if she was even being followed, for that matter—killed her.” He lowered his head. “If I had only gotten to the house a few minutes sooner, I could have prevented her death.”

“Or been killed yourself.” Connor made his voice known.

David lifted his head to meet Connor’s eyes. “Her necklace was worth a fortune. I scared off the burglars with my arrival, and they must have grabbed the first thing of value that came to hand. The cops found the broken clasp on the floor.”

“And if the murder was premeditated, couldn’t the killer have taken the necklace as a souvenir?” Jake tipped his head.

Her father had no response.

“You keep changing your story. One minute you whisk Kate away from North Carolina out of fear of whoever murdered her mother, and the next minute, you insist that it was a robbery gone wrong.” Jake took a step forward and folded his arms. The muscles of his biceps bulged. “Which is it?”

Kate released her breath. If she held it any longer, she might have passed out. She looked down at the hand that rested on her forearm. Was Michael trying to soothe her? “Dad?” she finally said the word—a word that felt different now . . . foreign, almost.

“Kate, trust me. I’m better suited to keep you safe. New York is where you belong,” her dad said.

“I can’t leave. Not yet.” She took a small step closer to Michael—to the man that was willing to take a bullet for her last night.

Her dad studied them and then started for the elevator doors after a moment. “I’m not leaving Charlotte until you do. Call me when you come to your senses,” he said, loudly enough for her to hear before he disappeared behind the silver doors.

“Should we have told him about Dustin?” she asked, peering up at Michael.

“No. He would’ve had a heart attack.” Michael moved his hand to her shoulder.

“He’s probably confused about everything, which is why he can’t get his story straight.” Well, she hoped that was the case, at least.

“Maybe,” Jake replied.

Michael’s hand lifted at the sound of his ringing cell phone. He reached into his pocket and studied it. “Shit. I have to go.” He placed the unanswered phone back into his pocket. “Can you manage without me for an hour or two?”

“Do you have a work meeting?” Kate asked. She must be throwing his entire work schedule off balance.

“Uh, yeah,” Michael muttered.

“I’ll be fine with these guys watching me,” she said.

Michael looked over at his friends, then gave her a quick nod before leaving.

“Kate, there’s something we need to talk about,” Jake said a minute later, coming up in front of her.

Her eyes glistened with the tears that threatened to challenge her composure. “Yeah?”

* * *

Kate hadn’t spoken to Michael all day.

By the time he returned to the loft, Kate had taken notice of his obvious exhaustion. His shoulders were slouched forward—unusual for him—and his eyes were a bit bloodshot.

She didn’t dare approach him and found herself feeling a bit afraid that he might see through her, as well. He might realize she was keeping something from him.

She spent her afternoon eavesdropping on Jake, Connor, and Michael as they studied the movements of Erick Jensen and Nathan Williams and followed up on leads with the FBI in regards to Dustin Scott. But she didn’t feel like involving herself in their conversation. Their talk of intelligence and software was a bit over her head. Still, every once in a while, she crept down the hall and stopped shy of view from the living area, to catch up on the details.

On her fourth time down the hall, her ears perked up.

“Michael, I understand you don’t want Kate on her date, and she postponed her date earlier today, but I think you should still go on your date,” Jake said.

She couldn’t see Michael’s reaction, but she could envision his body tensing and his facial muscles growing taut. His body gave away his emotions far more than his words, particularly when the emotion was anger or lust.

“Why the hell would I do that?”

Jake didn’t respond right away. Kate pushed her hands against the wall and moved her body a little closer to the edge. Still, she kept enough distance to avoid being seen.

“Let Dustin believe you’re going about business as usual. Since you won’t let me parade Kate around, at least let him think that you aren’t worried about him.”

“Why do I care what Dustin thinks?”

“We have to play his game a little, or we won’t win. We can’t beat a psychopath if we sit back and twiddle our thumbs.”

“You think I am sitting here twiddling my Goddamn thumbs?”

“Come on, Michael. This is my job. This is what I’m trained for. We’re talking about Dustin Scott. He’s been on FBI and Homeland Security’s radar for a while now. We need to catch the SOB.” There was a pause. “If anyone understands this, it should be you. You spend your life helping the government catch scumbags like him.”

“You think whoever hired him is a terrorist?” Disbelief echoed in his voice.

“No, but next week he might be working with ISIS or freaking Vladimir Putin for all we know. He needs to be stopped.”

“Don’t make me regret asking you for help. I will not let you use Kate. If you’ve turned this into some OP for your sake—”

“Sooner or later I need to report that Dustin is in Charlotte. I can’t keep this a secret.”

“Fuck. I’m not asking you to, but I want this to be about keeping Kate safe and not about Dustin.”

“Don’t the two kind of go hand and hand?” Jake shot back.

Kate placed her hand over her mouth as shock plowed its way through each of her organs before slamming into her heart.

Can I really help bring down a traitor?

“Michael, Jake has a point.” It was Connor. He was usually the quiet one in the room. But every once in a while, he spoke up, his words slicing the tension in the air—or creating new waves of it.

“I need to think. It’s been a long day. I’m gonna lie down for a couple of hours. Wake me if you have news.”

She hurried back to her room and shut the door behind her. She needed to give Jake an answer, and she needed to do it while Michael was sleeping.

But what would she say?

* * *

“So?” Jake stood at the sight of Kate as she entered the kitchen.

“You wear glasses?” she asked, avoiding the question.

He smiled and removed the black rimmed glasses from his face. “Only when reading, or if I’ve been staring at a computer screen for hours.” He gave her a small smile.

“Where’s Connor?” she asked while taking a seat at the kitchen table, drumming her fingers as she considered her decision.

He sat across from her and leaned back in his chair. “Tailing Nathan.”

“Oh. Well, I’ve thought about your proposal.” She took in a nervous breath. “I’ll do what you think is best, but Michael will flip.”

“I’ll take the heat. I can handle it.” His voice was calm.

“I don’t want him angry with you.” She moved her hand to her mouth and examined him. He looked every inch as intimidating as Michael. Well, almost.

“Trust me, everything will work out. This is my job.” He stretched his arm out and reached for her hand. With his touch, she felt calmer. Safe.

When in fact, he was putting her in danger.

“What was that?” he asked as his body straightened.

Kate tilted her head in the direction of the sound. Her shoulders slouched forward, feeling Michael’s pain—the pain he wouldn’t share with her. “He’s having a nightmare.” She started to stand.

“I’ll handle it.” Jake motioned for her to sit back down, and then he left the room.

A few minutes later, she heard a commotion coming from down the hall. And then something broke. A lamp, maybe.

“You okay?” she asked when Jake came back in the kitchen with a bloody lip.

“Yeah.” He grabbed a paper towel, wet it, and brought it to his mouth.

“Is Michael okay?” she asked, her voice stitched with worry.

“He will be.”