Page 73 of Claimed on the Ridge

"My father's."

His father's contact. Not his own. He reached past his own network into a dead man's, which means whatever he asked for lives outside the kind of help you get by picking up a phone book.

"What did you ask him?"

"To look into Gary Simmons. Who he is. What he has. What it would take to make him stop."

Each word is a nail. He drives them in with the same unhurried certainty he brings to everything, and the honesty is the worst part. He isn't lying. He isn't scrambling to construct a story that softens the edges. He is telling me exactly what he did because he believes what he did was right, and the certainty in his voice is so steady it could hold a building up.

My hands are still on the surface. The coffee sits untouched beside them.

"You waited until I was in the shower."

"Yes."

"You timed it."

He doesn't answer immediately. The pause is the answer. He could have made this call in his office with the door closed. He could have made it while I was reading in the main room. He chose the shower because the shower guaranteed I wouldn't walk in on it. He could complete the conversation, put the phone down, and compose himself before I came back into the room.

"I was going to tell you,” he says.

"When?"

"When I had information worth sharing."

"You were going to filter it." The sentence comes out quiet. The quiet is worse than volume, and I learned that from the best. "You were going to decide what I needed to know, and when I needed to know it, and how much of it I could handle. You were going to give me the version you edited."

"Kendall."

"I'm talking."

He closes his mouth. The obedience is immediate and reflexive, and on another day the speed of it would be satisfying. Today it confirms what I already know. He's listening because he recognizes the tone, not the words. It belongs to a woman who is about to say something she cannot take back.

I pick up the coffee. I drink. The heat steadies my hands, and I need my hands steady because I'm about to dismantle this man with the same measured calm I used to survive the last one.

"You told me to stay in the kitchen while Gary's men were at the door," I say. "That was tactical. I agreed because it was smart, and because you gave me an exit while you did it. That's the difference, Alex. You treated me like a partner in a bad situation. You told me the plan. You gave me a choice. I made it."

I set the mug down.

"You waited until I was naked and wet and a floor above you with the water running. Then you picked up the phone and moved pieces around my life. You called a man I've never met, using connections I didn't know existed, and asked him to investigate the person who is hunting me. You made a decision about my safety, my situation, my future, without telling me it was happening."

"That's about right. What you don't seem to grasp is that the threat is real." I start to interrupt, but he waves me off and keeps going. "I know you know it's real. You've known it was real for a long time. He's coming. The timeline is shrinking, and the man I called can get us the information faster than all your notepads, diagrams and my brothers and I can."

"Faster." The word tastes like ash. "You had my intelligence, your brothers on the perimeter, and a woman who spent four years memorizing every dinner party, every phone call, every business meeting where Gary thought I was too stupid to understand what I was hearing." I meet his gaze across the counter. "And it wasn't enough. You went around all of it."

He doesn't look away. The steadiness in him is infuriating because it means he still thinks he's right. He still believes, under every word I'm saying, that the call was the correct decision and the only mistake was getting caught.

"I made a call. I'd make it again."

"That's the problem."

"No." His voice drops. "The problem is that Gary Simmons has money, reach, and a missing persons report with your face on it. The problem is that he sent two men to my door and I don't know when he sends the next two. The problem is that you're standing in my kitchen comparing me to the man who broke your ribs because I picked up a phone."

"Because you picked up a phone behind my back."

"Behind your back. While you were upstairs. Without asking your permission first. Pick the version you want. I'll own all of them." He pushes off the counter, and the full height of him fills the kitchen. "But I'm not going to apologize for trying to keep you alive."

There it is. The certainty fills the kitchen, unshakable and bedrock-deep, belonging to a man who has decided he knows best and will not be moved by anything except his own reckoning.