Page 35 of Untamed Hunter Daddy

The words come out raw.

“I want to go back to Alpha Pig. I want to walk in and find Lacey and tell her exactly who the man at that table is and what he’s planning. I want to say the words nobody said to me before it was too late.”

Ryker goes very still. “No,” he says.

“No?”

“Absolutely not. If you walk in there and warn her, Tyler knows you’re alive, he knows you’re in the area, and he knows law enforcement is watching. He disappears. New name, new town, new target. And this time he knows we’re looking, so he goes deeper. We lose him, we lose the network, and you won’t be able to warn every girl.”

“Lacey could be that next girl while we’re building the perfect case.”

“Mason’s got a team on her starting tomorrow. We document every contact. The moment the pattern escalates past the legal threshold, we intervene. But we intervene with evidence that sticks. Move too soon and his lawyer gets everything thrown out and he walks.”

The logic is sound. I still hate it.

“She’s twenty. She’s innocent. She tilts her head when someone is nice to her because she doesn’t know that tilt is being read as an invitation. She’s alone in a room full of people who see nothing wrong because nothing looks wrong. That’s how this works. It looks normal until the door closes.” My voice shakes with fury.

“I’m not asking you to watch,” he says, quieter now. “I’m asking you to trust the process. The team is on it. The moment he crosses the line, we act.”

“The process takes time. Time is his weapon. Weeks of Tuesdays got me from the counter to the locked cabin. Every day your team spends building a case is a day he spends building trust with a girl who doesn’t know she’s being hunted.”

He runs a hand over his face. It’s the first time I’ve seen him look uncertain.

“What would you do?” he asks. “Walk in and tell her the charming regular is a trafficker? She doesn’t know you. Tyler’s been working her for weeks. You show up and she has to choose between a stranger and the man who remembers her name and tips well and makes her feel seen. Who do you think she believes?”

The question stops me cold. I think about myself back then. I’m not sure I would have listened either.

“She might not believe me,” I say. “But she’d hear me. The next time something feels a fraction of a degree wrong, my voice would be in her head. That fraction might be the difference.”

“Or it tips him off and he accelerates. He skips the slow part and goes straight to isolation. Instead of weeks you’ve given her three days, and three days with a man who knows he’s exposed is worse.”

We’re standing four feet apart. Argument distance.

“You told me about the tracks because I deserved to know,” I say. “You told me about Tyler in Alpha Range so I could make decisions with full information. So I’m making a decision and you’re telling me it’s wrong.”

The words hit him. He sits on the other bed.

“You’re right,” he says quietly. “I gave you the information because you deserved the choice. Now you’re making a choice I don’t agree with and my instinct is to overrule it because the professional in me sees the consequences more clearly. And I hear exactly how that sounds.”

He doesn’t say Tyler’s name. He doesn’t have to.

“I’m not controlling you,” he says, voice rough. “I’m trying not to. There’s a difference. And the difference is that if you get up right now and drive to Alpha Range and find Lacey, I won’t stop you. I’ll hate it. I’ll think it’s the wrong call. And I’ll be in the truck waiting when it’s done, because that’s what I said I’d do.”

The room is quiet except for the dripping shower.

“If the team is watching her,” I say slowly, “and if the moment the pattern escalates they intervene—not next week, not when the case is perfect, but the moment it crosses the line—then I’ll wait.”

“You have my word,” he says. “I’ll do the same thing for her that I did for you. Not because she’s a case. Because she’s a person.”

I believe him. His promises hold.

“Okay. Then I’ll wait.”

We don’t close the four feet. We lie on separate beds, listening to each other breathe. The disagreement is still alive between us, but we’re still in the same room.

The next morning Ryker drives me to the regional Marshals’ office in Bridger. He walks me inside, introduces me to Dr. Engel in the hallway, and then does the hardest thing I’ve watched him do since the night he chose the chair… he hands me off.

“I’ll be right down the hall,” he says. “As close as they’ll let me.”