Page 82 of Shadow Burn

“Federal protection failed you once.”

“Shadow Point didn’t.”

“Then let me come with you.”

Her eyes closed briefly.

“Katherine.”

She opened them. “You can’t.”

He pushed off the desk. “I can find work in Virginia. I can even coordinate with Vivi remotely. Sebastian can handle security operations under my direction.”

“Jasper.”

“I’m serious.”

“I know.” She looked toward the window, toward the fence line, the compound, the world he’d helped build with people who were more family than team. “I can’t let you do it.”

His chest tightened. “Let me?”

“You know what I mean.”

“No, I don’t think I do.”

She gave him a look. “We barely know each other. Blackridge is your home. Shadow Point is your home. Vivi, Garrett, Mack, CB, Sebastian, Reid—all of them depend on you. This place depends on you.”

“You think I care about a building more than I care about you?”

“I think you care about the people inside it and your life here with them. If you follow me to Virginia because you’re afraid, part of you will regret it later, and I don’t want to be the person who pulls you away from the life you chose.”

“You wouldn’t be.”

“Not on purpose, but it would happen. I can’t be your submarine on land. What you have here is true and important. Bending yourself to fit into my life would only lead to resentment.”

He wanted to argue. She was wrong. He could pack a bag in ten minutes. Every server in the building could be accessed remotely. The team could operate without him standing in this exact office.

He wanted to tell her that if she got on that plane without him, he’d spend every hour imagining threats in every hallway she walked through.

But she was looking at him with the same fierce tenderness she’d shown when she wrapped his wound, and he knew she wasn’t pushing him away because she didn’t want him. She was trying not to take what she thought belonged to him.

That made him want to tear something apart. “You’re not safe there,” he said.

“I’m not safe anywhere if the wrong people want me dead.”

He plowed his fingers through his hair. “Katherine.”

Her mouth curved faintly. “You’re being overly paranoid.”

“I’m being appropriately paranoid.”

“You always think that.”

“Because I’m usually right.”

She sighed. “Jasper, please. At least give it a week or two. Think it through.”

He looked away because the softness in her voice was going to undo him. His gaze landed on the sticky note beneath his monitor. Her handwriting. One line from the cipher key, copied in her neat, cramped script.