Page 129 of Archer

I kept up the job.

Protect a three-story, four-thousand-square-foot beach house with a dozen points of entry until reinforcements arrived?

No problem.

Fucking hell.

Twenty minutes passed, and my pace slowed. I checked locks, adding to the process, peering through each window as I did. Assessing the exterior surroundings. Searching for signs of Webb or his boat.

I passed the living room sliders, the front door, the kitchen window.

Then turned for the stairs.

An unfamiliar creak and snap registered between wind gusts at the rear deck doors, and I spun toward the living room.

But I was too late.

“He’s here.”

Chapter 43

Archer

The lock gave and the door slid open, sending a tunnel of biting wind and sheeting rain inside.

Webb stood on the other side of the threshold, soaked to the bone, face hollowed by shadow and rage. For one fractured second, he looked like a ghost. Like something the storm had conjured and hauled up from the sea.

Then he stepped over the metal track, and lightning glinted off the silver blade of a hunting knife in his hand.

Desperate, deluded, dangerous.

And he’d come here for Harper.

Twelve feet and a single armchair separated us.

He raised his weapon. “Step back.”

His eyes moved over the room, then past me to the staircase. Looking for her. Seeing me as a mere obstacle.

“That’s not happening.” I tucked my phone into my pocket to free up my hands.

Disbelief crossed his face, brief and genuine, as though that possibility hadn’t occurred to him. “I’m not asking your permission.”

I projected my voice above the storm now soaking Knox’s living room floor and called up the nearby stairs.

“Harper. Go into my room and lock the door. Now.”

I fixed my eyes on Webb, praying she’d heard me and done as I asked.

He moved forward, further into the living room, rain gushing in behind him. Water dripped from his clothes and skin onto the floor.

His gaze rose to the ceiling, as if he could see her there.

“I’m here,” he called. “I came for you.”

He brought his attention back to me, and I widened my stance.

“Put the knife down,” I ordered. “This doesn’t have to go any further.”