POV: Hunter
He needed to see the safe.
The police had the house taped off as a crime scene, but the tape was just plastic. The real security was the patrol car that did a slow drive-by every few hours. Hunter watched it from a cluster of trees at the edge of his property at 3 AM. Right on schedule. He had a ninety-minute window.
This is insane. You're breaking into your own house. But he had to know. The map had marked it. What had they wanted from it? What had Tessa told them was in it?
He moved through the backyard like a ghost, avoiding the motion sensor light he'd never gotten around to fixing—a fact also probably on the map. He used a credit card to slip the lock on the back patio door. The alarm panel was dead, its wires cut by the intruders. He stepped inside.
The house was a tomb. The smell of gunpowder and blood was gone, replaced by the stale, cold smell of abandonment. Police chalk outlines stained the floor. His furniture was shredded and overturned. He didn't let himself feel it. He was here for one thing.
He went to his office. The bookshelf was askew. He righted it, found the specific, unremarkable history book—The Guns of August—and pulled it forward. Behind it was a small, tactile keypad set into the wall. He typed the five-digit code: the date of his first deployment.
A soft click. A section of the wall, disguised as part of the wood paneling, swung inward.
The hidden safe was small, meant for documents and valuables. He opened it.
The light from his flashlight fell on the contents.
His medals—the Bronze Star, the Purple Heart—lay in their cases, untouched. A stack of important documents: his discharge papers, their marriage license, the deed to the house. All there.
But the cash was gone.
He always kept $15,000 in emergency cash in the safe. In hundreds and fifties. A soldier's habit: always have a bug-out fund. It was gone. Every single bill.
He stared into the empty space where the money had been. The map had shown this safe. The hitmen had been looking for it. They had come for the money. But why? Professional hitters wouldn't risk a home invasion for fifteen grand. It wasn't enough.
Unless… unless they weren't just looking for money. Unless they were looking for something else, and took the money to make it look like a robbery. Or unless the money was just a bonus. A payment for Tessa? For Morgan?
A worse thought hit him. Did Tessa take the money herself? To give to her mother? Did she empty the safe and then tell Sterling where to find it, so they could take the blame?
His head spun. He closed the safe, hearing the solid thunk of the lock. The emptiness echoed in his soul. They hadn't just invaded his home. They had taken the last piece of his sense of security. His emergency fund. His control.
He slipped back out the way he came, vanishing into the night. As he reached the trees, he saw the patrol car's headlights turn onto his street again, right on time.
He was gone before the light swept over his hiding spot.
Back at the safe house, he stood in the dark living room, looking at the closed bedroom door where Tessa slept. The empty safe and the secret transfers were two pieces of the same ugly puzzle. His wife was at the center. And he had to look her in the eye tomorrow and pretend he didn't know.
He had the facts. But he still didn't have the truth. And the not-knowing was a cold, hard knot in his stomach.
He needed to talk to Riley. She was looking into Sterling. But first, he had to confront the source.
He had to ask his wife a simple question over breakfast.
Hunter finds the safe empty, confirming the hitmen's target and deepening his suspicion that Tessa is involved in more than just secret transfers.