Chapter 5 - THE VISITOR AT THE GATES
The temperature in the room plummeted.
Jared’s expression shifted instantly from the vulnerable owner mourning his pet to the ruthless underworld figure who commanded New York’s shadows. The softness vanished from his eyes, replaced by a cold, calculation that sent a shistle of unease straight down my spine.
“Whose vehicle?” Jared asked, his voice dropping into a razor-sharp whisper.
“We don’t know yet,” Miles replied, tapping the screen of his phone. “The perimeter cameras show a black town car ramming the outer service gate ten minutes ago. Security stopped them before they reached the main courtyard, but... the passenger refused to give a name. They’re demanding to speak with you directly.”
Jared looked down at Atlas, who had curled his massive body tighter around my boots at the sound of the tension in the room. The dog let out a low, warning rumble deep in his throat, his ears pinning back against his skull.
“Stay here with him,” Jared told me, his gaze locking onto mine with an intensity that brooked no argument. “Do not let him move.”
“I’m not a prisoner here, Mr. Kensington,” I said, my chin coming up. “And neither is he.”
“I know,” Jared said grimly, turning toward the door. “That’s why I’m going to make sure no one else ever comes near either of you again.”
With that, Jared and Miles strode out of the west wing, the heavy oak door clicking shut behind them with a muffled, ominous thud.
I was left alone in the vast, quiet medical suite with a one-hundred-and-fifty-pound Mastiff resting his heavy head across my feet. The rhythmic rise and fall of his breathing was the only sound in the room, grounding me against the sudden spike of adrenaline.
Who was trying to force their way into the Kensington estate at midnight?
And more importantly, why did a sudden, icy dread whisper in the back of my mind that this uninvited visitor had something to do with the reasons I had fled my old life in Chicago three years ago?
I shook my head, trying to banish the dark thoughts. I was Willa Thornton now. A broke, overworked veterinary aide hiding in plain sight in a Brooklyn clinic. No one from my past knew where I was. No one could find me here—especially not wrapped in the fortress of a man like Jared Kensington.
I reached down, my fingers gently brushing through the thick, silver-gray fur behind Atlas’s ears. The dog leaned into my touch, letting out a long, shuddering sigh that seemed to release months of pent-up tension.
“It’s okay, big guy,” I whispered, scratching the spot right where his collar used to sit.
That was when my fingers brushed against something hard and metallic buried deep in his fur.
Frowning, I parted the thick coat around his neck. It wasn’t a flea collar. It wasn’t a standard ID tag.
It was a small, heavy silver medallion on a thick leather strap, engraved with a set of coordinates and a single, chilling phrase in Latin: Custos Memoriae—Keeper of the Memory.
May you like
My breath caught in my throat.
I knew that phrase. I had seen those exact words carved into the wooden desk of the man I had spent two years running away from.
