Page 2 of Her Grumpy Protector

“We go smart,” Crewe says immediately, his voice carrying the weight of years guarding high-profile targets.

Colt bristles, pacing halting. “Smart is how they got away in the first place. We should've hit harder from the start.”

“No,” I snap, and my voice cuts sharper than I intend, echoing my role as the intel guy who prevents disasters. Everyone stills. I take a breath and force myself back into control, the data grounding me. “Smart is how we get them back alive. And find Dad in the process.”

Jace’s jaw flexes, but he nods. “So what’s the plan, professor?” It's his old nickname for me, from when I'd bury myself in code while he trained.

I look down at my screen again. “We don’t chase into Halo City blind. We need a hook. A reason to be there that doesn’t scream Hawthorne brothers on a rescue op for our kidnapped siblings and missing father.”

Crewe’s eyes narrow. “We already have one. Dad’s trail pointed there weeks ago.”

“Dad’s trail is what got Nash and Sin taken,” I say flatly. “We need a new angle. Something tied to the same network. Something we can access without tripping every alarm in that viper's nest.”

Mack’s voice comes through the headset again, controlled now but tight, his logistics brain kicking in. “Banks. Talk to me. What do you have?”

“Halo City,” I say. “That’s where the vehicle path points. They’re moving Nash and Sin into a controlled environment—probably one of those fortified compounds run by the security firms there.”

A low exhale from Mack. “Of course they are. Fits the pattern we've seen in Dad's notes.”

“We need to break their control,” I add.

“How?”

I stare at the map. The truth is sitting right there in the roads and the timing. In the fact that they didn’t kill Nash and Sin outright—they took them alive, zip-tied and dragged, not executed. That means they want something. They want us to stop our search for Dad. Or they want us to trade information. Or they want to see how far we’ll go to get our family back.

“By giving them a problem they can’t predict,” I say.

Mack goes quiet for a beat. “Meaning?”

Meaning I take a mission. A solo op that gets me into Halo City with legitimacy, using my private security credentials as cover.

Salt & Steel, one of the firms Sin’s contracted with before, has contacts there. Maddox, Security has ties too. Elena Sands has contacts everywhere. Rowan’s mother is a shadowy financier who's already proven she’s willing to fund our hunt for Dad, slipping us leads and resources.

Rowan’s story—the one we uncovered a few weeks ago—cracked open a corporation’s skeleton. It proved what we’ve suspected all along: Love is leverage. Money is a weapon. And the people behind Dad's disappearance are comfortable operating in grayzones. Halo City is where gray becomes black, a hub for the kind of private security ops that blur into something darker.

I click into another file on my tablet. A name. A case lead Vance Landon from Halo Protective Group sent weeks ago that I logged and ignored because it didn’t fit our timeline for finding Dad.

Now it fits perfectly.

A whistleblower in Halo City. A woman tied to a financial pipeline that connects corporate security contractors—like the ones we all work for—to shell nonprofits and a D.C. consultancy. The same kind of structure Rowan exposed. The same kind of structure that keeps circling our father’s name like sharks in bloody water.

She’s a loose end. And someone in Halo City wants her silenced—permanently.

I lift my gaze to the trees, to my brothers gathered around, to the sky that looks too calm for what it just took from us. “I’m going to Halo City,” I say.

Colt steps forward instantly, rifle shifting. “Like hell you are alone. We're brothers—we go together.”

“You’re not my babysitter,” I shoot back, though I know his tactical instincts are screaming to form a team.

Jace laughs without humor. “That’s rich coming from you, the guy who babysits us with drones and hacks.”

Crewe’s eyes narrow. “Banks. Explain.”

I tap the tablet, pulling up the case file and sharing it via our encrypted link. “There’s a target in Halo City. A woman. Anniston Wells. She’s connected to a pipeline that matcheswhat Rowan uncovered—financial trails leading to the same consultancy network Dad was investigating. Vance flagged it as a possible overlap. If I take the mission under my private security alias, I get inside. I get access to their systems, their people. I get a trail that could lead to Nash, Sin,andDad.”

Colt’s face darkens, but he sees the logic. “And you think that trail leads to Nash and Sin.”

“I think it leads to the people who took them,” I say. “And if I can get close enough to the truth, I can force a mistake—expose their operation, draw them out.”