Steele’s Redemption

Chapter 10

Jake

Nash didn't move from the door when I got out of the truck. That alone told me it was worse than a phone call could cover.

"Walk with me," he said, glancing at Emma. "Both of you. You should hear this together."

We went into the shop instead of the office—more room, fewer walls to make it feel like an interrogation. Nash leaned against the workbench, arms crossed, and laid it out clean, the way he always did. No dressing it up. No leaving anything out either.

"Guy matching the description from three weeks ago showed up outside Emma's building an hour ago. Talked to the property manager, said he was 'checking on a friend.' Manager didn't give him anything, but he didn't call us either—called after the guy left. So we lost him."

"He know which unit?" I asked.

"Manager says no. But he had the address. That's not nothing."

I looked at Emma. She was standing very still, arms wrapped around herself, but her eyes were steady on Nash, not glazed over, not somewhere else. She was here. Present. Taking it in like information instead of a threat crawling up her spine.

"Okay," I said. "Here's what we know for sure. Somebody connected to Derek has the address of your rented room. We don't know if they know which unit, we don't know if they followed us from anywhere, and we don't know if this is the same person who came asking about you at the shop three weeks ago." I paused. "That's the facts. Everything else is a guess, and I'd rather tell you it's a guess than dress it up as something solid."

"Appreciate that," she said quietly.

"So the question is what you want to do. Not what I think you should do."

She raised an eyebrow. "You have thoughts, though."

"I always have thoughts. Doesn't mean they're the ones that matter here."

That got the smallest curve at the corner of her mouth—gone fast, but I saw it.

"What are the actual options," she said, "not the diplomatic version."

"Go back to the room, and we increase security there—someone watching the building, cameras on the entrance, the works. Stay at the penthouse, like we talked about this morning, until we know more. Or something further out, if you want distance from all of it, but that means distance from the shop too."

"I don't want distance from the shop." No hesitation there. "I like the work. I like—" She stopped, chose different words. "It's the first thing that's felt like mine in a long time. I'm not giving that up because he's circling."

Nash caught my eye. Neither of us said what we were both thinking, which was that stubbornness, and courage, were sometimes the same animal wearing different names.

"Then you keep working," I said. "We change your route, vary the hours a little, and Nash puts someone on the building until we're sure it's clear. That doesn't mean you're a prisoner. It means we're not leaving you exposed while we figure out how much he actually knows."

"And the penthouse?"

"Still standing. Still yours if you want it." I kept my voice even, because I meant that literally—not a favor, not leverage, just a door that locked and nobody outside our circle knew existed. "Your call."

She looked between me and Nash, weighing it the way she weighed everything—slow, careful, unwilling to hand over a decision just because it was easier to let someone else make it.

"I'll stay there. For now." Then, quieter: "I want to help with the plan, though. Not just live inside one you built."

"That's the idea," Nash said, and for the first time since he'd started talking, some of the grimness in his face eased. "You know things about him we don't. What he'd think of, who he'd use, what he'd try first. That's not nothing."

Emma nodded slowly, like the idea of her knowledge being useful instead of dangerous was new. "He'd use money before muscle. He always did. People are cheaper than mistakes."

"That tracks with what we're seeing," Nash said. "Guy at the building didn't push. Didn't threaten anybody. Just asked, left, no trace worth following. That's not the profile of somebody who's planning to grab you off the street. That's somebody building a picture first."

"Which means he's patient," Emma said.

"Which means we need to be faster," I said.

I watched her think about that, watched the fear pass through her and come out the other side as something closer to resolve. "I want to write down what happened. All of it—dates, what he did, what I remember. If there's ever a case, I don't want to be trying to remember details three months from now."

"I can get you someone to help with that," I said. "A domestic violence advocate, somebody who does this for a living, knows how to build it the right way. And a lawyer, if you want one in the room from the start. I'm not going to promise you a specific outcome. I don't control what a court does. But I can make sure you're not doing this without someone in your corner who knows the process."

"That's more than I've had this whole time," she said, and something in her voice cracked slightly at the edges before she pulled it steady again.

Nash gave us a minute—stepped outside to make a call, leaving just the two of us in the quiet hum of the shop lights.

"You keep asking," Emma said, after a moment. "Before you do anything. You noticed that?"

"I noticed."

"Nobody's done that in a long time." She looked at her hands, then back up at me. "I want you to know—staying near you, it's not just because I'm scared of him. It's a choice. My choice."

I didn't reach for her. Didn't say anything that would turn the moment into something bigger than it needed to be. "Good," I said simply. "That's how it should be."

Nash came back in before either of us could say more, and the look on his face erased whatever warmth had built in the room.

"Got something," he said, holding up his phone. "The property manager remembered one more thing. Guy asked if Emma had any mail forwarded. Manager said no, but—" He hesitated. "Somebody canceled her forwarding request last week. Before she even set it up."

The room went very quiet.

"That means someone had her name and enough information to intercept mail before she requested it," I said slowly, "which means Derek's not just paying people to ask questions."

Emma's face had gone pale. "He has someone inside something. The post office, a records office—something."

"Or someone closer than that," Nash said, and didn't finish the sentence, because none of us wanted to say the next part out loud.

Somebody with access. Somebody who might be closer to us than we'd let ourselves imagine.