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Lockdown
publish date:
2026-09-26 13:46:35
Latest chapter
Caged By His Love A debt
MELANIE’S POVI went to see my father alone the next day, against Jethro’s initial objection, though he’d relented once I promised to take two of the new guards with me and to call the moment I arrived.I found him in his study again, the same room where he’d handed me the note two days before, except now the desk had been cleared of everything except a single glass of scotch he wasn’t drinking, just turning slowly between his hands.“You shouldn’t have come alone,” he said, without looking up.“I’m not alone. There are two men outside who could probably take apart this house with their bare hands if they needed to.” I sat down across from him, uninvited this time. “Dad, I need you to tell me the truth. All of it. Not the version you think I can handle.”He set the glass down. “I’ve told you everything I know about the note.”“That’s not what I’m asking about.” I leaned forward. “Jethro’s people found a gap in your building’s security footage. Three weeks before the break-in. Someone
Caged By His Love Vanished
JETHRO’S POV“The shipment’s gone,” Brandon said, standing in my study the next morning with the particular grim set to his shoulders that told me he already knew I wasn’t going to like whatever came next. “Not gone as in destroyed. Gone as in moved before we ever had eyes on the warehouse.”“How is that possible? You said you had someone watching the location within hours of finding the flag.”“We did. But the shipment cleared customs two weeks before we found it, Jethro. It had two weeks to disappear into the city before we even knew to look.” He dropped a folder onto my desk, photographs spilling slightly out of the edge. “Empty crates. A padlock that looked untouched but wasn’t. Whoever moved it knew exactly how to make it look like nothing had happened at all.”I picked up one of the photographs — a warehouse interior, dust undisturbed on the floor except for a single set of tire tracks leading to a bay door. “Professional.”“Very. This isn’t some street crew Rodrigo hired off a
Caged By His Love The Note
MELANIE’S POVMy father called again three days later, his voice tight in a way that put me on edge before he’d even said what he was calling about.“Melanie. I need you to come to the house.”“Dad, what’s going on?”“Just come. Bring Jethro with you.”He hung up before I could ask anything else, and I stood in the kitchen holding the phone for a long moment, listening to the dial tone, my stomach already sinking toward my shoes.Jethro drove us over himself rather than calling a driver, his jaw tight the whole way, one hand resting protectively on my knee at every red light like he needed the reassurance of touching me as much as I needed to be touched.“Whatever it is,” he said, as we turned onto my parents’ street, “we handle it together. No pulling away to protect me from it. No pretending you’re fine when you’re not.”“I know.”“I mean it, Melanie.”“I know,” I said again, softer this time, because I understood he wasn’t really talking about today. He was talking about the two da
Caged By His Love Lockdown
MELANIE’S POVI noticed the changes before Jethro said a word about them.New faces at the gate when I left for work Monday morning — men I didn’t recognize, standing where Marcus and Deni usually stood, though Marcus and Deni were still there too, just further back, like the new men had been layered on top of the old rather than replacing them. A second car following mine the whole way to the office, keeping exactly four lengths back, never closing the distance, never falling behind.By Wednesday, there were cameras at the office building I hadn’t noticed before, small and unobtrusive, tucked into corners where I only spotted them because I’d started looking.“You could have told me,” I said that night, dropping my bag by the bedroom door and rounding on him before he’d even looked up from his laptop.“Told you what?”“That you turned my entire life into a security operation without mentioning it to me first.” I crossed my arms. “I counted six new men at the house today. Six, Jethro.
Caged By His Love Lost shipment
JETHRO’S POVBrandon showed up within the hour, hair still damp from a shower he clearly hadn’t finished, jacket thrown on over what looked like the shirt he’d slept in. I appreciated that about him — the man didn’t waste time making himself presentable when I called at two in the morning.“What’s going on?” he asked, following me into the study.“Rodrigo called Lycan Wright.” I didn’t bother softening it, didn’t bother easing him into the shape of the problem. “Last week. Asking about Melanie. I want to know everything you can find by sunrise.”Brandon’s face changed, the sleepy irritation dropping away fast. “You think he’s coming here. To the country, I mean, not just calling from wherever he’s hiding this time.”“I think he never stopped planning to.” I dropped into the chair behind my desk, the leather cold against my back. “I let myself believe, these past months, that Rodrigo understood exactly what would happen if he touched Melanie again. That the message I sent with Alexa’s
Caged By His Love No more secrets
MELANIE’S POVI didn’t tell Jethro about the phone call right away.I don’t know why, exactly. Maybe because I was tired of every conversation between us turning into a crisis before it even had the chance to be an ordinary Tuesday. Maybe because some small, stupid part of me wanted one more day of just being happy before the next disaster came looking for us. I’d had exactly six weeks of feeling like an actual wife instead of a woman standing guard over her own life, and I wasn’t ready to hand that feeling back yet.I lasted two days.We were in bed, the lights off, his arm heavy and warm across my waist, when I finally said it into the dark, the words coming out smaller than I meant them to.“Rodrigo called my dad.”Jethro went very still beside me. I felt the change in his breathing before he even spoke, the way his chest stopped its easy rhythm against my back.“When?”“Last week. Dad only told me two days ago, when he called me over to the house.”“What did he say? Word for word,
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