“Or we can take this more expedient one. I’ll search the Hanstech systems for his signature. I should be able to recognize some of his code if he’s already been in the system. More than that, I’ll keep working on Nora. She knows something.”

“Thirty-six hours.”

“What?”

“I’ll give you . . . us . . . thirty-six hours, and then I need to make contact with my agency.”

His statement felt more like a threat, and she lifted her chin. “I thought I could trust you. Why don’t you just step away now?”

He showed her his palms as if in surrender. “And you can trust me. I have your best interest at heart. And I’m not stepping away. I care about you, and I want you safe. But you do realize this is bigger than either of us, don’t you?”

And more important than her career.

She slumped. She was too tired to argue with him, and he was right, of course. “Just show me to the bedroom. I’m exhausted.”

“Good idea. We both need to sleep on it.”

Alex showed her to the room and then shut the door behind him. She pulled the quilt back and crawled under it.

Beneath the covers, Mackenzie rolled around the somewhat lumpy mattress—what had she expected?—to get comfortable. Sleep should overtake her.

Any minute now.

Soon.

She felt totally and completely safe here with Alex. She could picture him standing guard at the bedroom door, or even outside the cabin. Even though she didn’t appreciate his threat to go to the authorities, asking for his help had been the right thing to do.

When this all started, she hadn’t wanted to go to the authorities because she would have been forced to reveal Julian’s identity. That could have destroyed him after they had both spent years climbing out of the hole they had dug for themselves. But Julian was dead, and his worries were over. A pang ignited in her heart.

Oh . . . God . . .

He was dead. Gone. With a clock ticking down, she didn’t have time to process his death. But she wouldn’t let it be in vain. He’d taken the risk for a reason. Had his message to her been not only a warning but also an invitation to communicate with him in their game like they had years ago? Had he been trying to ask her to get on Knight Alliance? If so, he was dead, and it was too late.

Her lids grew heavy, and she closed her eyes.

Freda Stone raced toward the castle walls on her black steed, hanging on for dear life. Behind her, a thousand hooves thudded against the ground, sounding like thunder as an army of marauders gave chase.

One armored knight guarded the castle.