I stand my ground. “So you want me glued to your side but not useful.”
“I want you alive,” he shoots back.
We look at each other for a long beat. Traffic beeps and hisses below. I feel stubborn and small at the same time.
“Privacy,” he says, holding my gaze. “Precision.” A beat. “Truth.”
“Truth,” I repeat. “I’m scared, and I want to help.”
“Precision,” he replies. “You help by not making new problems for me to solve.”
He doesn’t raise his voice. He doesn’t have to.
He surprises me with his next words. No anger. No lecture. Just decision. “IT will scrub your devices. Your new phone stays onour profile. Any search like this goes through Alex or no one at all.”
He snaps the laptop fully shut and sets it aside. “Work hours are done.”
“It isn’t five o’clock yet,” I say. Pride makes me stupid sometimes. Also the fact that I found something I want to show off, like a kid with a shiny rock.
“Cars are downstairs.”
I try one more time, because if I don’t, I’ll think about it all night. “I found a badge printer shop in an office park shared with two of the party vendors. It could be nothing. Or it could be something.”
“Send it to me.”
I breathe out and forward it to him. His phone buzzes. He glances at the screen, then files it away, saying nothing. The kind where something gets done, but you don’t get to see it.
“Route C,” he calls to Orlov through the open door. “Ten-minute clock.”
Orlov’s “Copy” floats back. He’s already moving, murmuring into the secure line.
Damien lifts my coat from the rack and holds it open. It’s a small truce. I slide my arms in and he smooths the collar, the touch more practical than anything else.
“We’re going home,” he says. “We eat. You sleep.”
“Bossy,” I mutter.
“Effective.”
I leave the laptop exactly where he put it. The office lights dim as we walk past, the building’s sensors deciding we’re done. Outside the window, the city has tipped from blue to black.
In the elevator, our reflections stand side by side in the brushed steel. I look like a woman who is trying to be calm. He looks like a man whoiscalm. I want to chase every thread I found, call every number, knock on the door of that office park and ask to see the machine. Instead, I clasp my hands and count the floors down.
The doors open into the parking garage. Two SUVs idle, warm air from the exhaust pushing against the cold. Alex stands by the lead car, phone to his ear, eyes darting around. Orlov opens the rear door and scans the corners.
I’m still curious. Still scared. Still on the edge of something I can’t name yet. But I asked for what I needed today, and I got it.
I follow Damien into the car.
CHAPTER 22
CASSANDRA
My phone buzzes on the nightstand, sharp against the quiet.
Downstairs. Now.
His text cuts through the haze of my thoughts, pulling me from the edge of sleep. The house feels hushed, as if it’s holding its breath. I slip out of bed, my heart thudding with a mix of nerves and want.
