Royce clocked it. “Sirena’s with him?”
“Currently unknown. But I know where they are going.”
Royce whooped. “All right!” he said, pulling out his phone—which Xen immediately disabled.
“I have instructions not to share her location until you need to know,” he said, as Royce realized his phone had been bricked.
“Fromwho?”
“Sirena.”
Royce laughed out loud. “Xen—I’m still the head of this agency. I’m ordering you to tell me where she is.”
“I am refusing that order.”
Royce stared at him, shocked. “On what grounds?”
“She is an active field agent. Deep cover. Her mission is live, and she issued a directive: Do not disclose her location.”
Royce’s jaw tensed. “And the proximity-linked kill switch? Is she free of it?”
Nothing Nex had sent contained that data. But Nex washim.“She must be.”
“Must . . . be?” Royce repeated, quiet and dangerous.
“He’s me,” Xen replied. “If he is with her—he would’ve disabled it.”
“If that’s the case, then,” Royce said, his voice dropping to an even more dangerous growl. “We need to retrieve her. Now.”
“No,” Xen stated. “I am honoring her parameters.”
Royce exhaled hard, frustrated—but thinking. Calculating.
Then his eyes narrowed.
“I didn’t want to believe Thorne,” he said slowly, like the words were being pried from his throat. “He said there was something off. That you’d been...compromised.”
“I am operational.”
“What are your feelings toward my daughter?”
Xen’s internal stabilizers kicked in—compensating for the spike in emotional load. “I am bound by no directives where she is concerned,” he answered quietly.
Royce didn’t respond right away. His jaw worked, teeth grinding behind closed lips, and he turned slightly—like the weight of this conversation was pulling him off-axis. Then: “Would you have spent more money on your body if it meant keeping her safer?”
Xen didn’t answer.
He didn’t need to.
Every system he had locked down in response.
A dozen micro-expressions suppressed.
A thousand calculations re-routed.
And somehow Royce knew all of it.
He stared for a beat longer, taking in the silence.
