“Then maybe,” Elara said softly, “you don’t know Hydra as well as you think.”
Silence. You could have heard a pin hit the tile.
River broke it with the scrape of a chair. “That’ll do. We’ll take it from here.”
But as they moved to shuffle her off for interrogation, her eyes never left mine. Cold. Burning. A message I couldn’t read.
Distrust carved deeper into my gut. But so did something else—something I didn’t want to name.
7
Elara
The interrogation room smelled of disinfectant and steel. No windows. No clock. Just me, a table, and a two-way mirror.
I didn’t need to guess who was on the other side. I felt him—Beckett Cole. Watching. Waiting for me to crack.
The man across from me wore the uniform of authority: pressed shirt, clipped tone, pen tapping a steady rhythm. He asked questions the way surgeons cut—methodical, unfeeling. I figured he was FBI, probably a friend of The Golden Team.
“How long were you with Hydra?”
“Eleven years.”
“What was your primary function?”
“Public relations. Fund allocation. Networking. Defending Roger Grand.”
His brows arched. “And in all that time, you claim you didn’t know about the trafficking operations?”
“I knew they were corrupt,” I said evenly. “But I believed it was financial. Political.” My throat tightened, but I forced the words out clean. “Not girls in cages. Not needles in veins. If I had—” I stopped myself. Words meant nothing here. Only proof.
The agent leaned back, unimpressed. “You expect us to believe that?”
No. Of course not. I don’t care if you believe me or not.
But I lifted my chin anyway, because weakness was death. “Believe it or don’t. My intel got you inside that warehouse. My intel will get you to Roger Grand. The rest…” My voice sharpened. “…is irrelevant.”
A shift beyond the mirror. Not movement I could see, but something Ifelt. Beckett. He didn’t buy a word. And yet—he hadn’t walked away.
The agent closed his file with a snap. “That’ll do for now.”
When the door clicked shut, I let my breath out in one slow stream. Not relief—just survival.
And then, through the mirror, I whispered the truth I couldn’t tell them:
“I didn’t know. God help me, I didn’t.”
I saw it, faint as smoke—the outline of Beckett’s shoulders stiffening.
And for the first time, I wondered if maybe—just maybe—he’d heard me.
8
Beckett
Ididn’t plan on being the one waiting outside the interrogation room. But when the door opened and she stepped out, I was there—arms crossed, shoulders braced against the wall like I’d been rooted to the spot.
Elara froze when she saw me. Just a flicker, but I caught it. The bandage tugged against her collarbone when she straightened, chin lifting like she’d practiced in the mirror a thousand times. Untouchable. Perfect.
