Power is a dangerous thing. If you’ve never had it, you can drown in the first taste.
“Let’s start easy,” I say mildly. “No heavy lifting yet. Unlock your phone.”
Talon is already pulling it from his pocket; he tosses it to me.
Mark licks his lips. “I—no—”
Talon laughs softly. “Buddy. We can do this the fun way—Face ID with a little eyelid assist—or the boring way where we go straight to torture.”
Nathaniel doesn’t even blink. “Passcode,” he says.
Mark’s eyes snap to me, hunting for mercy. Why would I give him any? These men… These absolute strangers who terrify him, are hereforme. They want to settlemyscores.
“Sk—”
“Give me the code,” I say.
“One… one-two… zero-four,” he croaks. “Jessica’s—”
“Birth month and day,” I finish. “I know. I’ve seen the date circled on the calendar.”
I’ve seen the three-course birthday parties too. Jessica’s parents would come over; some of her high-school friends who never left town. Once they had a whole fondue night: tiny toothpicks, perfect berries, Mark burning the chocolate. She smiled anyway.
Nathaniel is already moving.
“Airplane mode,” he says, and before Mark can frame a lie I tap 1-2-0-4. The screen blinks awake. Nathaniel flips the toggle,kills the radios, then pops the back of his leather binder to reveal a little black brick with a coiled cable.
“We’ll clone it locally,” he murmurs, mostly to himself. I don’t know the tech, but I don’t need to. As long as Mark understands his life is about to be ruined from the ground up, I’m fine.
I let Nathaniel take the phone. His thumbs dance.
“Banking. Messages. Cloud drive. Oh, notes app passwords. People always trust their brain dumps.” A small, pleased noise. “And there’s our shell cascade.”
Mark watches the screen like a statue. Only the tremor in his throat and the swallow remind me he’s still flesh.
“Great,” I say, suddenly empty. “Now say it out loud.”
He drags his eyes up. The leather at his throat creaks. “Say… what?”
“That you killed me. Say my name. Say what you did.”
He flinches. I can see him reach for the old handles of control and come up empty.
“We can help your memory,” Talon says.
I look at my redhead fox-face. He taps the crowbar lightly against the concrete, glances at me, winks. The emptiness shifts. It fills out a little. I turn back to Mark.
“Does the name Duvall ring a bell?”
The name lands like a punch under his ribs. His gaze cuts to me, then away, then back again, like he thinks he can swap his past if he picks the right version fast enough.
Yeah, no such luck.
Nathaniel doesn’t even look up from the phone as he reads, voice low, almost gentle: “Funds moved. Two LLCs. Third-party ‘security retainer.’ A closed-door ‘conversation.’ You left her with him.” He tilts the screen so the blue-white glow washes Mark’s face. “And then Skye killed Duvall trying to save herself.”
The generator hums. My pulse roars, loud enough to drown it.
I step closer, until the metal edge of the chair hooks on the lace of my pants.
