Vivian tightened her hold on Mara, feeling the small fingers curl around her thumb.
“Then we use that,” she said. “We keep the story alive until they show their hand.”
Maddox exhaled, something like admiration shadowing his expression.
“The women, including Mara, we’re sending to safe medical,” he said. “Laurel Tide will sniff for any survivors. We can’t risk a standard transport.”
Vivian’s jaw clenched. “Then give them a distraction.”
A beat. A nod. Agreement.
“Vivian…” Maddox said, voice low. “You know what you have to do.”
She did.
She also knew that if Blake had been captured, the same people who had gutted the agency would use him as leverage.
She crouched to Mara’s eye level. The girl blinked up at her, tired and trusting.
“I’ll come back,” Vivian said, sealing it as truth because she needed it to be.
Mara nodded once, small and brave.
When Vivian stood, she handed the child to Maddox. It felt like passing a live ember through fire.
“You’ll keep her safe,” she said—an order, not a request.
“I will,” Maddox replied.
The boat crew signaled. Time was up.
Vivian stepped back from them both, the wind cold against her face.
“What will you do?” Maddox asked.
Vivian lifted her chin, storm carving hard lines across her features.
“Go off-book,” she said. “Find who ordered this. Use every piece they handed me—Thirteen’s meet, your intel, Blake’s supposed death.”
Her voice hardened into something lethal.
“And if Blake’s alive,” she added, “there’s only one place he’ll be.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The nightoutside the old cabin was too quiet, as if the world had paused mid-breath.
Vivian crouched in the tree line thirty yards out, rain slipping off her hood, and let her eyes adjust to the dark. Thirteen’s warning that the off-books safehouse had been compromised pulsed in her mind like a bruise.
So she watched.
No silhouettes behind the windows.
No unnatural warmth bleeding through the glass.
She waited until the woods surrounding the cabin breathed again, until she could parse real silence from tactical silence.
Only then did she move.
