“This was on my desk,” she says, voice tight enough to snap.
I take it from her slowly. The Ignatov insignia engraved on its side presses into my palm, sharp and mocking. It’s the kind of calling card my father used to leave when he wanted someone to understand exactly who held the blade against their throat.
My father’s voice stirs like dust in the back of my skull:“If a man wants you to know he’s coming, it’s because he’s already inside your walls.”
Harper watches me like she can see the echo of that voice scraping through me.
“You’re not safe anywhere else,” I say.
A muscle jumps in her jaw.
“Safety with you is a contradiction in terms.”
She’s right, but she’s still inside my home with no intention to take a single step back toward the door.
My gaze flicks over her wet hair sticking to her temples, knuckles white around the cup, pulse hammering hard enough that even from a foot away, I can almost feel it. Fear sharpens her like a blade being honed against stone.
“Come inside,” I murmur, “to my office.”
The words leave me without thought, instinct overriding everything else. I don’t touch her, but she brushes past me all the same. The faint scent of her catches against my throat.
As soon as the door seals shut behind us, I call my guards. I place two at the front entrance, two at the perimeter, two more inside. Her eyes track each movement, her breath shallow but steady, like she’s bracing for the next strike.
I take the flash drive to my office, but she follows without any more taunts I have no doubt she’s been storing up. She stands near the doorway, arms folded tight across her chest, as I insert the drive into a quarantined terminal.
The moment the video loads, showing me the same grainy meeting room, the static, the code, anger coils low in my spine, hot and heavy and familiar.
Anton isn’t hiding anymore; he’s circling her like she’s his current prey.
I summon Kiro. He arrives within minutes, still smelling faintly of engine grease and cold air. His fingers fly across the keyboard, tracing signatures through layers of scrambled metadata.
He grunts under his breath.
“This wasn’t the work of one person,” he mutters. “It’s routed through three offshore accounts tied to Anton’s old network. And…” His expression darkens. “Someone on the inside mirrored the transfer.”
Ice slicks down my spine.
“A mole.”
“One high enough to access internal archives and Harper’s personal logs.”
My jaw tightens. Every instinct in me snaps toward violence.
Harper shifts closer but doesn’t touch me. Her voice is low, steady, too calm.
“Whoever sent it knows I’m the only one who can decrypt the rest of Anton’s data.”
My chest tightens with something dangerously close to protective rage. Anton knows what he’s doing. He’s seen the way she fits into puzzles she wasn’t supposed to enter, the way she pulls threads no one else notices.
The way she makes breathing feel like a decision.
Before I can speak, Mikhail bursts into the room without knocking. His arrival is a warning in itself. Mikhail never leaves his section of the compound unless something is catastrophic.
“I heard,” he growls. “You should have eliminated the threat immediately.”
Harper stiffens, but she doesn’t flinch. I feel the shift in her, a flash of fire under the fear, and absurdly, I want to smile. Even hunted, she refuses to shrink.
“She’s not a threat,” I say.
