Kiro steps in without knocking and hands me a tablet.
“Movement,” he says simply.
His voice is gravel. The screen shows me a fresh wire transfer routed through Anton’s offshore maze, landing in a Moscow courier service that prides itself on anonymity.
“Courier picks up the package at thirteen twenty,” Kiro adds, watching me with those storm-gray eyes that always seem to anticipate violence before it arrives.
“And delivers where?”
“We’re narrowing the radius. Likely northern district.”
A good place to vanish a man or a secret.
I nod once, every piece sliding into place.
Every piece except the one woman whose silence weighs more than this operation.
I feel her before I see her. Harper’s presence enters a room like a shift in gravity. She walks in without acknowledging me.
Copper hair pinned back, jaw set, expression composed with the kind of precision that only comes from anger held too long. She wears that quiet defiance like jewelry.
Her eyes flick to Kiro directly, not me.
“Send me the encryption route,” she says to him.
Kiro looks at me for confirmation. The fact that he doesn’t simply hand it over is its own message: he wants the go-ahead.
I give a clipped nod.
“You’ll get full access.”
Harper doesn’t thank me. She only takes the tablet Kiro offers, fingers brushing the screen but never the hand.
She is ice sheathed over fire, and I am the fool that made her this way.
She turns to leave.
“Harper.”
She stops at my tone, shoulders stiffening, but she doesn’t look back.
“Don’t fall behind on the live trace,” I say, instead of the words I want to actually say. “Timing will be tight.”
“I don’t fall behind,” she answers after a beat, closing the door behind her with a sharp click.
The room feels smaller without her, like the oxygen left with her footsteps.
Kiro exhales slowly.
“She’s angry.”
I shoot him a dry look.
“You think?”
He shrugs one shoulder. This is the closest he’s ever gotten to humor.
“She’s usually… less murderous.”
