They’d made it. All of them.
Bear saw Lincoln and Morgan on the ground. Even from thirty feet away, Lincoln could see his cousin’s shoulders drop with relief. Bear raised one hand—acknowledgment, reassurance,we’re okay, stay where you are—and then turned to help Derek with Callum.
Lincoln let his head fall back to the asphalt.
He couldn’t find words. The part of his brain that processed language seemed to have shut down, all resources dedicated to the simple miracle of Morgan breathing against him, her heart pounding where her chest pressed to his.
She didn’t speak either. Just held on. Her fingers twisted in his tactical vest, gripping so hard her knuckles went white, like she was afraid he’d disappear if she let go.
Sirens from the fire trucks wailed in the distance. Growing closer.
Lincoln pressed his face into Morgan’s hair and breathed.
They stayed like that—holding each other, saying nothing—while the building burned and the night filled with smoke and the world slowly, finally, went quiet.
Chapter 27
Two years ago — First exchange:
Binary: Your code is inefficient. Line 347 could be compressed.
Mercury: Not everything is about efficiency.
Binary: Explain.
Mercury: It’s a sonnet. Fourteen lines. Read the first letter of each line.
Binary: “Stay safe stranger.”
Mercury: Sometimes beauty IS the function.
Binary: …Interesting.
One week later, Morgan stood at the window of Lincoln’s house, his compound, and realized she’d stopped thinking of it as a hiding place.
The investigation was closed. Lincoln had worked around the clock for three consecutive days after Denver, building a digital architecture of evidence thateven federal agencies couldn’t ignore. He’d created trails showing Randall had manufactured the article about her memory as part of an elaborate setup.
Lincoln had produced falsified evidence demonstrating that Randall’s people had planted her fingerprints on the fire sale from the very beginning. And he’d coordinated with Callum, who’d backed the entire narrative with his federal contacts until the FBI had no choice but to accept the truth.
Morgan Reece was no longer a suspect. Her name was cleared. Her life, whatever remained of it, was her own again.
The others, Lincoln’s friends and family who had risked their lives to help her, were healing. Callum’s leg would leave him with a limp for a while, though he’d already returned to work against doctor’s orders. Derek’s ribs were taped, his breathing still careful when he moved too quickly. Bear’s arm was in a sling, and according to Joy, he’d spent the past three days complaining that he couldn’t hold her properly while she rubbed her growing belly and told him to stop being dramatic.
But they’d survived. All of them.
For Morgan, it was now a decision about what to do next.
The box of letters once again sat in her lap. It was time to put them to rest.
She’d been circling it for days. Finding reasons to leave them alone. Telling herself she wasn’t ready, that she needed more time, that the knowing could wait. But avoidance had a shelf life, and hers had expired somewhere around three a.m. when she’d woken from a dreamless sleep and understood that the fear of testing herself had become worse than whatever answer she might find.
Lincoln was in his command center, running security protocols or analyzing data streams or doing whatever hisbrain required to feel settled. She’d learned to give him that space. Learned that his need for solitude wasn’t rejection—it was maintenance.
She was alone with the box and the question she’d been too afraid to ask herself.
Her hand trembled as she lifted the first envelope. The paper was soft with age, Ms. Delacroix’s careful handwriting faded but still legible.My dearest Morgan.She remembered receiving it at fourteen, remembered the way her hands had shaken as she’d opened it, remembered?—
Did she? Did she actually remember, or was she reconstructing from fragments? Filling in gaps with what should have been there?
