I sit on the floor of my bedroom, naked and shaking, staring at my hands. The hands that held her. The hands that hurt her. The hands that might have killed her if she hadn’t found the strength to fight back, if she hadn’t screamed that stupid word.
Milkshake.
I laugh. It comes out broken, a half-sob.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, a voice that sounds like my own whispers:
Integration complete. Awaiting directives.
I don’t know what it means.
But I know I’m going to find out.
Even if it’s the last thing I do.
CHAPTER 31
MIA
I studymy reflection in the hotel bathroom mirror, tilting my chin to catch the light. The bruises on my throat have faded to a sickly yellow-green that foundation barely camouflages, and nothing a scarf can’t cover. But I know they’re there. Every time I swallow, I feel the ghost of his fingers pressing down.
Milkshake, milkshake, milkshake?—
I shut down the memory before it can fully surface. This is what compartmentalization is all about. The first thing they teach you at the agency, and the last thing that actually saves your life. You take whatever’s bleeding inside you and wrap a bandage over it and put it in a box and you shove that box so far down it might as well be in another universe.
Nate thinks I’m at a work dinner tonight. Told him I have some magazine contacts, potential sources for follow-up pieces, maybe even future story ideas. A lie so mundane it practically tells itself.
The truth is that I haven’t seen him since I walked out of his penthouse four nights ago with his apologies still ringing in my ears and red marks blooming on my skin, wondering if that would be the last time I’d see him.
I’m still not sure.
My phone buzzes.
Intel confirmed. Meeting tonight, 22:00. Red Hook warehouse, Pier 11. Kozlov will be there.
It’s Bayo.Finally.
I’ve been waiting for this since our last briefing, when I told him everything Vanguard shared at the Statue of Liberty. The government contracts, the so-called peacekeeping missions, and his growing certainty that Global Dynamix is turning him into something he doesn’t want to be.
What I didn’t tell Bayo was the whole truth of what happened that night, that America’s golden-boy superhero wrapped his hand around my throat and didn’t let go until I drove my fingers into his windpipe in self-defense.
Some intel you keep for yourself.
I text back:Copy. What’s the approach?
Come to the safe house. We need to gear you up.
I look at myself one more time. The journalist stares back—soft cashmere jumper, artfully messy hair, the kind of woman who attends magazine dinners and asks softball questions and has never killed anyone in her life.
I peel her off like a second skin. Put in my earrings.
Time to go to work.
Kat opens the door before I can knock, her cool eyes doing a quick assessment, checking for threat level, emotional state, and visible injuries.
“You look like shit,” she says when she’s done.
“Cheers, darling. You’re a vision yourself.”
