SYSTEM LOCKOUT INITIATED
ALERT: INTRUSION ATTEMPT LOGGED
“No,” she breathes, and the word comes out small. Broken. Her hands hover over the keyboard like she’s afraid to try again, afraid to confirm what she already knows. “No no no no?—”
“Locked out?” I ask, and I can’t keep the smile out of my voice even though my chest is tight with something that feels dangerously close to hope. Hope wrapped in fear and fury and the bone-deep certainty that Parker just declared war in the only language Aria understands.
“I said shut up!” She’s pulling up different systems now, her movements getting jerky and uncoordinated. Trying backdoors. Trying the kill switch, she threatened us with. Her fingers are shaking so badly she’s hitting wrong keys, having to backspace and try again, leaving typos in her wake like breadcrumbs leading straight to panic.
Nothing.
Every pathway she built is gone. Every door she opened is closed and welded shut. Every trap she set has been dismantled and turned into something else entirely—something sharp and waiting and designed to bite back.
Parker.
That’s my girl. That’s my brilliant, terrifying, beautiful girl who looked at Aria’s sophisticated cyber-attack and tore it apart like tissue paper. Who took everything Aria stole and built something unbreakable in its place. Something that saysfuck youin ones and zeros.
Pride surges through me, hot and fierce, cutting through the pain like a blade.
Aria slams her fist against the monitor. Once. Twice. The third hit cracks the screen, a spiderweb of broken glass blooming across the display like frost. “I can get back in. I just need to—I just need?—”
That’s when the gunfire starts.
Distant. Outside the building. But definitely gunfire—the distinctivepop-pop-popof suppressed weapons followed by the louder crack of unsuppressed return fire. The kind of sounds you learn to identify when you’ve spent half your life in rooms where people die.
Aria freezes, her hand still pressed against the broken monitor. Blood wells up around her knuckles where the glass cut her, but she doesn’t seem to notice. Her face goes white, then red, then white again, like her body can’t decide whether to fight or flee.
Static crackles through the speakers mounted in the corners of the room, the kind that means someone’s keying a radio in a hurry. Then voices. Her guards. Professional, clipped, already under pressure, and trying not to show it.
“We’ve got hostiles breaching the north perimeter?—”
“How many?” Aria screams at the speaker, spinning toward it like she can see through the walls to whatever’s happening outside. Like volume will somehow change the answer.
“Unknown. They’re using suppressors, moving in teams. We’ve lost contact with teams two and four?—”
“Fall back to my location!” She’s pulling a comm unit from somewhere behind the monitors, pressing it to her ear with her bleeding hand while the other reaches for something else. A bag. Black tactical gear that looks military-grade, the kind you don’t buy at a sporting goods store. “All units, fall back to the master bedroom. Now! I want a defensive perimeter, overlapping fields of fire, and someone tell me what the fuck happened to our early warning system?—”
She’s moving fast now, all pretense of seduction gone. Rips off the silk robe with one violent motion, and underneath she’s already wearing a black sports bra and black underwear. Smart. She was ready to run even while she was trying to seduce me. Always hedging her bets, always planning the exit.
She yanks on black jeans that fit like they were tailored for tactical work—reinforced knees, cargo pockets, probably Kevlar-lined. A black long-sleeve compression shirt that’ll wick sweat and move with her. Black sneakers that look like they cost more than most people’s rent, the kind of high-end tactical footwear that special forces wear when they want to move, silent and fast.
She’s done this before. Practiced it. This isn’t panic—it’s rehearsal paying off.
The guys came instead of keeping Parker safe.
Fucking idiots.
They had one job. One goddamn job. Keep our woman and our sons safe while I clean up my own mess. I gave them the perfect out, the perfect justification to walk away and protect what actually matters. Parker’s cyber-attack should have been enough. Should have let them cut their losses, regroup, come back when they had better intel and a cleaner shot.
And they couldn’t even do that.
Which means Parker’s here. Has to be. Because there’s no way Jace and Cal would breach without her forcing them to, without her standing in front of them with that look in her eyes that saysI’m going with or without you, so you better decide which one gets us all killed.
Stubborn woman.
Stubborn, brilliant, terrifying woman who’s going to get herself killed trying to save me, and I don’t know whether to be furious or grateful or so fucking in love with her that it hurts worse than the bullet in my leg.
Aria grabs another gun from somewhere—a Sig P365XL, compact and deadly—checks the magazine with practiced efficiency, racks the slide. The sound is sharp and final in the ornate room. She tucks it into a holster at the small of her back, then grabs two more magazines and shoves them in her pockets.
