Ash rubs a hand over his face. He looks exhausted. He also looks wired in that way he gets when he’s already four moves ahead. “We need to consider an internal leak,” he says.
Rook’s eyes narrow. “Go on.”
“If Damien can move Syndicate resources this cleanly,” Ash says, “he either owns someone high enough to smooth it, or someone old enough to make people look the other way. Either way, his reach is inside our networks.”
Saint’s jaw ticks. “Inside ours?”
Ash’s gaze doesn’t waver. “Maybe. Our extensions. Our contractors. Auxiliary. Anyone we’ve outsourced to in the last year. Anyone we’ve paid to look the other way. Anyone on our payroll who still takes money on the side. He shouldn’t have been able to put a meet in that building without us getting wind sooner. He did. That’s an issue.”
Rook goes cold. I can feel it in the room, like the temperature just dropped three degrees. “Find it,” he says. “Now.”
“I’m already pulling logs,” Ash says. “But listen to me, all of you.”
We all do.
Ash looks at each of us in turn. When his gaze hits mine, I feel the weight of it. “From here on out,” he says softly, “no one talks about her off-channel. No names in text. No names in calls. No names in rooms that aren’t ours. If you have to refer to her, you refer to her as ‘the asset.’ If anyone outside this room hears ‘Ember,’ I want to know who said it and why, and then I want their teeth.”
Vale lets out a low groan. “God, I love when you get feral.”
“Shut up,” Ash mutters.
Saint licks his lips. “So dramatic. So possessive. It’s almost sweet.”
“It’s not possessive,” Ash snaps.
“It is,” Saint, I, and Rook say at the same time.
Ash glares at us. Vale laughs out loud.
Rook waits until the noise dies. Then his voice goes low, serious, king-tight again. “I want every emergency identity she’ll ever need packed and accessible,” he says. “Wraith, you’ll keep one set on you whenever you leave the manor with her. One of mine, one of yours, one of hers. Enough cash for forty-eight hours off-grid. Enough medical to keep her breathing if she’s hit. I don’t care if it’s uncomfortable. Carry it.”
“Done,” I say.
“Saint,” Rook continues. “I want transport on standby. We might need to move fast. Private, not traceable. Something that can be in the air on my word and doesn’t file a flight plan until we’re above cloud line.”
Saint nods, expression going cold and focused. “I’ve got a contact in Biggin Hill who owes me a favor and doesn’t ask questions. I’ll make the call.”
“Vale,” Rook says, turning. “I want Syndicate to start feeling heat tonight. I want them paranoid. I want them wasting resources on ghosts we plant. I want them so busy putting outfake fires they miss the real one when it hits. But I don’t want blowback at our door. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Vale’s smile is slow and cruel. “You want their attention scattered. You want their leadership rattled. You want their grunts exhausted. You want Damien looking over his shoulder and finding nothing but shadows.”
“Yes,” Rook says without hesitation.
“My favorite kind of foreplay,” Vale murmurs.
Saint lifts the whiskey bottle in a mock toast. “To foreplay.”
Rook drags a hand over his jaw. “This isn’t a joke.”
“I’m not joking,” Vale says, voice going flat for the first time all night. “I’ll handle it.”
Good. Because Vale joking is entertaining. Vale deciding to handle something is biblical.
Ash moves back to the table and starts typing, fingers fast, eyes glass-bright. Saint slips out into the hall to start calling his transport contact and locking down the estate like a man warding a cathedral. Vale leans back again, tilts his head, and mutters to himself in Spanish — names, maybe. Targets. Rook starts stacking the passports into separate bundles. One for me, one for Ember, one for him.
I stay where I am.
Rook looks up at me after a long, quiet moment. “You’re not leaving her tonight,” he says. “She’ll probably fight you on it.”
