My phone buzzed again.
Once.
It was still in my hand.
A new notification.
An email.
I turned it over, not withdrawing from Brewster, but intimately aware of his nose almost brushing my cheek as I scanned the screen.
Subject line bland enough to be meaningless:
RE: Archive QA Follow-Up
My stomach dropped.
“What?”
With a swipe of my thumb, I opened the screen then the email.
It was short. No flourish. No threat.
Just a single line, formatted the way a bored employee might write a note to another bored employee.
You’re learning. But you’re still being managed. Tell me who’s holding your leash.
Under it, a time stamp. A reference to the clip. Not the public post—something deeper. Something internal.
My blood went cold. I looked up slowly.
Brewster was very still and his face had gone unreadable. I shifted the angle of the phone so he could read it too. Of course, I would show him. I’d made that choice when I didn’t forward the message, screenshot it, or tell anyone else.
Then, because I’d made the choice already—because the moment I didn’t forward the first message, the moment I didn’t screenshot it, the moment I didn’t tell anyone else, I had chosen him?—
“He wants me,” Brewster said quietly.
I blinked. “What.”
“He’s asking for your leash-holder,” Brewster continued, voice calm and lethal. “He’s not asking because he’s curious. He’s asking because he wants to punish whoever is between you and him.”
My skin prickled.
“You report to people,” I whispered.
Brewster’s gaze locked on mine. “But I’m the agent in charge.”
The room seemed to tilt.
I thought of the new body. The timing. The message. The way the Unsub had writtenmanagedlike it was an insult.
Then the way Brewster had kissed me. How I kissed him back.
Outside the office, the safe house was quiet. Too quiet.
Inside it, the pressure rose.
Brewster stepped closer—just enough that I could feel the heat of him without him touching me.
