“Phoenix doesn’t care about millions of people. Phoenix cares about you. About your credentials. About the specific files you accessed.” He’s pacing now, coiled energy looking for an outlet. “The second you opened that Echo Logistics contract, every alarm in their system went off. They didn’t track the IP—they tracked the data. You touched a tripwire.”
“I didn’t know?—”
“That’s the point!” He wheels on me. “You didn’t know because you didn’t ask. You didn’t wait. You decided that your need to contribute was more important than staying alive!”
“I was trying to help.”
“You were trying to matter.” The words land like a slap. “You were trying to prove that you’re not just cargo. That you’re more than a protection detail. What was it you said …” He pauses, then grimaces. “Right, you’re not a package I can store on a shelf until I decide to move you. That Cassandra Brennan, Esquire, is too important to follow orders.”
The accuracy of it steals my breath. He sees too much. Remembers too much. He always has.
“That’s not?—”
“You got lucky.”
He’s advancing now. I’m backing up. My shoulder blades hit the wall.
“Luck runs out, Cassie. I’ve buried people who got lucky. I’ve zipped body bags closed over people who thought they knew better. Good people. Smart people. People who had everything to live for and died anyway because they made one wrong call.”
“I’m still here.”
“Barely.” He’s close now. Too close. “You’re here because I move fast. You’re here because that rappel line held when it shouldn’t have, and those bullets missed when they shouldn’t have. You’re here because of a dozen factors you can’t control and can’t count on happening again.”
“So what do you want? An apology?” The words come out hot, defensive. “Fine. I’m sorry I didn’t sit in that room like a good little package while you waited for permission to act.”
“This isn’t a courtroom.” He’s in my space now. Close enough that I can smell him—sweat and adrenaline and something darker underneath. “You don’t get to object. You don’t get to file motions. You don’t get to introduce surprise evidence. Out here, you do what I say, when I say it, or you die.”
“And what if what you say is wrong?”
“Then I’m wrong. But at least you’re alive to complain about it.”
“That’s not good enough.” I push back from the wall, forcing him to give ground. He doesn’t. “I’m not going to spend the rest of this nightmare being a passenger. I have skills. I have a brain. I found a real lead while you were waiting for your team to call.”
“A lead that almost got you killed.”
“A lead that gives us a target. A location. A name.” I jab my finger into his chest. “Julianna Stratton. CEO of Stratton Financial. Signed off on Class 4 biological assets. That’s not nothing. That’s the first real connection between the money and whatever Phoenix is actually protecting.”
He catches my wrist. Holds it. His grip is iron, not painful but absolute.
“You’re right.” His voice is quiet now. Deadly. “It’s not nothing. It’s a thread. And you tugged on it without any idea what was attached to the other end.” He pushes forward.
I back up until I’m against the wall. Nowhere else to go.
Then his fist suddenly slams into the drywall beside my head.
I flinch. Can’t help it. The plaster cracks, raining white dust onto my shoulder.
His other hand plants on the wall, caging me. His body is a furnace of heat and fury inches from mine. His chest heaves with ragged breaths.
He looks down. Squeezes his eyes shut. His jaw works, grinding something back—words or violence or the jagged edge of whatever’s tearing him apart.
When he looks up again, his eyes are burning.
“You want to know what I felt when that door blew in?” The words are raw. Wrecked. “When I saw them coming?”
I can’t breathe.
“I felt everything I buried in 2019. I felt her. I felt the phone call. I felt the fucking canyon.”
