We lie there in silence, his heartbeat steady under my ear. Through the window, I can see the sun rising over the mountains, painting the sky in shades of pink and gold. It's beautiful here. Peaceful in a way my life in San Francisco never is.
"What happens now?" I ask quietly. "With us, I mean."
"Now we keep you alive." His hand strokes down my back. "And when this is over, when the threat is neutralized and you're safe..."
"Yes?"
"Then we figure out the rest." He presses a kiss to the top of my head. "I'm not letting you go, Mara. I meant what I said last night. You're mine now."
"Possessive."
"Very." His arm tightens around me. "Any objections?"
"Ask me again when someone isn't trying to kill me."
His laugh is low and warm, vibrating through his chest. "Fair enough."
My phone buzzes on the nightstand. Then again. Then a third time in rapid succession.
I groan, reaching for it. "That's my work alert pattern. Something's happening."
The screen shows seventeen new emails, all marked urgent. I scroll through the subject lines, my stomach sinking with each one.
"What is it?" Boone is already sitting up, his body shifting into alert mode.
"Security breach." I pull up the most recent email from my CTO. "Someone accessed our development servers last night. They downloaded files from the quantum encryption project."
"The mole."
"Has to be." I'm already typing a response, my mind racing through the implications. "This is bad, Boone. Those files contain proprietary algorithms. If they get into the wrong hands..."
"Your competitors would have everything they need to replicate your work."
"Or destroy it." I look up at him. "My encryption is designed to be unbreakable. But every system has vulnerabilities. If someone understands the architecture well enough, they could find a way to exploit it before we even launch."
Boone is on his feet, pulling on his shirt. "Get dressed. We need to brief the team."
Twenty minutes later, we're in the lodge. Sully has his laptop out, fingers flying across the keyboard. Deck and Mace stand at the tactical table, faces grim. Wolfe leans against the wall, silent and watchful. Through the video screen, my CTO Marcus Chen is explaining the breach in technical detail.
"The access came from inside the building," Marcus says. "Someone used legitimate credentials, but the login pattern was wrong. Whoever did this knew exactly what they were looking for."
"Can you trace it?" I ask.
"Working on it. The IP bounced through multiple proxies, but Sully's helping me untangle the routing."
Sully nods without looking up. "Give me another hour. I'll have a name."
"What about the downloaded files?" Deck leans forward. "How damaging is this?"
I exchange a look with Marcus through the screen. "It depends on who has them and what they plan to do. The algorithms alone aren't enough to build a competing system. But combined with the right expertise..."
"They could reverse engineer your entire encryption protocol," Sully finishes.
"Yes."
The room goes quiet. Boone moves to stand beside me, his shoulder brushing mine. A small gesture, but grounding.
"The timing isn't coincidental," he says. "They moved up the timeline on Mara's contract the same day someone breached her servers. This is coordinated."
