He smiles, slow. "What are the odds?"
I grin, for real this time. "One in a thousand."
He cocks his head. "That good?"
I laugh, the sound raw in my throat. "I've made worse bets."
He stands, comes around the desk, and for a second I think he's going to hug me or hit me or both. Instead, he leans in, close enough I can feel his breath on my jaw.
"Next time you do something stupid, like switch places with me on some shady ass corporations hit list," he murmurs, "warn me first."
I nod. "Deal."
He backs away, sits on the edge of the desk, and closes his eyes. The exhaustion hits him all at once, and he's asleep in under a minute, arms folded across his chest, feet propped on the file cabinet.
I watch him for a while. The way his breathing evens out, the way his lips part just a little. The urge to reach out and touch him, just to prove he's real, is almost unbearable.
But I don't.
Instead, I pull up the terminal again, check the status.
Asset Status:HARRINGTON. Confirmed. The system is already rewriting protocols, flagging every message with a high-priority alert. They know what I've done, and there's no going back.
For the first time in my life, I've done something I can't undo. Not for the House, not for the cause, but for myself.
For him.
The jet shudders as it takes off. I look out the window, watch the world fall away beneath us.
This isn't strategy anymore.
It's something else.
Something I can't name for fear that naming it will break the illusion that he’s mine.
And it scares me more than The Silent ever could.
Chapter Eleven: Landon
Iwakeupinaroom that’s unfamiliar.
The first thing I notice is the air—thin, cold, not just unfiltered but so clean it hurts to breathe. The walls are wood, real and expensive, knotted with a craftsman’s pride. I’m on a king-sized bed, sheets white and thick, the comforter heavy enough to be bulletproof. There’s a faint blue light crawling over the hardwood, and when I look up, the window is nothing but snow and sky, unbroken but for a single black shadow on the far horizon.
I sit up and the memory slams into me: Briar, the plane, the transfer, the blind terror of being rewired in a system that shouldn’t even know my name. I half-expect to see him next to me, or at least his outline in the door.
But I’m alone. And nothing in this house, in this new world, makes sense.
For a second, I think I’m dead.
I slide out of the bed. My feet are instantly cold, so cold I can’t feel my toes. There’s a pair of thick wool socks folded on the end of the bed, and I pull them on, grateful for small mercies. Mybody still feels used and a little hollow. I’m sore in all the places that matter, but not broken.
The room is old-money luxury—every surface polished to a gloss, no clutter or wasted objects. There’s a chair and a lamp in the corner, both designed more for aesthetic than comfort. I find a pile of clothes, neatly folded on a leather trunk at the foot of the bed, washed and still warm like someone put them there just before I woke. I pull on the softest of the sweaters, then step to the window.
Everything is in my size.
The view is breathtaking.
We’re somewhere high, way above tree line. The chalet juts out from the mountain itself, a glass-and-timber masterpiece clinging to the edge of a drop that would kill us with even the slightest mountain shake. The window doesn’t have a screen or even a visible lock; it’s just a single unbroken sheet of glass, the only barrier between me and an impending death fall.
