When I finally head back toward my quarters, my hands are steadier than they were an hour ago.
And for the first time in days, the silence doesn’t feel quite so alive.
Chapter 18
Captain Jonathan
I’m halfway through packing when my phone rings.
Not the careful, methodical packing of someone going on leave, but the kind where everything gets folded too tightly and shoved too forcefully into the bag, like if I keep my hands busy enough I won’t think about the party, or Delilah, or the way the last few days have felt like standing on unstable ground pretending it’s solid. Shirts stacked wrong. Holster tossed in harder than necessary. Cufflinks I haven’t worn in years dropped into the side pocket like ammunition.
The screen lights up with Larkin’s name.
I answer it with my phone wedged between my shoulder and ear, still folding, still moving.
“Talk.”
“Please tell me you’re actually planning on showing up,” she says, and I can hear the edge of humor she’s trying to pass off as casual. “Because if you don’t, I’m the one dealing with the fallout. Your name is the only reason half those retirees are coming.”
“I said I would,” I reply, a little sharper than I mean to. “That hasn’t changed.”
She pauses. Not long. Just long enough.
“And the mission?” she asks. “You’re really okay pressing pause for a night?”
My hands still. Not fully—but enough that I notice it. The shirt in my grip stays half folded, my fingers creasing the fabric too hard.
“Mikhail isn’t taking the night off,” I say. “But he’s not making a move tonight either. Patterns don’t shift just because someone has a birthday.”
“That confidence sounds rehearsed,” Larkin says. “You sure everything’s fine?”
Fine. The word hits wrong. It lands sideways in my chest, scraping on something raw.
“Everything’s contained,” I tell her instead.
I end the call a minute later, promise to be there, promise nothing else, and the second the line goes dead I’m hit with the sensation that something is wrong. Not loud. Not obvious. Just… off. Like a hum under the floorboards you only notice when the house goes quiet. The kind of feeling that has saved my life often enough that I’ve learned not to ignore it, no matter how inconvenient it is.
I don’t sit with it. I never do.
I move.
The desk in my barracks room is bare except for my laptop and phone, both exactly where I left them. Too exactly. The room is quiet except for the faint rattle of the air vent and the buzz of my own blood in my ears. I set the bag down slowly and plug my phone in, fingers already moving through code and backdoors I haven’t had to use in years. The screen throws blue light across my hands, across the rumpled sheets, across the life I never spend enough time in to make it feel like mine.
The first anomaly pops up almost immediately.
Then another.
Then too many.
My jaw tightens as the realization sinks in, cold and sharp and ugly. These aren’t sloppy. They’re layered, buried deep enough that most sweeps would miss them entirely. Location pings masked as system processes. Audio triggers riding on innocuous permissions. The kind of thing that doesn’t scream bug—it whispers background noise. Designed by someone patient. Methodical. Mean enough to enjoy being invisible.
“How long,” I mutter to myself, dragging a hand through my hair. “How long have you been listening?”
Days. Weeks. Long enough to map movements. Long enough to see patterns. Long enough to know who matters. Long enough to decide when to strike and who to use to make it hurt.
My blood goes cold.
I grab my jacket and don’t bother locking the door.
