"Can you do that?"
The question sits between us like a live grenade.
I could lie. Say yes, professional, of course I can compartmentalize six years of wanting him dead and needing him alive in the same breath.
I don't.
"I can work with you." I meet his eyes. "I'll even keep you alive if the tactical situation requires it. But don't mistake professional competence for forgiveness."
"I'm not asking for forgiveness."
"Good." I stand. Walk around the desk. Stop close enough that he'd have to work to avoid me. "Because you're not getting it. Not now. Not ever. Clear?"
His marks flare. Bright enough that the blue light spills across my face, and I see myself reflected in his eyes—pale skin, red hair, green eyes that have learned to go flat when I'm deciding whether someone lives or dies.
He's not pushing. I can feel the absence of it, the restraint humming in the space between us. Six years and he still won't touch my mind without permission.
It's the only thing that keeps the knife sheathed.
"Clear." His voice drops lower. That resonance doing something to my spine that I refuse to name. "For what it's worth?—"
"It's not worth anything." I step back. "Be in the briefing room in twenty minutes. Bring your tactical assessment files. Don't be late."
I turn my back on him.
It's a test. A dare. An echo of thirty meters of smoke and the distance growing.
He doesn't stop me.
I reach the door, palm the panel, step through.
Behind me, his voice. Quiet enough that I almost miss it.
"I'm not leaving this time."
I don't answer.
Don't turn around.
The door cycles shut, and I'm alone in the corridor, staring at blue blood drying on my palm.
He's not leaving.
That's the problem.
The briefing roomis too small.
I knew it would be. Chose it anyway. Let Dexter feel the walls pressing, the confined space, the nowhere to retreat. Strategic psychology. Make him uncomfortable. Make him remember what it's like to be trapped.
Zane arrives first. Pale eyes scan the room, catch on me, assess. "This should be interesting."
"Professional," I correct.
"Of course." He sits. The head of the table, the position his father used to occupy. He wears it differently—less throne, more target. "Talia will be joining us. She's been running debtor intelligence. If Webb is connected to internal networks, she might have data."
Talia St. Laurent. The woman who arrived as cargo and became something else. I've trained with her. Watched her transform from terrified to tactical. We understand each other in the way women do when we've both learned that survival requires becoming something the men around us never expected.
She arrives next. Takes one look at the room, me at the secondary position, Zane at the head, the empty chair that's obviously Dexter's,and her expression shifts. Something knowing.
