I walk to the window take in the storm, the estate dark and swallowed by the rain.
As I stare at my reflection in the ballistic glass, it doesn’t feel like a victory.
It feels like I locked myself in the cage with her.
15
CASSIAN
The morning light cuts through the glass of the dining room in long, dirty bars. The storm has finally broken, leaving behind a sky that looks like a bruised limb, hanging low over the Atlantic.
I’m sitting at the head of the long mahogany table. A mug of black coffee rests near my right hand, cold because I haven’t touched it. In front of me, spread out like a map of a war zone, are the blueprints.
The blueprints I pulled from Elias’s dead hands four days ago. The paper is wrinkled where I gripped it, stained with a drop of brown, dried blood near the corner.
I’ve stared at these papers for hours, and every time I close my eyes, I see her.
Iris.
The memory of her pressed against the wall hits me like a kick to the ribs. The sound of her scream. The way she tightened around me. The absolute, shattering release.
I shift in my chair, the leather creaking under my weight.
I shouldn’t have done it. I broke the cardinal rule. Don’t fuck the asset.
It complicates everything. It turns a tactical situation into an emotional minefield. Now, when I look at the door, I’m not waiting for a prisoner. I’m waiting for her.
And I don’t know what I’m going to say. Sorry? No. I’m not sorry. It won’t happen again? A lie. If she walked in here right now and touched me, I would tear the building down to do it again.
The secure phone on the table buzzes, vibrating against the wood with a harsh, drilling sound before I snatch it up.
“Report,” I say.
“Perimeter is secure,” Varro’s voice comes through, sounding wrecked. “We’ve scrubbed the service road. The wreck is gone. The bodies are... handled.”
“Good.”
“There’s something else,” Varro says. “The tech team finished the forensic sweep on Elias’s clothes. The ones we bagged at the museum.”
I grip the phone tighter. “And?”
“They found an encrypted flash drive. It was sewn into the lining of his jacket cuff. We missed it on the first pat-down.”
“What’s on it?”
“Encryption is heavy,” he says. “Military grade. But they cracked the header. It’s not a manifesto, Boss. It’s not a bomb plot.”
“What is it?”
“It looks like a ledger,” he says. “Bank transfers. Offshore accounts. Shell companies. And audio files.”
“Audio files?”
“Recordings. Phone calls. Room sweeps.” He pauses. “It’s leverage, Boss.”
The air in the dining room drops ten degrees.
“Leverage on who?” I ask.
