Now I'm sharing everything with the man who destroyed me.
The irony isn't lost on me. Neither is the fact that I don't care anymore. Whatever Jagger Harrison did to me three years ago, whoever he was then, that's not the man sitting next to me now. This version is cracked. Uncertain. Looking at me like I hold answers to questions he's afraid to ask.
I like this version better.
"Here," I say, pointing at a transaction record. "This doesn't fit the pattern."
He leans over to look. His arm brushes mine, and I feel the contact like electricity. Neither of us moves away.
"What am I looking at?"
"This transfer. It's going to one of the shell companies we flagged, but the timing is wrong. All the others are spaced exactly three weeks apart. This one is five days early."
"Could be an emergency withdrawal."
"Could be. Or it could be Kreiss moving money for himself instead of his clients." I pull up another document. "Look. The amount is different too. All the others are round numbers. This one has cents."
Jagger studies the screen. I watch his eyes track across the data, see the moment it clicks.
"He's skimming in plain sight," he says. "Using the existing infrastructure but changing small details. Anyone doing a surface audit would miss it."
"But we're not doing a surface audit."
"No. We're not." He turns to look at me, and there's something like admiration in his expression. "You're good at this."
"I was good at this. Before you people took it away." The words come out sharper than I intended. "Sorry. That was—"
"True." He doesn't look away. "I did take it away. I took everything from you, Jonah. And I'm not going to pretend otherwise."
"So what are you going to do about it?"
"Help you take it back."
By noon, we've mapped out a network of over a dozen shell companies, all connected to the Geneva fertility clinic. The money flows in a pattern I'm starting to recognize: in fromlegitimate sources, out through layers of intermediaries, landing in accounts that don't exist on our official registry.
"This is good," Jagger says, leaning back in his chair. "This is really good."
"It's a start." I tap one of the company names on the screen. "But we need more. Names. Locations. Something we can act on."
"We need those private files."
"Which we can't get without an inside man."
He's quiet for a moment. Then: "There might be another option."
"I'm listening."
"The facility in Geneva. The fertility clinic." He pulls up the photograph again. "If Andros worked there, her records might still exist. Patient files. Research notes. Things that couldn't be digitized because they were too sensitive."
"You want to break into the Swiss fertility clinic."
"I want to find out what they did there. What they're still doing." His voice drops. "What they did to us."
Us. Not just the faceless victims of Project Omega. Us. Jagger and his brothers. The children they manufactured… all of them… whoever they are.
"Okay," I say. "How do we get in?"
"I don't know yet." He stands, stretching, and I try not to stare at the way his shirt pulls across his shoulders. "But I'm going to find out."
