She threw. Wide. She turned to stare at him and found him watching her with zero remorse and that almost-smile she was starting to think of as deadly to her senses.
“Angelo.”
“Ellory.” He raised one eyebrow, entirely unbothered and heart-stopping, standing there in the low light of a basement knife range like this was his true home.
She turned back to the target. Breathed. And threw.
The blade struck the paper, the blade singing as it buried in the wood. Though it was inches away from any of the rings, she let out a whoop of victory.
The sound he made—low and warm and proud—landed in the middle of her chest and stayed there. His arms came around her from behind, his mouth dropping to the curve of her neck.
“I knew you’d do it,” he murmured.
She leaned back into him. “I still say you kissed me to throw me off.”
“I kissed you,” he rumbled against her neck, “because you’re mine.”
THIRTEEN
This pattern didn’t whisper.
It bled across the map in red and ash like a warning flare no one could ignore.
In the background, Sierra team’s lead was running through the report of their findings in Utah while Alpha waited their turn, the conference screen split between feeds and satellite stills. The war room lights were dimmed low enough for the monitors to glow, casting sharp planes over the men and women gathered around the table.
The rest of the team spread out, cups of coffee sweating into cardboard sleeves that no one touched. They were too focused on the dual ops. Too aware that the clock wasn’t just ticking, it was sprinting toward a time when Cipher would vanish again.
“Completely destroyed,” Sierra’s lead reported. “Classic containment burn. Accelerant used strategically. Nothing left worth pulling—no hardware, no prints. No surviving digital storage. Tracks with the MO of our man.”
Ash shifted his weight, jaw tight. “Shell company on the deed?”
Elin answered from her laptop without looking up. “Three layers deep. Delaware LLC registered to a holding company out of Nevada, backed by a trust in the Caymans. Dante pulled it apart in thirty minutes.”
Dante gave a distracted lift of his hand.
Alpha started rattling off their report. Same story, different coordinates. Same scorched slab where a warehouse hadstood. Same melted beams and collapsed roofing. Same fire department arrival too late to matter.
Two properties. Two states. Same man.
“Two for two,” Con said, voice low but cutting through the room like a blade.
Suddenly Ellory spoke, and the texture of her voice made heads snap in her direction.
“Not two for two,” she said quietly. “I think there’s more.”
Ash moved first. Dante rounded the table from the opposite side. They both leaned in toward her screen.
“I’ve been running every property connected to the holding company against tax records and bank notes,” she said, fingers flying. “Cross-referencing utility transfers, insurance changes, accelerated write-offs.” Her finger stopped. “This one was destroyed by fire three weeks ago. And this—just outside Cedar Ridge—classified as accidental.”
“Get that on the monitor,” Con ordered.
Ellory didn’t move.
She stared at the screen like she could reach through it and pull something—someone—back.
Ash didn’t like the stillness in her.
He’d seen that kind of lockup before. In firefights. In men who’d gone too deep into their own heads while everything detonated around them. They stopped hearing orders. Stopped reacting. Stopped moving.
