Bishop's out. Clean extraction. But Harrow knows you made a trade. Expect retaliation.
My stomach dropped. I deleted the message, but not fast enough.
Dom had already seen my expression change. “What was that?”
“Nothing.”
“Cal—”
“I said it's nothing.”
Then another message came through, this time to Dom's phone. He looked at it and his expression shifted, moving from curious to something cold and flat.
“What is it?” I asked.
He turned the phone toward me. A message from an unknown number, with a screenshot attached. My conversation with the handler, partial but enough to show I'd made a trade and given up security information.
“Explain,” Dom said, his voice deadly quiet.
“It's not what it looks like.”
“It looks like you traded Ravenswood's security protocols for something.” His jaw was tight. “Looks like you made a deal behind my back. So explain.”
I could feel everything crumbling. “My information broker was compromised. Harrow had him. I made a trade to get him out.”
“You traded our security.” Not a question. A statement, flat and dangerous.
“I traded partial information. Incomplete. Enough to seem valuable without actually compromising?—”
“You don't know that.” Dom stood, his hands clenched. “You gave them access points. Timing. Information they can use to attack Adrian's home, to get to Viktor, to destroy everything.”
“I made a calculated decision?—”
“You made a decision that affects all of us. Without telling me. Without telling Adrian. Without any consideration for anyone except yourself.”
“He saved my life?—”
“And you just endangered everyone else's.” Dom's voice rose. “Adrian's. Noah's. Viktor's. Sebastian's. Mine. All of us, because you decided your guilt was more important than our safety.”
The words hit hard. True enough to sting.
“What was I supposed to do?” I demanded. “Let him die?”
“You were supposed to tell me. Tell Adrian. Find a solution that didn't require giving Harrow access to Ravenswood.”
“There wasn't time?—”
“That's rubbish, and you know it. You had time to negotiate. Time to make the trade. You just didn't want to deal with anyone telling you no.” Dom moved closer, anger radiating off him in waves. “You wanted to make the hard call. Sacrifice whatever you needed to, because that's what you do. You burn everything down and call it necessary.”
“I gave them incomplete information?—”
“You don't know that it's not enough!” Dom's voice cracked at the edges. “You're brilliant, Cal, but you're not infallible, and the second you start thinking you are, people die.”
“What do you want me to say? That I'm sorry? That I made a mistake?”
“I want you to tell me the truth. All of it. What you gave them. What they have. What they can do with it.”
I pulled in a breath. “Security rotation schedules. Partial access codes to the east wing. Guard positions.”
