Chapter Sixteen
The Endicott case was almost wrapped, and Isaac should have felt good about that.
He was at the temporary office—the same pressboard desks, the same fluorescent lights that buzzed like they were filing a grievance against the building. Ryder was across the room cleaning his weapon at the desk he’d claimed by virtue of taping the cockroach drawer shut and replacing the chair with one he’d bought himself. Peter’s face filled the laptop screen on Isaac’s desk, two keyboards going at once the way they always were.
“I’m close on identifying the email sender,” Peter said. “The encryption layers are peeling back. Another day, maybe two. The metadata from the last three messages is converging on a geographic cluster, and once I triangulate the ISP routing?—”
Isaac rubbed his eyes. “English, Peter.”
“I’m about to find this guy.”
“That’s all I needed.” Isaac leaned back. “Good work. When you’ve got a name, send it straight to me, and I’ll loop in Endicott’s legal team.”
“Will do.” Peter adjusted his glasses. “Anything else on the Endicott side?”
“Ryder, anything from the last venue walk?”
Ryder didn’t look up from the barrel he was running a brush through. “It’s clean. Sight lines are solid, entry points are manageable, and the in-house team at that venue is actually competent for once. No knuckle-dragging psychopaths looking to break fingers.”
Thank God. Less to worry about if Fallon showed up there. “Then we’re good. Peter, we’ll check in tomorrow once you’ve got more on the sender.”
Peter nodded and started typing on a second keyboard.
Isaac should have been focused. The Endicott detail was winding down the way good operations wound down—methodically, each thread tied off, the threat neutralized through patience and precision. This was the part of the job he was best at. The clean finish.
But his mind kept drifting to his plan. TheGet Fallon into Another Line of Workplan.
He’d been turning it over for days now, refining the pitch, trying to figure out how to frame it so she’d accept. She’d already said no last night on the phone when he’d offered to help her find a different life. He’d backed off because pushing her wouldn’t work. She’d just retreat further behind whatever wall she’d built between herself and everyone who tried to get close.
But backing off didn’t mean giving up. It meant finding a better angle.
He had money. Real money—the kind that came from a family whose name opened doors at every gala and donor dinner he’d spent his adult life creating distance from. Walking away from that world hadn’t erased the resources. The accounts that he’d been given when he was eighteen were still there, never touched because using them felt like agreeing to terms he’d rejected. All of it was still sitting there, earning interest on a life he’d had no interest in living.
Helping Fallon wouldn’t even make a dent. A year of support, maybe two, enough time for her to find something legitimate that used the skills she already had. She could read a room better than anyone he’d ever worked with. She noticed things that trained operatives missed.
Would it help or hurt to tell her that his family was exactly the type of people she pickpocketed? That he came from the same world of charity galas and seven-figure trust funds and champagne that cost more than most people’s rent? He genuinely didn’t know. She might see it as proof that he understood her world. She might see it as proof that he was part of the problem.
And that would mean the two of them could be together. Actually together, without the burner phones and the disappearing acts and the constant low-grade terror that the next time she walked into a room to work, she’d walk into something she couldn’t get out of.
He just needed to talk her intothe Plan.
If she would ever text him back.
He picked up the burner phone. Four texts he’d sent today, starting at eight a.m. A photo of the terrible office coffee maker with the captionThis thing just made a noise I’ve never heard a machine make. Pray for me.Then a follow-up at ten. Then another at noon. Then one at two that just saidHey. You there?
Nothing back. No read receipts. No typing indicator. Just silence.
He’d called her at lunch. Straight to whatever voicemail a burner phone had, which was no voicemail at all—just dead air and a disconnect.
It reminded him there was so much about her life he didn’t know. Where she lived. What she did when she wasn’t working. Hell, her last name.
Something had to change.
But he would give it time and not push right now. She was busy or working. She’d text back. He set the phone down and pulled up his notes on the Endicott transition plan.
“You’ve checked that phone four times in the last hour,” Ryder said without looking up.
Fuck. “What are you talking about?”
