"The crypto transfers from entry thirty-eight align with a shell company registered in Panama." Her voice is a low, raspy hum that vibrates straight down my spine. "The dates match the payout on Maria Costello's contract. Give me the timestamp of the refusal."
I don't need to look at the ledger. The details of my failures are burned into my brain. "October twelfth. 0400 hours."
Her fingers fly across the keys. I watch the way her hands move. Precise. Deliberate. The pale glow of the screen illuminates the sharp lines of her profile, the heavy exhaustion pulling at the corners of her eyes, and the stray hairs escaping from her messy braid.
She is the most beautiful, dangerous thing I have ever seen.
The revelation she dropped on me hours ago still echoes in the quiet cabin. The federal witness I killed—the innocent man whose blood I've been trying to wash off my hands for four years—was her inside man.
I destroyed the case. I broke the chain.
And now, fourteen months later, the Treasury Department sent an auditor to finish the job.
"Got it." The soft two words break the silence in the room.
I turn from the window and step into the circle of light. The physical proximity hits me. The scent of her—vanilla and rain—mixes with the sharp metallic tang of my gun oil. I stop beside her chair, bracing my scarred hands on the edge of the heavy wooden table. I'm close enough to feel the heat radiating from her body through the thin gray thermal she wears.
"Show me." My voice is rough. Huskier than I intend.
She doesn't flinch away from my size. She leans into the screen, her shoulder brushing against my arm. A jagged spike of heat hits my blood at the casual contact.
"When the payout failed on the Costello contract, the broker scrambled the funds." She traces a finger across a cascading wall of encrypted transaction logs. "He moved the crypto through three different tumblers, trying to wash the digital footprint. But human behavior is always predictable. He used the exact same routing protocol he used for the Nadia Rostova contract."
She taps a single key. The screen fractures into a massive, interconnected map of offshore accounts.
"I have the broker's digital footprint." She doesn't look up from the screen. "Now we follow the money backward to the source."
I stare at the data. For four years, I kicked down doors, interrogated syndicate operatives, and executed targets trying to find a single thread of intel on this network. I used violence as a blunt instrument.
In three hours, Addy dismantled their firewall with a keyboard. She possesses an analytical lethality that strips away my control and demands my absolute respect.
I look down at her. "You don't miss."
Addy looks up, her gaze locking onto mine. The air in the cabin turns heavy, thick with the sheer, undeniable heat radiating off her skin. Six inches. That's the only distance left between my mouth and hers. A rapid, frantic pulse beats at the base of her throat. A violent, physical gravity drags me closer, every primal instinct in my body demanding I bridge the gap.
"I can't afford to miss." Her whisper is threadbare.
I grip the edge of the table harder, locking down the savage urge to drag her out of that chair and see if she tastes as desperate as she looks.
I have no right to touch her. I'm a killer. I'm the reason she is currently hunted.
I force myself to step back. The separation physically hurts.
"Keep working." My voice is tight. "We don't have much time."
By midnight, the cabin temperature plummets. The Wyoming winter claws at the thin log walls.
I feed another split log into the cast-iron stove in the corner, trying to push back the freezing air. The fire flares, casting dancing shadows against the timber. Addy hasn't moved fromthe laptop. She's running on adrenaline and sheer, stubborn willpower.
I walk back to the table and set a steaming mug of black coffee next to her hand.
"Drink." The order is quiet but absolute.
She blinks, dragging her gaze away from the bright screen as if breaking a trance. She wraps both hands around the ceramic mug, letting the heat soak into her skin. The gray thermal shirt slips off one shoulder, exposing the smooth, pale curve of her neck.
I clench my jaw, forcing my eyes away. The physical tension in the small room is becoming unbearable. Every time I lean over her shoulder, every time the freezing air contrasts with the heat of her body, the leash on my self-control frays a little more.
She takes a sip, closing her eyes as the bitter caffeine hits her system.
