You’ve been loud.
You’ve been careless.
My hands curl into fists on the table, the wood biting into my knuckles. “This isn’t Wade,” Cam whispers, more to himself than to us.
“No,” Sterling says quietly. “It’s not.” Another line loads.
You’re not the only one
who remembers Angel.
Something cold slides down my spine—not a memory, not exactly, more like a pressure. Like a door I don’t remember opening is suddenly ajar. Sterling’s hand settles on my shoulder, grounding. “Breathe.” Before I can respond, the laptop screen flickers again, and a final line appears.
Some places leave marks,
even when you forget them.
My stomach twists. I snap the laptop shut, hard enough that the sound echoes in the kitchen. My phone vibrates on the table. Once. Twice. Again.
Unknown number: Broken things can be made in the basement.
My breath catches. I don’trememberanything, but my body reacts anyway, a deep, instinctive fear I can’t explain. Sterling’s voice cuts through the haze. “Kiera. Look at me.” I drag my gaze up to him. His expression is all sharp focus now—protective, dangerous. “We’re not doing what they want,” he says. “Understand?”
“They know me,” I whisper. Nothow. Just that they do.
“Yes,” Sterling replies. “And now we know they’re close.”
Cam leans back in his chair, his face still pale. “Someone’s been inside everything.”
Sterling’s grip tightens once. “Then we stop playing defense.”
I don’t answer right away. Instead, I look at Cam, at the way his fingers still hover near the keys like he’s itching to fix it. “We were focused on ruining my dad,” I say at last. “That’s on pause.”
Cam’s brows knit together. “Ki…”
“Not stopping,” I cut in. “Just… redirecting.” I glance back at the dark screen. “Whoever did this got in because they knew the rules we were playing by.”
Cam exhales slowly. “So, we change the rules.”
A pulse of something sharp and electric moves through me. “No....” I pause. “We erase them.”
Cam’s mouth curves into a slow, dangerous smile. “Okay. Then we build something new.” Sterling watches us, quiet now, measuring. “Something they can’t crawl into,” Cam adds. “No back doors. No exits.”
“And no mercy,” I finish. “If they touch our systems again, we’ll know. Immediately.”
Cam shakes his head in confirmation. “And they won’t be able to leave without us knowing either.”
The air between us hums, thick with intent. Sterling’s hand settles warm and steady on my shoulder. “Do it.”
Looking over at Cam, I let a malicious smile tug at my mouth. “Let’s make it mean.”
Sterling’s mouth curves into something cold and precise. “Now we ruin whoever thinks they get to decide what you remember.” The kitchen light hums overhead, bright and ordinary, while something old and patient finishes stepping out of the dark.
Chapter Sixteen
The kitchen turns into a war room. Screens glowing. Coffee, going untouched and cold. Cam’s fingers move like muscle memory, like he’s done this a thousand times before. Kiera sits across from him, laptop open, posture loose but eyes razor sharp. Whoever slipped into our system woke something in her. Not fear. Focus. I stay standing. Watching both of them. Watching the windows. Watching the subtle way Kiera’s jaw tightens when Cam drags open a specific data path, like her body recognizes something her mind hasn’t caught up to yet. “We have to rebuild it,” Cam mutters, not looking away from the screen. “We can’t just patch it.”
Kiera nods. “Good. Patches fail.” She starts typing fast, not frantic, precise. Her code weaves into Cam’s like it always belonged there. They don’t explain what they’re doing. They don’t need to. I recognize competence when I see it. I also know danger, and this woman is a danger in her own right.
