Page 38 of Mister St. James

I go back to typing. So does the silence.

The archive yields faster than I expect, as if the system remembers me with something like gratitude. Each passcode rolls off my knuckles, no hesitation. I built this crypt, and if anyone can rob it clean, it’s me.

Aiden stands so close behind that when I hit the right folder, I hear him exhale. His hands are braced on either side of the desk, caging me in, not on purpose, but because his need to see is physical. His eyes flick from screen to keyboard and back, never once straying to my face.

“Here.” I keep my voice low, point to the directory string with a turquoise fingernail. “This is the calendar archive. They never migrated the records after I flagged those compliance bugs last winter. That’s why it’s all local.”

He nods, but I don’t need the validation. I tunnel deeper, popping the encryption like an old can of soda. My heart thumps once, hard, when I realize how easily it all comes back. The next ten seconds are nothing, drag, open, snapshot to my encrypted stick.

“Give me the logs,” I say, and Aiden slides his own thumb drive across the desk. We don’t speak as I cross-reference the event nights against the outbound IP logs. His interface is ugly but the data is clean, timestamped down to the millisecond.

I run the comparison. The answer comes up blue on black, too neat, too inevitable. Three hits, each one mapping precisely to the club nights after Hale was terminated. The access attempts originate from a known Vantage Systems proxy, then bounce through an onion chain. But the signature is there, as if Hale couldn’t bear to let go of the system he once lived inside.

“He was ghosting your system,” I say, tapping the second entry. “He never fully left.”

Aiden leans in, shoulder almost touching mine. He scans the data in silence, and for a moment I am aware only of his breath, the charged quiet, the bright energy of people who have long since stopped pretending not to need each other.

“He used my protocols,” Aiden says, low. “The whole structure.”

“And now he wants you to pay to keep it quiet,” I say. “Classic guy shit.”

We don’t laugh, but I think it. Instead, I scrub the access trail, leaving nothing but an empty audit log and a checksum that matches the prior day’s state. I close out, pop my stick, and look up.

He’s watching me in the reflection of the glass, not directly, but the way you watch the weather change, impossible to ignore, even if you know it’ll blow over.

“What’s the play?” he asks, voice stripped to the wire.

“I want to go,” I say. “Be at the next event, make sure he knows I’m there.” I keep my tone measured, but I want him to see the logic. “He’s watching the club schedule. He’s waiting for a chance to escalate. If we give him nothing, he’ll take it out on someone who can’t fight back.”

Aiden’s response is immediate. “No.” Like a firewall, absolute.

I hold his gaze, a silent dare. “I’m not made of glass, Aiden.”

He shakes his head. “You don’t understand…”

I snap, not because I’m angry but because I’m tired of condescension. “Explain it to me.”

He stands and turns away, running both hands through his hair before turning back to face me. “I couldn’t function if something happened to you.” Just that. No business jargon, no detached analysis. He lets it hang there, the rawest truth I’ve ever heard from him.

I could melt, or punch him, or both. Instead, I go for the third option. “Then keep me safe. But don’t try to keep me out.”

We stare each other down, the air dense with all the arguments we could have. But he folds, shoulders dropping an inch.

“Fine,” he says. “But if we do this, we do it right. We coordinate with the club. We have exit plans. You don’t make a move without me in the room.”

I feel my mouth curve, despite everything. “You really think you can manage me?”

He almost smiles. “No. But I can try.”

We finish the day in his office, hashing out every angle. We call Voss on an encrypted line, her voice brisk and flawless, as if nothing in the world could ever catch her off guard. She likes the plan, especially the part where Aiden will be physically present, and tells us to expect club security at every exit. “Scarlett Muse in the center ring,” Voss says. “He won’t resist.” The line clicks off, and I realize how little I’ve eaten. My body is running on caffeine, rage, and the sick thrill of imminent confrontation.

By seven, I’ve convinced Aiden to bring the files to his place. He protests at first, but I know his patterns: the more unstable the threat, the more he needs home turf. What I don’t expect is the state of it. The penthouse I remember was surgical, every surface a rebuke to disorder. Now takeout containers crowd the kitchen counter, bourbon glasses cluster near the sink in various states of amber, the kitchen island littered with papers and one whole wall has been taken over by a cork board. Red string pulling taut between printed photographs and yellow sticky notes covered in his tight, precise handwriting. He watches me take it in without apology.

We work side by side for hours. My hands keep ending up in the same space as his, grabbing the same pen, the same printout. He refills my mug without asking, and I steal his pen as soon as he sets it down. We don’t touch, but it feels like we might at any moment.

Around three a.m., I find the last access log that puts Hale at the club on a night he shouldn’t have been able to get in. I lay it on top of the stack, highlight the timestamp, and say, “He’s going to make contact.”

Aiden’s fingers hover an inch above the counter, then flatten onto the stone. “We’ll be ready.”