Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 77051 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77051 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
I want names. Now.
Arrow’s already sifting, pivoting from the mod hash to a private subchannel. The handle attached to it is anonymized… but their recovery address is not.
It’s an internal alias: people-ops-sp@novaplay.
“S. P.,” Knight says. “Initials, maybe?”
Hmm. Who?
The S is for… what? Ugh, Tasha is who I feel like it should be, but the letters don’t match.
No. Stop. Don’t let your gut convict a friend on two letters and a bad night.
“Could be a shared mailbox,” Arrow cautions. “What about that other name?”
“What name?”
“That Shawn, last name Presley. The letters match.”
Shawn Presley. I remember the name. “He’s dead,” I say. “Died last year. Car accident.”
“He’s ruled out,” Knight says. “Unless he’s haunting from the grave.”
“We need more than a breadcrumb,” Arrow says.
“Get me more,” I say.
Our trap’s second stage unfolds. The zip file the HR machine just downloaded is half cat, half grenade. It drops our confessional bot onto Cathedral and quietly asks the mod to “verify admin status for access to the rest of the drop.” The mod obliges on autopilot—occupational reflex. Stamp: Regent-approved.
I go cold. “We’ve brushed Regent.”
Arrow’s pupils dilate just a fraction. “We’re in the same hallway now.”
Ozzy exhales a low oh man.
On Riverside’s shallow monitor, one of the internal cams shows River turning over in her sleep, arm tucked under her head. Oblivious. Thank God.
I should go to her room. I should sit in a chair like a cliché and watch the door until morning.
Instead I keep watching the feed of a blinking cursor on an HR machine typing in a Moderator pane on a forum that called River, The Whale.
“Save everything,” I say. “Mirror their drive. I want a full forensics image on my desk by morning.”
Arrow smiles at me, and shakes his head. “Yeah, boss.” He laughs. “We can use this to build a case, but we can’t walk into Legal with evidence we stole.”
“Then we won’t,” Knight says. “We’ll walk in with enough smoke that they start their own fire.”
Render’s voice softens. “You gonna tell her?”
I picture River’s hands shaking when she texted me Are you watching me now? and the way my stupid heart answered Yes.
“I tell her this might be someone she trusts, I break something I can’t fix.”
Silence sits heavy for a beat.
Arrow says, “We’ll be careful. We’ll be right.”
“Be fast,” I say. “Whoever this is, they’re bold. And bold people escalate when they feel safe.”
On-screen, the HR session logs off Cathedral, wipes cookies, clears history.
They know their way around a machine.
They don’t know they left their scent on my blade.
When the room empties and the fans are the loudest thing left, I text one person.
MASK: Sleep. Cameras are on. Doors are locked. You’re safe.
Two dots. Then:
RIVER: Promise?
I stare at the word until my vision blurs.
MASK: Promise.
I set the phone face down and scrub both hands over my face.
Behind a wall, the woman I’ve been pretending not to love is dreaming under a blue blanket while somewhere, in a bright office with inspirational quotes on the wall, a familiar pair of hands wipes a keyboard clean.
Static hisses in my ears.
Regent didn’t take the bait.
But someone closer did.
THIRTEEN
RIVER
The safe house is too quiet to sleep.
The fridge hums. Pipes sigh. My body remembers fear even when the room is soft and the locks are new. I flip my pillow. I flip myself. I am a rotisserie of anxiety and stale hope.
Practice, I tell my brain. Do something with the energy before it chews you alive.
I climb out of bed and pad barefoot to the open space we cleared. Hoodie, shorts, hair up. I dust off a cupcake before I set my feet the way he showed me—weight low, thumbs outside. My shadow stretches long across the wall.
“Center of gravity,” I whisper, and a phantom touch slides through my memory. A gloved hand guiding my hip, the warm line of a forearm brushing my arm as he corrected my stance. I breathe and move. Jab. Step. Reset. Again.
By the tenth repetition, the fear has melted into heat. Not panic. Different heat. Stubborn, low, coiling through me every time I hear his voice in my head.
Obey me.
God help me, I want to.
I crawl back into bed, muscles loose, pulse not. The sheets are cool. My skin isn’t. I drag the blanket up and let my eyes close. The safe house fades, and the room reshapes itself into something darker, warmer—his presence filling the doorway like it did the other day, only closer.
In the dream, Mask doesn’t speak at first. He stands beside the bed, hood up, the black fabric of the mask turning his eyes into secrets. He reaches for my wrist like he did on the mat, slow, deliberate, and turns my hand palm-up.
“Thumb outside,” he murmurs.
“Always?” My voice isn’t steady. It’s not meant to be.
“Always.”
He removes the glove. In the dream he does that—peels it off like a promise—revealing a hand that could be anyone’s and somehow feels like mine has always known it. When his bare fingers curl around my pulse, my breath catches. He feels it. Of course he does.