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)
It makes me feel safe for exactly half a second.
In the search bar, I type: how to hire a vigilante.
I stare at the words. They look like a joke I’m not brave enough to tell out loud.
I hit enter.
TWO
GAGE
River Quinn is going to be the death of me.
Not in the fun, flirty, death by temptation kind of way. No. This is a full-body, slow-cooked, watch her walk through hell and pretend you don’t care kind of death. The kind where she looks right at me and I have to fight every instinct I’ve got not to reach out and fix it.
Or fix them.
The assholes.
The wolves in comment-section clothing. The ones who’ve spent the last two months turning her into some kind of bloodsport. Harassment. Threats. Doxxing attempts. Half the time, she doesn’t even know I’m watching it all unfold in real time from a dozen back channels. The other half, she pretends not to care.
I see the way she clutches her phone like a weapon and a lifeline. The way her laugh’s changed. It’s shorter, less spark. The way she sprints to the coffee machine like that last cup of dark roast will anchor her to something real.
So yeah. I let her catch me taking it.
It’s not just to piss her off—though, sure, it’s a bonus. There’s something in her spark when she fights back. I want her mad, not scared. I want her eyes on me, not the shadows outside her window.
But today? That spark’s dim.
She still bites—“Choke on a scone,” like it’s foreplay, but her voice wavers. Not enough for anyone else to notice. But I notice.
I always notice her.
I sip the coffee she clearly needs more than I do and retreat behind my screen like a coward. The act’s easier when I’m typing.
Still, I don’t code. Not right now.
I open a buried Discord tab.
GAGE: got a situation. you free?
Three dots. Then:
ARROW: River?
I freeze. Then lean back in my chair and stare at his response.
GAGE: …yeah.
ARROW: send me everything you’ve got. I’ll loop in Knight and Ozzy.
That’s all it takes. One yes.
Because a few months ago, we didn’t know we were capable of this. Of being this.
It started with Juno.
Arrow’s oldest friend. Sister to Arby Kate—the influencer murdered live on a goddamn livestream. We helped Juno track the men behind the masks. Found them. Exposed them. Arrow nearly got himself killed in the process. Now they’re together, best friends turned something closer than love, and the rest of us? We’re… still here.
Knight with his maps and field ops obsession.
Ozzy and his manic network pings.
Render with the camera and the haunted eyes.
Poe, the quirky one who never has a lot to say.
Me, trying not to fall for a girl who won’t even drink my decaf peace offering.
River doesn’t know who I am. Not really.
She knows the surface: sarcastic coworker, smug tech lead, the guy who makes her life harder on purpose.
She doesn’t know I’ve had a silent Google Alert on her name since her first thread blew up last year.
She doesn’t know I once spent a whole night reverse-engineering a burner IP because someone posted her address in a private Discord.
She doesn’t know I deleted it before she ever saw.
She thinks I’m the enemy. The office thorn in her side. I let her think it because it’s safer—for both of us.
But today?
Today that ends.
I switch from Discord to a shared folder Arrow set up back when we built “The Mask” identity. After what we did for Juno, we kept the systems live. Just in case. There’s always a new monster.
I drag River’s file into it.
Evidence. Screenshots. Captured threats. The “see you in the lobby” message. The photo from outside her window I pulled off a forum last night that still makes my blood boil. I caught the thread before it went viral. Archived the IP. Killed the link.
Arrow adds a flame emoji reaction to the folder. Knight adds a thumbs up.
Then a text hits my personal phone.
ARROW: You sure about this?
ME: yeah.
ARROW: You’re not just doing this because she’s hot, right?
ME: …she’s infuriating.
ARROW: that’s not a no.
I huff a laugh and minimize the thread.
I think about how her voice sounded when she told Helena she wanted to talk about safety, not tone. She doesn’t know I overheard that. Doesn’t know I lingered in the hallway and clenched my fists so tight my nails left marks. Doesn’t know I fantasized about breaking every term of service on the internet to ruin the people hurting her.
I think about the moment she stood frozen at her desk earlier, knuckles white around her phone. I wanted to reach across the aisle, take it from her hands, and handle it.
Instead, I handed her decaf.
Coward.
I lean back in my chair and stare at the ceiling tiles. There’s a coffee stain shaped like Florida. I hate it. I kind of love it. I’ve been staring at it since I joined this company three years ago and slowly learned that most people don’t look up.