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I follow his line of sight, only to realize he’s opening a fresh ops panel on the side of the display. “Here,” he says, and nudges the monitor toward me.
My brows lift. “Me?”
“You said you wanted in.” He nudges the keyboard toward me, the corner of his mouth lifting just slightly—not a smirk, but something more dangerous. More deliberate. "So get in. Prove you're more than a survivor. Show me you're a threat."
He gestures to the screen, fingers gliding over the interface. “This is our communications scrub filter. Set the geofence to a ten-kilometer radius around Opus Noir, timestamp it for the two hours after Fortier bailed. Then match the encrypted fingerprint patterns against what we caught last night from Rue Lafayette. If Rouge Zero was on the move, we’ll see where they bounced.”
I stare at the interface—sleek, cold, humming with a kind of intelligence that feels just beyond reach. The nested menus and streaming code blur like a language I’ve only half-learned, studied in shadows and silence, watching from the edges of Hector’s world. I absorbed more than I realized over the years. Enough to follow pieces of it. Enough to suspect. But this? This is different. This is real.
The cursor blinks like a dare. Like it knows I’ve been bluffing.
Nick’s heat is at my back, his arm anchoring me in place, strong and steady around my waist. I can feel the weight of his belief in me, and it’s terrifying.
“You’re serious?” I whisper, voice tighter than I mean it to be.
His hand traces a slow line up my side, firm and reassuring, not demanding—centering. “I wouldn’t have put you here if I wasn’t,” he says, voice quiet but absolute. No room for debate. No cracks in the foundation. He’s not just backing me—he’s betting on me.
I hesitate, fingers poised just above the keys. “I’m not trained for this. Not the way you are. Not the way Logan is.”
Nick doesn’t argue. Doesn’t soften. “No, you’re not. But you’ve been watching for years. You’ve seen how these bastards move. You know how Hector thinks. You got close without letting it break you.” His voice lowers, more intimate now. “You’ve been surviving in their world longer than any of us have. That’s what makes you dangerous.”
And just like that, something sharp and hot cuts through the fog of doubt. I’m still unsure. Still scared I’ll fail. But now there’s a thread of belief running beneath it—mine, not his.
I press the first key.
The system responds. Lines of code flicker to life, filters engage. Digital trails burst across the screen like spiderwebs spun in real time. Information flares brightly across the display, and for once, it doesn’t feel like chaos. It feels like progress.
Nick watches my hands. “That’s my girl,” he murmurs.
I swallow hard, heat blooming low in my stomach.
I don’t look at Logan, but I can feel him watching—his presence a silent pressure behind me, sharp and assessing. It scrapes along my spine like a blade still sheathed, not yet dangerous, but waiting. There’s no sound, no comment, just the weight of his gaze as I type, every keystroke echoing louder under the scrutiny. It’s not distrust exactly. It’s wariness. A waiting game. Like he’s measuring not just what I can do, but what I’m going to become.
Nick keeps his hand steady on me, his voice calm as he guides me through the next layer. “Once the scan completes, you’ll get a heatmap. From there, we can flag any locations where traffic intersected Vallois’ known drop points.”
I nod, muscles tight with focus, nerves on fire. Because for the first time since this nightmare began, I’m not just running. I’m not waiting to be rescued. And if this scan turns up even one new thread to pull—one that helps take Hector or Vallois down—then it’s worth every second of doubt I’ve carried since the moment I stepped into Nick Ryeland’s world.
He leans in slowly, the scent of him wrapping around me—leather, spice, and something darker, something that feels like home and danger all at once. His breath fans warm across my cheek as his lips graze my temple in a whisper of a kiss, not meant for show, not even for comfort. It's possession in its quietest form. A vow. A claim. And a reassurance that even here, surrounded by uncertainty and judgment, I am exactly where I’m meant to be—with him.
“You’re doing fine,” he whispers, the words brushing against my skin like silk over steel—gentle in delivery, absolute in meaning. His hand doesn’t move from my waist, a constant pressure grounding me in the moment, tethering me to the belief that I’m no longer just a survivor clawing her way through shadows. I’m a weapon. I’m not being shielded from the storm. I’m part of the damn strike team.
15
NICK
The scan completes with a soft chime. She exhales, hands still hovering over the keyboard like she’s bracing for another layer to crack open. Her focus hasn’t wavered once, even with Logan practically breathing down her neck and that data storm rolling across the screen.
She’s steady; she’s mine. And that’s exactly the problem.
“Print it,” I tell her, voice low. “Then get some rest.”
She hesitates, just a beat, then nods. “You’ll wake me if anything comes through?”
“I won’t let you miss it.”
Her eyes flick to mine—no hesitation, just trust. Then she’s gone, long legs, bare feet, my shirt brushing the backs of her thighs, and the scent of sex and adrenaline trailing behind her.
The moment she’s out of earshot, I feel Logan’s stare cut in like a scalpel.