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The worst part? A piece of her still wanted to trust him. The same part that remembered nights bound to his bed—breathless, aching, pushed past limits she hadn’t known she had. And she hated herself for it. Hated that some part of her had been so easily swayed by her uncle, who’d almost seemed to enjoy watching her walk away, knowing the truth would cut too deep for her to stay.

She crossed her arms. “So what, I’m under house arrest?”

Because it sure as hell felt like it—even if he’d wrapped it in reassurances and disguised it as concern. Reinforced digital freedoms, though she suspected those came with invisible strings. A carefully offered car and driver, if she played along. All the tools she could ask for—but the walls were still his, and the lock fit her far too well. It was still a gilded cage. And she’d always known how to spot a lock, no matter how polished the metal.

“I prefer the term protective custody.”

“Oh well, when you say it like that...”

He gave her a look, the kind that said he wasn’t in the mood for games but would absolutely indulge them if they helped him keep her safe. Which only made it worse.

“You said something about work?” she asked, remembering the offhand comment he’d made earlier upstairs—something about giving her space to earn, under supervision. It hadn’t registered at the time. Now, with a full tech command center blinking at her, it was clicking into place. She asked, changing the subject before her mouth could outrun her sense of self-preservation.

Finn nodded toward the other end of the room. A sleek workstation hummed to life with a touch of his hand, the screens flaring on with a soft glow that lit up the corners of the dark space. "Everything’s clean. Secure server, isolated network. You’ll find encrypted access to the darknet, shell profiles for contracting, a dedicated crypto wallet, and a virtual airgap kill switch if you need to wipe fast. It's configured to your known aliases and can spin up fresh ones if you need."

He stepped back, arms crossed, watching her with that unreadable calm that drove her insane. "Keyboard’s weighted the way you like it. Optical trackpad, military-grade firewall, your preferred font settings. Even the background code was set to dark mode."

She stared at the station, something sharp and uncertain twisting low in her gut. This wasn’t just tech. This was intimacy. It was a man who remembered every keystroke she favored, every quirk of her digital habits—and had rebuilt them from memory like it was nothing.

He hadn’t just given her tools. He’d built her a temple—silent, precise, and carved from memory. Every detail, from the slight tilt of the monitors to the backup redundancy in the drives, screamed of someone who hadn’t just remembered her habits but had honored them. Revered them. Like a worshipper rebuilding an altar to a goddess who’d once ruled his world. And damn him, part of her still ached for the devotion buried in every byte.

Her jaw ticked. “All yours, you mean. Let’s not pretend I’m not still inside your cage.”

His voice dropped. “I’m not pretending anything. You asked for a way to work. I gave you one. Full sandbox access. Nothing leaves without your key.”

That actually gave her pause. She stepped toward the terminal, fingers hovering over the keys like it might bite. Her breath caught, just a little, the muscle in her jaw tightening. He’d remembered everything. The keystroke responsiveness, the anti-glare coating on the monitor, the exact layout of a workspace that once felt like home. It was like slipping back into a life she'd buried—and finding it still warm.

The setup was impressive—overkill, really. But efficient. Brutally efficient. And that efficiency made something tighten low in her belly. She wasn’t sure if it was awe or unease—or the terrifying possibility it was both. The thought that he could know her this well, down to the granular quirks of her work rhythm, wasn’t just unsettling. It was invasive. Intimate. And it scraped against a raw nerve she hadn’t realized was still exposed.

She glanced sideways, suspicion flickering beneath the casual tone. “What’s the catch?” She didn’t trust gifts—not from him. Not when control often came dressed like kindness.

“No catch.” He shrugged. “I just want to know if you’re building a firewall or burning one down.” His tone held that razor-thin line between warning and challenge—meant to rattle her, or maybe test if she still knew how to rattle him back.

Keira huffed a breath that might’ve been a laugh. “You always were good at knowing just when to push and when to back off.”

“And you were always good at pretending you didn’t like it.”

Her cheeks flushed. Dammit. She looked back at the screen, forcing her voice to stay cool. “So, what—are you gonna be watching me while I work, too?”

“I have better things to do than babysit your keyboard.”

“Oh, right. Like glowering at poor Donal until he develops a stress ulcer.”

“He’s already got one. Nothing to do with me.”

“Uh-huh.”

They fell into a silence that wasn’t quite comfortable but no longer sharp-edged—tense, but tolerable. Keira sat, her fingers flying over the keys with muscle memory that surprised her.

She toggled through system diagnostics, sifted through access logs, poked around the sandbox, and ran a couple of fake intrusion tests just to be sure. The hum of the machinery under her fingertips, the subtle warmth of the monitors, and the faint electric tang in the air all wrapped around her like a second skin. This wasn’t just work—it was homecoming, laced with unease.

The architecture was flawless. Not just functional—it was intuitive, like the machine could anticipate her next move before she made it. It felt like sitting down to an instrument she hadn't touched in years and still knowing the song by heart.

And worse—he knew her well enough to build exactly what she needed. The keystroke feel, the nested access layers, even the digital watermark she used to hide in her code—he’d recreated them all. He hadn’t just rebuilt her system, he’d resurrected a part of her she’d locked away. Even now. Even after everything. And worse, she wasn’t sure she wanted to lock it back up.

She’d pulled her legs up into the chair without realizing it, bare feet tucked beneath her as she hunched over the keys. The hum of the system and the soft tap of her fingers had become a rhythm—one that filled the silence without needing to be broken. At some point, she’d shrugged out of her sweater, leaving it draped across the back of the chair. The longer she sat, the more the space started to feel familiar—dangerously so. Like it belonged to her. Like she belonged there.

“You’re quiet,” he said finally.