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His touch left and her brain sputtered. A smear?

“Like a child that can’t color in the lines,” he added, the soft words meandering through her body.

She froze, realizing what he meant. She spun to the glass door, staring at her reflection, breaths too fast now. She looked back at him. “Is it okay now?”

He took his time answering, spending too many seconds staring at the job. “Perfect,” he finally said.

The praise hit her hormones like a shockwave, obliterating all her focus.

“Allow me,” he said, reaching for the door.

“Wait!” she shot out quietly, holding a hand on the glass, the other on her chest. “Let me… have a moment to… focus.”

She drew a slow, deep breath through her nose, closing her eyes when he stared at her with that fire in his eyes. Fury? Want? Obsession?

Only in your dreams, little girl.

She emptied her lungs, slowly, evenly. Drew another breath the same, then repeated, hearing his own huff of impatience.

Her anger snapped. “I’m sorry,” she whispered sharply. “I’m not blessed with your ice-cold self-control. I’m a little more human than you.”

Something flickered in his eyes and he gave the sexiest half smile she’d ever seen. God, it made her want to… kiss him! He was too much!

She yanked open the door, ready to jump into anything to escape the inferno before her. She stepped into the room and caught her breath. The space stretched long, the walls brushed with steel and slate looking panels. A single black-glass table ran through the center like a blade, designed for making decisions.

Five people sat already. Still. Watching.

Kildare stood near a screen at the front, backlit by movement and color. A mug balanced in one hand while calm rested on his shoulders, sharp around the edges.

His eyes found hers and the space between them clicked into something else. His focus didn’t weigh her down, it lifted her slightly—like she was something that had already passed inspection.

“Miss Juniper,” he greeted, holding her gaze one second longer than necessary before turning back to the faces at the table.

She nodded at him and removed her coat, hanging it on the back of the chair near her and sat without looking at anyone. She glanced back to find Kohl standing near the door, already folded into the shadows. Arms crossed, posture easy. Like he was in a battle with silence. Whoever moved first, lost.

Jaxi faced forward, placing her hands neatly in her lap, lacing her fingers.

Kildare stepped away from the screen, the light cutting off behind him.

She unlaced her fingers.

“This is Trojan Horse,” he said. No flourish. Just the name. “We don’t drop bombs. We don’t change laws. We don’t fight power with power.”

He looked at each of them.

“We reverse engineer seduction.”

Jaxi’s brain perked up at that. Reverse engineer seduction. That was way not what she was expecting out of his mouth.

“We go after a system that taught a generation to trade their will for ease, their conviction for comfort, and their ability to think for speed.”

He paced once, slowly, like the words needed space to breathe.

“This isn’t about belief,” he continued. “It’s about architecture. About how humanity’s wiring got rewritten.”

He tapped something on the table console. The screen behind him shifted to three clean columns.

“Reflex is the new weapon. Ours, and theirs.” He turned back to them. “They use saturation. They use speed. Endless emotional reward, messages dressed in a thousand colors, all built to bypass the brain and flatter the appetite.”