Page 32

Amelia

ONE WEEK LATER

Shit.

I winced, squeezing my eyes shut as light pierced through my skull like a blade.

Something warm wrapped around my hand. A squeeze. Gentle. Anchoring.

“Fuck… she’s waking up.”

Another voice—relieved, choked—“Finally.”

A shout followed. Urgent. “Call Kaylan!”

Kaylan?

Wait—was she in D.C.?

My eyes fluttered open, blurry shapes sharpening into sterile white walls and a too-bright ceiling.

I tried to speak. Pain shot up my throat like fire. Like I’d swallowed glass and it was clawing its way out.

Then, a familiar face filled my vision—red-eyed, smiling, fighting tears.

“Hey…” Kaylan croaked softly. “Stay still, okay? I’m going to take the tube out.”

I nodded.

Big mistake.

My throat erupted in flames.

Kaylan worked quickly, gently, and as soon as the tube was gone, I gasped in shallow, ragged breaths. The pain was still there, but I could breathe on my own again.

I blinked, eyes scanning the room.

They were all there.

Logan. Zarek. Sebastian. Delara. Leora.

Each one with a smile that didn’t quite reach their eyes.

Each one holding something back.

Joy? Relief?

Or was it grief?

I looked again. Harder.

Where was Kabir?

Where the fuck was my brother?

I tried to speak, to ask something—anything—but only a rasp came out.

“Don’t,” Kaylan said gently, placing her hand on mine. “You’re safe. Just breathe, okay?”

She leaned in, checking my pulse, flashing a light in my eyes, asking me to follow her finger side to side. Her voice was steady but her hands were trembling just slightly.

“How many fingers?”

“Two,” I whispered hoarsely.

Logan stepped forward, arms crossed tightly.

“What’s the last thing you remember?”

I closed my eyes, digging through the haze.

“D.C…” My throat felt like sandpaper. “The White House… Situation Room. Then…”

Nothing.

A wall of static. A blackout.

Delara spoke, voice soft but edged with something.

“You and Kabir split up after the mission. You took the north hallway. You were ambushed. They beat you up pretty bad. You were shot in the lower chest.” She swallowed. “Kabir found you. Got you out. He didn’t leave your side. Not until you were transferred here—two weeks ago.”

My gaze darted around the room again.

“Where…” I croaked. “Where’s K-kabir?”

Silence.

No one met my eyes. Not even Logan.

“Where is he?” I pushed again, my voice a brittle whisper.

Kaylan stood abruptly, her voice firm. “Okay. That’s enough. She needs rest.”

“I’m fine,” I rasped, already knowing I wasn’t. “I need to see him.”

“Everyone out,” Kaylan ordered.

The others hesitated but obeyed. Zarek gave me a soft nod. Delara looked like she wanted to stay. Logan lingered the longest, but one look from Kaylan and he followed the rest.

She closed the door, her back to it for a second before she turned to face me.

“Amelia…” Her voice cracked.

“What happened?” I whispered. “Kaylan… please.”

She sat beside me, eyes welling.

“We can talk about it later. When you’re better.”

I shook my head. “No… tell me. Fucking please! Is he dead?”

She sighed. “His RLM went inactive seven days ago. Kabir’s gone.”

My breath hitched. “Gone? What do you mean gone?”

“He left, Amelia. Walked out. Took the tech… and disappeared.”

My body froze, but the storm inside had already begun.

“No…” I shook my head weakly. “That’s not… no.”

Kaylan held my shoulders. “He stole Sentrix 5.4.”

“What?”

“He took the whole module with him. Everything. He’s gone rogue, Amelia.”

“No,” I gasped, chest rising in shallow panicked bursts. “No, he wouldn’t—he wouldn’t leave me.”

“Hey. Listen to me.” Kaylan tried to still me. I couldn’t breathe. My skin felt too tight.

“I need—I need to see him. He wouldn’t—he wouldn’t just—”

“HELP!” Kaylan shouted, reaching for the nurse call. “We need to sedate her, now!”

My heart jackhammered in my ribs. The machines beside me spiked with erratic beeps.

Then—

Everything went soft.

I heard her voice. I think it was Kaylan.

“It’s okay. Sleep. We’ll find him.”

But I was already slipping under.

Into black.

Into nowhere.

???

“Did he take the Pentagon files too?”

Zarek’s voice made my jaw clench. The venom dripping off each word had me wishing I could roll this wheelchair right over his face.

Gun to his head. Gun to everyone’s fucking head.

It had been a week since I woke up. I could move around now—barely. The wheelchair was freeing, but I almost wished I were still stuck in that hospital bed. At least then I could pretend the world hadn’t turned against him.

Against Kabir.

“No,” Zane reluctantly admitted, his tone laced with rage.

He was pacing again, his fists tight at his sides.

I knew why he was the most furious—he’d built Sentrix.

It was his brainchild, his life’s work. Kabir hadn’t stolen it, not exactly.

He’d cloned the architecture. Taken a version with him.

But that nuance didn’t matter to Zane. To him, it was betrayal. Period.

I stared down at my hands in my lap, fingers curling over the soft blanket draped across my knees. I couldn’t meet their eyes. Not Zane’s. Not Zarek’s. They were convinced Kabir had turned. That he’d sold them out.

They were wrong. I knew it. But earlier in the week, when I’d tried to explain that—tried to say Kabir must have had no choice—Zane had shouted at me.

Zarek hadn’t needed to. His glare alone had said enough.

If it hadn’t been for Logan stepping between us, I might’ve put a bullet in Zane’s sanctimonious face.

I didn’t care anymore.

Nothing was right. Not without Kabir.

Dylan hadn’t spoken to me at all. He’d stayed by my side but hadn’t uttered a single word.

I didn’t know what he thought.

My eyes darted to him. He was staring at his empty plate, his expression blank.

Kaylan and Logan were on my side. Leora too. But even she couldn’t knock the logic back into her husband’s thick skull. Ghost had always been cold—but this?

Across the lounge table, Sebastian exhaled and leaned forward, his voice calm.

“Let’s hold off on any rash decisions. First, we comb through what we pulled from the Pentagon. Our objective hasn’t changed. We’re still blind without the Doom Switch.”

I groaned. Not from pain—though that was always there—but from his casual tone. The same tone you use to discuss whether to have coffee or tea.

Like Kabir’s betrayal was inconvenient. Not catastrophic.

I felt Kaylan’s hand land gently on my thigh. Logan followed a beat later, grounding me.

Then Zane opened his mouth.

“I’m marking Cipher as a rogue asset.”

I snapped my head up so fast the world tilted.

“Fuck you,” I spat.

His sigh wasn’t angry. It was… tired. Like he pitied me.

I knew what they all thought. That I wasn’t in my right mind. That my emotional regulation was off due to my injuries.

But I knew my thoughts were sharp. Crystal clear.

I was angry.

I was devastated.

I was disgusted.

I was fucking disappointed.

“Hold off on that,” Sebastian said, his tone quiet but not uncertain.

It surprised me. I didn’t know why he wasn’t joining the firing squad. But for now, at least, he wasn’t loading his gun.

“Seb, I need to mark him rogue,” Zane argued, throwing his glasses onto the table like punctuation. “If I don’t, my team will keep giving him access to secure files.”

He leaned forward, rubbing his face in frustration. “I can’t believe he would do this.”

I finally found my voice again.

“He wouldn’t. Which should tell you everything you need to know—that he had no choice. Or that he’s playing double agent.”

They all went quiet.

But I could see it in their eyes.

They didn’t believe me.

“Amelia, I was given the same choice as him,” Zane said after a long, crushing silence.

His words froze me.

“What?” Zarek asked, his voice low.

Zane exhaled hard, jaw clenched. “They asked me to switch sides. To hand over Sentrix. Offered me more money and protection than most people see in a lifetime.”

He turned to me then—and the rage in his eyes made me flinch.

“But I didn’t. I chose death over it. Because I couldn’t do that to us.”

He looked back at the room, eyes wild.

“But Kabir did. So do the fucking math!”

He all but shouted the last part, the heat of betrayal spilling from every word.

“Settle down,” Sebastian interjected, placing a hand on Zane’s shoulder. “You said you had shit to tell.”

Zane’s chest was rising and falling like he’d just run a marathon. I honestly thought he might explode… again.

He shook his anger off and leaned forward. “I’ve been digging into the Pentagon feeds from the White House op. Found something.”

He looked at Sebastian. “Do you know who Leonard Perrin is?”

Zarek frowned. “Wasn’t that your Director during your CIA days?”

Seb nodded slowly, confused. “Yeah… he was. Died almost eight years ago.”

Zane sat down beside him, eyes scanning the group. “Leonard Perrin didn’t just die . According to the autopsy, it was a heart attack. But things weren’t adding up. I think… he was eliminated.”

He let that sit for a beat before adding, “Leonard Perrin was the initial recruit for Bridgewood Alpha One. But after his death, the candidacy was quietly replaced by someone else—Robert Callahan. Now known as Robert Romano. The Secretary of Defense.”

My stomach dropped.

What the actual fuck?

“Amelia,” Zane’s voice softened just a fraction. “I need your help. There’s a shit ton of data. Can you—will you help?”

I bit back the instinct to snap at him. My jaw tightened, my lips pressed into a line before I gave him a stiff nod.

What choice did I have?

None.

Maybe if I sat with him long enough—pored through those Pentagon files day in and day out—I could convince him that Kabir wasn’t a traitor. That he hadn’t abandoned us. That he was doing this for a reason.

But as I looked around the room—at Zarek’s stoicism, at Leora’s conflicted expression, at Sebastian’s weariness, at Kaylan and Logan’s fractured silence—I saw it.

The cracks.

A fracture forming, slow and jagged.

And I was completely helpless to stop it.