Page 92 of Code Name: Atticus

“Initially charged? Are you saying?—”

“I’m saying nothing except that you need to step back and let others handle this. Full pay, of course. We’ll revisit when the situation resolves.”

The line went dead. I stared at the phone, fury and despair warring in my chest. Not only had I failed Luke, but now, I couldn’t even help him through legal channels. I was completely powerless.

“What did she say?” Emma asked.

“I’m off the case. Administrative leave.” I threw my cell onto the couch. “I’m useless to him.”

“You’re not useless. You’re his sister, and that matters more than any legal title.”

Emma’s phone chimed. She glanced at it, and her expression shifted from concern to curiosity.

“What?”

“It’s a text from Kodiak.” She looked up at me. “He says Atticus is on his way here and that he has proof Luke’s innocent.”

My heart stopped, then started racing so fast I felt dizzy. “What?”

“That’s all it says. But Kodiak wouldn’t relay that unless he was sure.”

“Does it say how far out he is?”

Emma checked her phone again. “He landed at Reagan an hour ago. Depending on traffic…”

Which meant he’d be here soon. Thirty minutes at most. I looked down at myself—yesterday’s clothes, wrinkled and tear-stained. My hair hung limp against my shoulders.

“I should change,” I said, not moving.

“You should shower,” Emma corrected. “You look terrible, and you’re about to have a very important conversation.”

“It doesn’t matter how I look.”

“It matters how you feel. And right now, you feel like someone who’s given up. That’s not the Brenna who’s going to fight for her brother.”

She was right. I needed armor, even if it was just clean clothes and washed hair.

The hot water did nothing to rinse away the guilt, but at least I looked less destroyed when I emerged wearing clean jeans and a Georgetown Law sweatshirt. The sweatshirt was soft from years of wear, a comfort item I usually reserved for sick days. Today qualified.

Emma had made herself comfortable on my couch, her laptop open, scrolling through what looked like international bank records.

When the intercom buzzed, we both froze.

“Yes?” I said into the speaker, my voice steadier than my hands.

“Brenna, it’s me. I have proof Luke’s innocent. Trevor framed him on Morrison’s orders.” Atticus’ voice crackled through the old system. He said more, but I couldn’t hear him over the thick, rhythmic thudding that drowned out everything else.

Emma nodded at me encouragingly. I pressed the button to release the lock on the downstairs door.

The two minutes it took him to reach my ninth-floor apartment stretched endlessly. I heard the elevator ding, then footsteps in the hallway. When the knock came, Emmaanswered while I stood frozen in my living room, arms crossed, trying to hold myself together.

Atticus looked terrible. Worse than I’d ever seen him, including that time he’d been awake for seventy-two hours straight during another K19 crisis that had happened weeks ago but felt like years. He was unshaven, his clothes wrinkled like he’d slept in them—if he’d slept at all. Dark circles shadowed his eyes, but there was fire there too. Determination. Hope. But also guilt so heavy his shoulders hunched.

“I’ll go change,” said Emma, hurrying toward the guest room, where she closed the door behind her.

“You were right,” he said, his gaze locked on mine. “I should have fought harder. I should have trusted what I knew about Luke instead of what the evidence suggested. But I’m fighting now.”

His hands shook when he set a laptop and an encrypted drive on my coffee table.