Page 73 of Fallen Empire

Nic didn’t hesitate. “She knows what she signed up for.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

Nic arched a brow. “She’s not green, Ben. She’s done dirtier jobs with fewer parameters. She’s in and out in one night. I’m not sending her into a war zone, we’re dropping her into a Penthouse with champagne and satin sheets. She’ll be fine.”

Ben shook his head, eyes narrowing. “You’re underestimating him.”

“I’m not underestimating anything,” Nic snapped. “I’m playing the cards we’ve got.”

“No,” Ben said, stepping forward. “You’re gambling with someone else’s life and calling it strategy. If something happens—”

“It won’t.”

“If it does,” Ben said, voice hard now, “it’s on you.”

The room went quiet.

Nic didn’t flinch. She just slipped her phone back into her pocket, cool as ever. “Then let’s make sure nothing does.”

But I saw it—just for a flicker—when she turned away. That crack in her armor. The part of her thatwasn’tsure. That maybe knew, deep down, we weren’t ready for what we were walking into.

Ben dropped back into his chair. I gave him a beat. But we both knew there was nothing else to say.

“I need to get back to Savannah.”

He didn’t lift his head. Just gave a single nod.

I stepped into the hall and pulled the door closed behind me, but the silence didn’t follow. It clung to me, wrapped around my shoulders like a warning I couldn’t shake.

I trusted Nic.

The problem was—I trusted Ben more.

And if he was on edge?

I should’ve been, too.

There was a weight pressing down on this mission, something thick and bitter that made the air feel wrong.

Like we were already too late.

Maybe it was because Savannah was still helpless upstairs, and I’d already failed her once.

Or maybe it was the feeling I knew too well.

The kind that crawls up your spine when ghosts from your past start taking shape again.

I tried to go back to that place—the world I once called home.

If home was what you called hell on earth.

As the elevator doors slid closed, I shut my eyes and stepped into Costa’s shoes.

It wasn’t Koslov, not really.

It was worse.

But their tactics, their cruelty, theirgames—they all played from the same bloodstained script.