Page 69 of Hunt Me

The pieces don’t fit together cleanly, which means we’re missing something crucial. I pull my arm carefully from beneath Iris and grab my phone from the nightstand.

3:47 AM. Nikolai will be awake—he rarely sleeps more than four hours.

I slip out of bed, pulling on sweatpants before padding into my office. The city sprawls below, streetlights creating geometric patterns against the darkness.

My brother answers on the second ring.

“This better be good.”

“I need your help.” I keep my voice low, so I don’t wake Iris. “But you’re not going to like it.”

Silence stretches between us. Then: “Where are you?”

“My place.”

“I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

He hangs up before I can respond.

I spend the time pulling together everything Iris found—Morrison’s payments, the Sentinel connections, the doctored accident reports. By the time Nikolai’s security code beeps at my door, I have three monitors displaying different aspects of the conspiracy.

My brother walks in, still wearing his suit from whatever late-night meeting he attended. His steel-gray eyes take in the screens, then narrow on me.

“Start talking.”

“The Phantom is Iris Mitchell.” I let the confession hang in the air. “And she’s been in my bed for the past three nights.”

Nikolai’s expression doesn’t change, but his fingers curl slightly—the only tell that I’ve surprised him.

“The same Phantom who’s been screwing us for eight months?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re fucking her because...?”

“Because I’m obsessed with her.” The truth comes easier than I expected. “Because she’s brilliant and damaged and the only person who’s ever matched me. Because her parents were murdered by a government black ops program, and she thought we did it.”

“We didn’t.”

“I know that. She knows that now, too.” I gesture to the screens. “But someone wanted her to think we did. Someone with connections deep enough to orchestrate a hit and make it look like a mechanical failure.”

Nikolai moves closer to the monitors, scanning the information with the analytical precision that made him dangerous. He reads everything in seconds; his photographic memory processes details faster than most people can speak.

“Sentinel Operations.” He taps one screen. “CIA front company. Handles wet work the agency can’t officially touch.”

“Can we infiltrate their systems?”

“We?” Nikolai’s eyes cut to me. “You mean you and the woman who’s been stealing from us?”

“She’s good, Nik. Better than good. We need her.”

“Need is a strong word.”

“She lost her parents to these people. They’ve been watching her for years, waiting to see if she gets too close to the truth.” I pull up Morrison’s financial records. “This agent has been bleeding Sentinel for payments since Iris started digging. She accidentally breached Project Nightshade yesterday.”

Nikolai’s jaw tightens. “What kind of breach?”

“Full access to classified archives. She covered her tracks, but they know someone got in.”