Page 68 of Knight (Chambers Brothers Trilogy #3)

CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

Knight

Three days have passed since I sent Eva away, and my healing wounds are a constant reminder of everything that went wrong.

Bishop’s parting words echo in my ears, full of concern and irritation. He didn’t want me coming back here, believing I should recover under their watch. Rook was even less subtle, slamming a hand against the doorframe as I left. Unlike my brothers, Victor felt no such need to pull his punches. Instead of leaving me to return to my apartment alone, he insists on coming with me.

“You didn’t have to come inside.”

“I’m aware, and I’ll be leaving for the airport once I’m certain you’re not going to do something stupid like bleed out on your apartment floor.”

“I won’t.”

“And if you do, no one will know for at least two days. By which point, you’ll be dead and stinking out that fortress you call an apartment.”

“I have protocols in place for if anything happens to me.”

He snorts. “Of course you do. Knight, what you did …”

“What you did you mean?”

“Fair. But if you hadn’t persisted, both Michael and I could be dead now.”

I glance over at him. “You’re welcome. Don’t fuck up my computers again.”

He laughs again. I initiate the access codes to call my elevator.

“You know how to contact me if you need anything.”

I glance at him. “Decided you’re not coming up, after all?”

“We both know you’d rather I didn’t.”

I don’t argue. I need space. My space.

“And anyway, I have places to be, systems to break into.” He pats my shoulder, the one that doesn’t have a bullet hole. “Stay safe.”

“Always.”

The elevator doors open, and I step inside. Victor has already walked out of my building by the time they close.

When they open again onto my apartment floor, I’m greeted by darkness. My systems are dormant, save for the essential ones keeping the building secure. I initiate the unlock sequence, every movement pulling at my stitches, and go straight to my workspace as soon as I’m inside.

The first thing I do is reboot my systems. The hum of machinery fills the space as the servers power up, their lights casting faint, familiar glows across the room. The monitors flicker to life one by one, displaying system statuses, network feeds, and the ever-present security cameras.

The hours bleed together after that. I throw myself into my work, reconfiguring firewalls, analyzing vulnerabilities, and running simulations. Anything to keep my mind occupied. The pain in my shoulder and side is a dull throb now, background noise to the sharp ache of everything I’ve lost. Or pushed away, anyway. My fingers hover over the keyboard more often than I’d like to admit, tempted to send her a message. A single line, just to check she’s okay. But I don’t.

It’s Michael who interrupts my cycle. His message comes through late one night, a week after I came home. It’s delivered via an encrypted message through a channel reserved for people wanting to hire me. A week. I stare at his name blinking on the screen.

I need your help.

I hesitate, my mind spinning all sorts of scenarios in my head, before finally typing.

With what?

Training. I need to learn how to protect myself. How to stop them from ever doing it again.

I know what he’s referring to. The way they exploited his skills, and used him to target others. It’s not a simple request. It’s a door I’m not even sure I want to open.

Tomorrow. 10 A.M.

The first session is simple. I teach him the basics of firewall manipulation, and the weaknesses in common encryption. But it doesn’t take long before the elephant in the room steps into the light.

"You broke her heart," he says during a break, voice quiet but steady.

The words are a blunt confirmation of what I’ve been avoiding.

"We’re not talking about her."

"How can we not? You can’t just … pretend she doesn’t exist. Not with what you did."

I lean back, forcing myself to breathe through the tension building in my chest.

"If I’m going to train you, that’s the rule. We don’t talk about her. Pick now. Training or your sister. You don’t get both."

Michael’s jaw tightens, but after a moment, he nods. "Fine."

It’s a fragile truce, one I’m not sure will hold, but it’s enough to get us through the session. Each keystroke, each line of code, is like fortifying walls. His against future attacks, mine against the mess I’ve made of everything else. Training him is more than teaching; it’s self-preservation. If I can keep him from being used again, maybe I’m not entirely the villain here.

And then the first visit happens three days later.

My security feed pings, warning me of movement in the lobby.

Eva .

She’s standing just inside the door, arms crossed, phone in her hand. Of course she’d show up now. Like I haven’t spent the last few days trying to forget the way she looked when I pushed her away. Forgetting clearly isn’t working.

She tilts her head up, staring directly at the camera. She knows the elevator won’t work without access codes. And she knows I’m probably watching.

Her thumb swipes across the screen, then she holds the phone up toward the lens. Through the camera, I recognize her banking app. And more importantly the ten thousand dollar deposit.

She noticed then. I expected she would.

"Knight?" Her voice filters through the speaker, angry and sharp. "What the hell is this?"

She lifts the phone again for emphasis, shaking it at the camera.

"I’m not leaving until you open the door."

My hand hovers over the control panel, the button to unlock the door just inches away. But I don’t press it. Instead, I watch as she steps back, her shoulders rising and falling with a deep breath. She paces the lobby.

"Is this some kind of apology? A payoff ?" She stops mid-stride and glares at the camera. "You think you can just throw money at me and walk away? That’s not how this works."

Her words echo in the silence, each one hitting harder than the last.

"Fine!" Her voice drops, softer but no less cutting. "Have it your way."

She turns and walks out, the door closing behind her, and the feed returns to its static emptiness.

The hours following her visit are restless. I cycle through my tasks with less focus, replaying the footage in my mind. The way she looked at the camera, like she was daring me to respond. Like she was waiting for something. But the only thing I do is work. Work and wait, hoping the routine will dull the edges of … whatever the fuck this is.

The second visit comes a week later.

The cameras catch her as she enters the building again, her phone clutched tightly in one hand. My stomach flips as I zoom in on the screen she’s holding. It’s her banking app again. I’ve added more money to it, and the anger on her face says she’s not happy about it.

"Whatever this is, it needs to stop." Her voice is icy.

I stay silent, watching as she presses her forehead against the door to the elevator. She’s not pacing this time. She’s still, holding her phone like it’s some kind of proof she doesn’t know what to do with.

"Why are you doing this?" she finally asks, quieter now, her voice strained. "Is it guilt? Pity? What do you think this fixes?"

Her shoulders sag, and she shakes her head. When she finally leaves, the way she grips her phone like it’s a lifeline makes my chest tighten. The guilt clings to me long after the lobby is empty again.

Michael’s training becomes my only escape. His progress is good, his natural aptitude for coding getting better with each session. He’s quick to adapt, even quicker to question. The lessons fill the gaps between the silence, but they don’t erase it. Nothing does.

Then Eva arrives again. But this time it’s different.

It’s two days after the second. She doesn’t even come inside the building. Instead, she sits on the steps just outside, a book in her lap. The cameras catch her flipping through the pages, though her eyes rarely leave the street in front of her.

She’s waiting. Not for the door to open, but for me to act. It’s a silent dare, one I’m too much of a fucking coward to meet. Hours pass, the shadows growing longer as the sun dips below the horizon. She doesn’t move, doesn’t even glance at the camera. But I know she’s aware of it.

When she finally stands, it’s with the same quiet grace she always carries, but she seems tired. The guilt twists tighter, making it hard to breathe, so I turn away from the monitors, because I can’t watch her leave again.

My phone buzzes, a notification from Michael pulling me back to the present.

"The firewall’s active," I say as his workspace appears on my screen. "Show me how you’d breach it."

He hesitates for a moment, his fingers hovering over the keyboard. "Using the standard protocols?"

"Since when do I teach standard anything?" I lift one eyebrow.

Michael almost smiles at that. Almost. His code flows across my screen. Elegant solutions that would make Victor proud. Sometimes I wonder if I’m just creating another target. Another person who knows too much. But knowledge is protection, and he needs to understand how they used him, and turned his talent into a weapon.

"Your style is getting better." I highlight a section of his work. "But you're still thinking like someone who follows rules."

"Isn't that the point of security protocols?" He glances up, fingers pausing over the keyboard.

"But it’s not the point of hackers. We need to understand them well enough to break them." I lean back, ignoring the tug of my stitches. "Force gets you nowhere. You need to look for ways around, not through."

His focus sharpens, and his hands fly over the keyboard again, adjusting his approach. His code flows faster now, more confident. A week of training has strengthened skills that already made him dangerous enough to attract the wrong kind of attention. The same potential Victor saw in me, I now see in him. I should probably be more concerned about that.

Out of the corner of my eye, one of the security feeds flickers.

The library.

Eva moves into view, pushing a cart loaded with books. My attention splits. She’s working another late shift, moving books from cart to shelf with the kind of smooth skill that’s probably in some librarian handbook.

Not that I’d know anything about that. It’s not like I’ve spent the last fuck knows how long memorizing her routines or anything. That would be pathetic. Almost as pathetic as the way my fingers twitch toward the keyboard every time she disappears between camera angles.

"There’s a vulnerability in the authentication process," Michael says, dragging my attention back.

"Fix it." I try to focus on what I’m teaching him. But my gaze keeps drifting back to the monitor.

The late shifts are new. Extra hours she’s taken on since everything changed. Not that I’m keeping track of that either. That would imply an emotional investment I don’t have. Or won’t admit to.

"The system thinks I’m an authorized user." There’s a hint of pride in his voice as he completes the breach.

"Your sister got home yet?" The question slips out before I can stop it.

Michael’s eyebrow lifts. "You know she hasn’t. You’re watching the feeds."

"Right ..." I adjust the camera angles, ignoring the fact I’m clearly becoming predictable. "Let’s see how you handle encrypted systems."

The lesson continues in silence. Every line of code carries weight we’re both pretending not to feel. Every command sequence says what we’re not discussing. When I finally end the session, neither of us mentions how this started. How they used his skills. How someone pretending to be me drew Eva into this world.

Through the library’s feeds, she continues her routine, moving between the stacks. She’s adapted to this new reality I forced on both of us.

Moved forward. Exactly what I wanted.

Except it’s not. Not really.

The cameras catch her face as she passes between shelves. The shadows under her eyes mirror my own. Both of us are pretending this is fine.

I keep telling myself that distance is protection, and that walls keep people safe rather than just lonely.

Physical pain is easier than watching her try to rebuild her life around the wreckage I created. It’s easier than knowing I could stop this. I could answer when she comes to my building. I could let her make her own choices about risk and safety and connection.

Instead, I watch through borrowed cameras and tell myself this is protection. This is necessary. This is what keeping her safe looks like.

The lies don’t taste any better now than they did two weeks ago.

But I keep telling them.

And I keep watching her through cameras, while pretending this is what I want.