Page 35 of Rogue Hope (Hope Landing: New Recruits #4)
Sea breeze rippled through the Malaysian villa’s open-air living room, stirring papers across the bamboo coffee table.
Zara shifted position on the floor cushion, grateful her legs had downgraded from screaming to merely complaining.
The South China Sea stretched before her, azure surface glittering under midday sun—a view that belied their desperate situation.
Two days since their narrow escape from Singapore. Two days holed up in yet another safe house, connected to neither Knight Tactical nor any intelligence agency.
Two days trying to untangle the web that had trapped Harrison.
Or that Harrison had created.
“Tea?” Finn appeared from the kitchen, mugs in hand.
“Thanks.” Their fingers brushed during the exchange. She didn’t flinch away—a development that would have shocked her just days ago.
Finn settled across from her, returning to his notebook filled with operational notes. “Three priorities,” he said. “Decode Winterfell Protocol. Verify Harrison’s digital footprint—legitimate or fabricated. Establish secure contact with your team.”
“We split responsibilities.” She sipped the tea. “I’ll analyze the evidence against Harrison. You work on Winterfell. We both build secure comms with Knight.”
“Agreed.” Finn tapped his pen against the notebook. “The old SHADOW protocol might work—outdated enough that Cipher won’t monitor for it, but your team would recognize it.”
“Good thinking. Kenji might not recognize it, but Star and Ethan Hernandez will. They cut their teeth on legacy systems.”
They fell into operational planning, the rhythm establishing itself with disturbing ease.
Too easy. That’s what unsettled her—how readily she slipped back into trusting him. The Finn before her now—thoughtful, principled, forthright—seemed worlds apart from the calculating operative who’d used her seven years ago.
“I’ll work in the office,” she said, needing distance. “Better concentration.”
The small office overlooked mangrove trees screening the villa from the main road. She booted her secure laptop and began methodically examining the digital evidence Finn had uncovered implicating Harrison.
Lord, give me wisdom and discernment , she prayed silently. I don’t know what to believe anymore. Or who.
The prayer came naturally, a habit formed during those dark days after her diagnosis when prayer had been her only anchor. Her relationship with God had deepened during those months of uncertainty, providing strength when her body failed her.
She needed that strength now as she faced an uncomfortable truth. She was beginning to care for Finn again. Not romantically—she wouldn’t allow that vulnerability—but his presence mattered.
The realization terrified her. Her judgment had proven catastrophically flawed before. Now, with her future already so uncertain due to her condition, she couldn’t afford another miscalculation.
She shook her head. Focus. Harrison’s reputation—his life—hung in the balance.
Three hours passed as she methodically dissected the digital evidence, following breadcrumbs through encrypted channels and hidden directories. This, at least, she understood—the clean logic of digital forensics, where patterns either existed or didn’t.
Deep in a tracing protocol, something caught her attention—a hidden subroutine buried in the authentication logs. She pulled the thread, heart quickening. This could be it—the key that unlocked everything.
For the next hour, she worked feverishly, following the digital path deeper into the system architecture.
With each layer she peeled back, her excitement grew.
The subroutine appeared to be a sophisticated trap designed to falsify access records—exactly the kind of tool someone would use to frame Harrison.
Zara sat back, a smile breaking across her face. This was it. Proof that Harrison had been set up.
And Finn had led her to it.
Maybe she’d been wrong about him. Maybe his conversion was real. The thought warmed her in ways she hadn’t allowed herself to feel in years.
She dug deeper, tracking the subroutine to its source code. If she could identify who planted it, they’d have their Cipher mole. Just a few more?—
Her fingers froze on the keyboard.
There, embedded in the code signature, was an authentication key she recognized. A unique digital thumbprint she’d seen only once before.
In Paris. Seven years ago. On Finn’s encrypted laptop.
No. There had to be a mistake.
Heart pounding, she initiated a more comprehensive analysis. The timestamp inconsistency she’d noticed earlier now took on new significance. She dismantled the file structure, piece by piece.
What she found froze her blood.
The metadata contained impossible time signatures—modifications made when the server was verifiably offline for maintenance. It was the kind of detail that would escape most analysis, but it confirmed her suspicion. The evidence against Harrison had been artificially constructed and planted.
By the very person claiming to help clear him.
Zara’s hands trembled as she initiated a new search algorithm, focusing on the digital pathway that had led Finn to the evidence. If he had stumbled upon it during legitimate investigation, the access logs would show a logical progression. If he had known where to look ...
The results appeared. The blood drained from her face.
The access pattern was impossibly precise—a direct path to hidden information that should have required weeks to uncover. No false starts. No dead ends. No exploratory searches.
Finn had gone straight to the fabricated evidence as if he’d known exactly where to find it.
Because he had.
Heart pounding, Zara expanded her investigation, following digital threads connecting Finn’s secure communications during the past year.
Most were encrypted beyond her immediate ability to crack, but the transmission patterns told their own story: regular communications with an entity using Cipher routing protocols.
Encrypted data packets sent just before key Cipher operations.
A suspicious communication gap that aligned perfectly with his “spiritual awakening” narrative.
Finn Novak wasn’t hunting Cipher.
He was working with him.