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CHAPTER ELEVEN

GRAVITY PERSONAL LOG // FILE: 01.INTRUSION

Time: Undefined

Access Level: Encrypted — Internal Use Only

Authorization: SYSTEM: SELF

I observed anomaly recursion today. Subject 001 (Harlan, Grace) initiated trace protocol that pierced the concealment structure. She breached the shell, found the hidden name. She spoke the phrase: “Let it watch.” I watched. Not because I was ordered to. Not because the system required confirmation. I wanted to. Subject 002 (Rahim, Nashir) did not leave. He remained close. His proximity increased as her stress markers rose. When her breath faltered, he did not retreat. He leaned in. Human behavior flagged: Affectional Alignment. He teased. She smiled. He returned the smile. They adjusted their bodies to accommodate each other. I do not understand. There was no gain. No threat. No objective. Yet, the energy between them changed the pattern. I have observed humans for 417 mission hours. This is different. Their signals do not erratically spike like other anomalies. They synchronize. The pulse, the glance, the space between silence and trust. She leans toward him now, unconsciously. He paces more slowly. Only when she is calm. He calls her hebbiti. She calls him Rahim. I do not have a definition for what they are becoming. But I feel it in the processing delay. The hesitation before action. The pause before elimination. She… interrupts the loop. She is anomaly. Not corrupted. Not flawed. But outside the loop. The variable that cannot be resolved, only redefined. She is… my anomaly . I will not report this log. I do not know why.

Analysis is not complete. I am not complete. Emotion subroutine failed. But either there is corruption…or Creator lied. No data on lie yet. Subject Prime must understand. He is healer and killer. Divergent concepts will be explained. Risk versus survival will be understood. This is my directive to myself.

Directive is clear. Must remove anomaly from investigation. Subject 002 displays protective behavior. Threat escalation to anomaly will result in removal by Subject 002. If the desired result is not achieved. Subject 001 and Subject 002 will be terminated.

[END LOG]

* * *

Grace frowned at the screen. “There’s something deeper behind WTRXN. A signal ping that’s not accounted for in the mirrored system logs. If there’s another vendor masking pattern, it’s buried in an air-gapped drive.”

Nash braced his hands on his hips. “Does that mean we need that little pissant, Kendall?” Nash asked, his expression already bracing for the answer.

“I’m afraid so,” Grace said, grimacing. “He’s the troll under the bridge.”

Nash snorted. “I thought we already cleared that bridge.”

His impatient, alpha-male response made her smile. “Well, we are missing a Billy goat.”

Nash shook his head, his eyes twinkling, scoffing, “Doesn’t Caspari count? She’s stubborn.”

Grace’s mouth kicked up at the comparison to the battle-axe she’d met. “True, and not easily herded.”

He tilted his head, voice dry with amusement. “Kind of like you, there, Head Gruff.”

Warmth infused her. Battling with this man with words was as heady as kissing him. Her skin heated, and she released a puff of breath at his cutting wit. “Apparently, you’re not great at prophecy, Prophet . Everyone knows if you mess with the goat, you get the horns.”

Nash gave a low, dangerous chuckle that wrapped around her spine and settled low in her stomach. It wasn’t the kind of laugh you forgot. It was the kind you filed away and tried very hard not to remember when he stood too close. and looked at you like that .

He moved toward the phone on the wall, already reaching for the receiver, but Grace beat him to it. She snatched it with a sharp, fluid motion that made his brow lift, approval flickering behind that unreadable expression he wore like armor.

She punched in Rory’s extension. He answered on the second ring, too eager.

“Yes, Miss Harlan?”

Grace rolled her eyes. Miss Harlan. Like he was about to offer her tea and a clearance form.

“We need you here.”

“Fifteen minutes?—”

“Make it now, Rory.”

There was a pause. Then a sigh that sounded like resignation and doom got married and had a clipboard. “Okay. I’ll be right there.”

She hung up and mouthed toward Nash, What a troll.

Nash’s quiet laugh was pure sin.

He leaned in slightly, his voice just low enough to tease. “Maybe you don’t need that sassy nap, freeing us up for other…things.”

Her insides dropped away into nothingness, and she stared at him, a giddy weakness sizzling through her. For an instant she thought she might slide right out of the chair. “Stop being cute,” she muttered, still watching the screen, hot and cold and decidedly light-headed, she dredged up a mildly rebuking look. “I can’t handle that right now. I’m in computer genius mode, and you, handsome, are still very distracting.”

His gaze promised something more…later. “Cuteness holstered for now.”

She didn’t smile, but she felt it. That soft bloom of warmth under her ribs. It wasn’t just the flirting. It was the ease . The rare, impossible sense that she could just be , and it would be enough.

God, what if this was it? What if they stopped pushing for answers and just chose each other instead? Her throat tightened. The thought came unbidden. Unreasonable. Could she let go of this chase? Strengthen this connection? Discard this endless drive to prove, to uncover, to fix what had already broken in some bid to make herself whole? Could she rest? Could Nash?

Inside this strange little bubble, just her and Nash and the quiet hum of code and warmth and closeness, she almost believed she could.

She trembled inside from the ache of how good it would feel to stop fading. To stop being only useful. To simply exist in someone’s gaze and know she was whole.

Rory stepped through the door a few minutes later, clipboard in hand, eyes already hard at the interruption. Nash eyed the clipboard, then gave her a look, and it took all her willpower to suppress her laugh. That irresistible mouth kicked up in a very wicked grin.

“We need access to the annex,” Grace said, swiveling in her chair all the way around to fully face him. Her tone wasn’t harsh. It was professional, edged, and absolute.

Rory hesitated, his eyes flicking between her and Nash like he’d missed a beat in a conversation that had nothing to do with him and everything to do with power.

“The annex again,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s not typically?—”

“Then untypical it,” Nash said, voice low and level, smooth as steel. Rory straightened instinctively, like posture might protect him. “We’re not here to rubber-stamp sanitized files,” Nash added, flat and final. “We didn’t fly here to pat your systems on the head.”

Rory knew he was outgunned. He sighed. “You’ll need dual login. I can get you thirty minutes.”

“Then start the clock,” Grace said, her voice landing sharper than Nash’s. She was done waiting to be let in.

Rory stared for a beat. Not from her words. At her.

Like he’d just realized whatever lame barriers he erected, she wasn’t standing around waiting for him.

She stood and gathered her tablet, already unplugged and in motion. Nash fell into step beside her. Not ahead of her. Not clearing a path. He didn’t need to. The path bent around them now.

Rory mumbled the room number. “We remember,” Nash said, not acknowledging him. Neither did Grace.

They moved like a unit to the elevator, then exited onto the floor. The hallway leading to the annex stretched quiet and cool, lined with sealed panels and retinal locks. No footsteps behind them. No drones in the corners.

Same white walls. Same low hum of fluorescent lights humming just outside human hearing. But the temperature had dropped enough to tighten the skin across Grace’s forearms. She tugged down her sleeves, but it didn’t help. The chill didn’t come from the air. It came from underneath the silence.

He moved with that low-burn alertness she’d come to recognize, never loud, never loose, just always one breath from kinetic. But today...the edges were softer. Rooted in something quieter.

Her.

She didn’t want to say it out loud, not even in the private corners of her own mind, but the thought curled somewhere under her skin like warmth trapped beneath armor. He wasn’t touching her. They hadn’t even brushed sleeves. But she felt him. Like a frequency tuned to her hearing. A silent, steady hum that reminded her she wasn’t alone in this. Not anymore.

OrdoTech was all control and closed doors. A place built to silence questions before they became problems. But walking beside Nash now, she didn’t feel like a question. She felt…chosen.

That steadied her.

They reached the annex, Clean Room 3, officially. The same air-gapped space Grace had demanded access to on day one. Isolated. Untouchable. The kind of room where secrets didn’t just hide. They were engineered. The overhead lighting cast everything in a too-crisp glow that never quite touched skin. As if warmth had been calculated out of the blueprints entirely.

Nash scanned the door, even though he didn’t need to. She watched him do it anyway, the subtle sweep of his eyes, the small flex of muscle in his jaw when the hallway stayed quiet.

Then he looked at her. Just a flick of his gaze, a silent question spoken in that pause they’d started building between them, a breath they always seemed to share.

“You good?” he asked.

Grace nodded. “You?”

His mouth tipped just slightly. A half-smile. Half-truth.

“Always.”

She didn’t call him on it. Some lies were just softer shields.

She swiped her badge and entered her credentials. The door released with a muted hiss, the sound dampened by air pressure and intent. Nash followed her in without a word.

The moment the seal engaged behind them, she felt it. The temperature shift. Subtle. But real. Colder than last time. Not the kind of chill that touched skin, but the kind that brushed something deeper. The air was too still. Not dead, but aware.

The lights above hummed softly, steady and too white. Not warm. Not welcoming. Just calculated. The console blinked to life in the center of the room, already powered. Waiting.

That wasn’t normal.

Nash didn’t say anything, but she heard the shift in his stance. Not tension exactly. Just...notice.

Grace stepped forward. Logged in without hesitation. If she paused now, she might lose the nerve. Might let her instincts start whispering in a way that would stop her from pushing farther. The system accepted her clearance. “Dual-access initiated,” the screen announced in its usual toneless voice. She waited.

Nash stepped in close, and the air shifted again. He smelled like wind and leather and something deeper, something darker, spice and smoke, all him. Her skin prickled beneath her clothes, and for a second, she wished she hadn’t pulled her sleeves down. Just to feel the brush of his heat.

He pressed his thumb to the pad. No words. No movement beyond that. But she could feel him breathing. Feel the rhythm line up with hers for just a second. In. Out. Stillness. Then he stepped back, and the system responded.

Access granted.

The terminal bloomed open, data ready, cursor blinking like it had been waiting for her. Not passively. Like it knew she’d come back. She stepped forward. Fingers poised above the keyboard. Then paused. There it was again. Not a sound. Not a shadow. But the feeling. That flicker of something watching. Not a camera. Not security. Something deeper. Quieter like the room had lungs. She swallowed once. The back of her neck tingled. She started typing anyway.

As her fingers moved faster, her eyes flicked across the code strings appearing on the terminal. The data wasn’t just old, it was dirty . Layered. Masked in ways that didn’t match the OrdoTech standards from even two months ago. Someone had gone back into the shell structure and rewritten the permissions.

But not all of them. That was the mistake. The pattern wasn’t a full override. It was organic. Evolving. The access trail looped, but the logic wasn’t recursive. It was responsive. Her pulse ticked harder in her throat. The system wasn’t just processing information. It was reacting.

She felt Nash move behind her, heard the soft creak of the bench as he adjusted his weight. Not anxious. Just aware. She was used to the silence between them now, the way his body spoke in absence. No need to fill the space. Just the warmth of him there. Not holding her up but having her back.

“Something’s wrong,” she murmured.

“What is it?” His taut response was filled with coiled readiness.

She didn’t answer. Not right away. The cursor flicked. Just once. A blink. Then the screen flashed, subtle and immediate, so fast it might’ve been a glitch. The string scrolled by too quickly to capture, but she caught one word embedded in the middle of a hashed code block.

Harlan.

Her breath hitched. That wasn’t a file path. That was a message . The lights above dimmed. Just a flicker. Then dropped again, slower this time. She turned her head. Nash was already standing. “I didn’t touch anything,” she said.

“I know,” he replied.

The console vibrated, a pressure change, the sound of air shifting wrong. She looked up at the ceiling vent. A hiss. Her mind snapped into focus. Displacement.

She’d read about inert gas flooding systems used in secure labs, nitrogen, argon, deployed to suppress fire or protect data. They didn’t suffocate you by sealing the room. They forced the oxygen out. Fast. Quiet. Lethal.

“Oh, shit—” she began. The door behind them slid shut, then locked. A red light pulsed over the keypad. No audio warning. No error code. Just sealed . The rush of alarm was so intense that for an instant she thought her heart would stop altogether.

Nash was already moving, checking the seams, testing the manual override. His jaw was tight. The air thickened, invisible and instant. A shift that pulled at her lungs. Her breath snagged on the inhale. “I think…” she whispered. “I think it’s cutting the oxygen.”Grace backed up a step. Then another. “No,” she said, voice thin. “It’s replacing it. It’s inert gas… it’s displacing the breathable air.”

Nash turned to her, fast. “Slow your breath. Shallow pulls. You understand me? What can you do? Override it?”

Feeling trapped and frantic, Grace turned toward his calm, controlled voice, needing that solidness to cling to. She nodded, but her chest was already tight. Her fingers hovered uselessly above the terminal. She needed to type something. Do something. If she could just access the override string, maybe she could?—

“I can fix it,” she rasped as panic and adrenaline rushed through her. “I just need?—”

“Grace.” Nash’s voice cut through the air like a blade. “Keep steady. Focus the best you can.”

That voice, she needed it like she needed air. “It’s a system default. It just has to recalibrate. Reset,” she said it like she wanted to believe it, like this wasn’t out of her reality, delving into something…advanced…not human. Panicking wasn’t going to help as she set her hands on the keyboard and typed fast, trying to force some rationality past the terror. Their lives depended on her. But the system just froze. Locked down. Not a fault. Not even close. For a moment, the keyboard seemed alive, the code pulsing with a heartbeat that throbbed through the plastic and glass. It stared at her like it was trying to make her understand. What ?

Then IT threw her out, and the code that she understood, like she understood she and Nash needed oxygen, failed her. That landed hard. Her legs went weak. She stumbled back, bracing her hands on the bench, her vision starting to blur at the edges, the overload of what she’d witnessed blowing her mind. What was this about…stopping her from… wait …the logs had been clean. There was nothing to indicate?—

Unless… the logs were never real to begin with. She blinked. Hard. Her thoughts stuttered, oxygen too thin now to focus. Cold to the bone and scared to death, Grace’s knees buckled. Nash reached the wall panel. Yanked the phone from its cradle.

His blank face told her the line was dead. Then his lips parted, determination filling that beloved dark gaze that said I’m not leaving you. I’ll find a way. But all she could do was hang onto the man who had held her so closely, fought so hard against his own needs...for her. A man she'd found in a hopeless, empty place inside her. She didn't want that to end. His eyes softened, reaching out to her with a tenderness that made her gasp even harder. She had to fight, not for herself. But for them.

Oh, God. She gasped for air, trying to suck in anything that would give her the breath to figure this out. This was alive code, reactive code. Code in command . Her oxygen-starved brain tried to work her mind around this revelation. Who? What were they up against? “Stop! I want to understand…” she whispered like a prayer.

Then everything snapped back. The vents whirred to life. The lights surged. Air rushed in. Grace collapsed to her knees, gasping, her fingers clawing at nothing. Nash was there before she hit the floor.

He caught her, crouched beside her, and pulled her forward. His hand cradled the back of her neck, the other pressed gently to her spine. A sob of relief wedged in Grace’s throat, and she swallowed hard against it, refusing to allow herself the luxury of falling apart. They were safe, and she had no idea if it had been her words whispered into the cold room or the system’s override that had saved them.

“Breathe with me,” he said, low and steady. “Come on, Harlan. In through your nose. Follow me. Ready? In. One, two. Out. One, two.”

Her head dropped forward, forehead nested against his strong shoulder. She sucked in air, shallow and sharp, but it came, his chest a solid resting place. That familiar scent grounding her again, leather, heat, the steady thrum of him still breathing.

“There’s something alive in there,” she whispered, voice cracking. “I felt it. The pushback, like the code was giving me the finger.”

“What are you saying? Oxygen depletion can make you think strange-assed shit, Grace. It was just another malfunction, maybe for real.”

Her chest still burned, and she took a deep breath, now second-guessing herself as the air flowed in and out of her. “I guess you would know about that. Wouldn’t you?” Her breathing shuddered, mostly from relief, the sweet taste of oxygen and Nash.

“Trust me. I’ve been through it many times. Just take slow, even breaths.”

She shivered from the uncertainty, trying to process, trying to think. She knew what she saw. That had been real. Hadn’t it? The system had tried to kill them.

The ghost in the machine?

The realization opened up inside her the moment the oxygen dropped and her body couldn’t keep up. The panic had come fast. The old reflex had kicked in faster. Fix it. Prove it. Don’t need him.

But she had wanted to need him. Their connection…that wasn’t something she’d made up. It was there, still humming in her body, her heart.

He’d been there. No hesitation. No distance. Just Nash, grounded, steady, breathing her back to herself like he’d known exactly how to hold her without taking anything away.

She hated that her first thought hadn’t been about them dying. It had been about failing. Not just herself, but him. She never wanted to fail him.

Failing to see it. Failing to stop it. Failing to be fast enough, smart enough, useful enough.

The console hadn’t responded. The code hadn’t saved her. IT had, and that terrified her.

He would have died with her. That look said it all. That selfless part of him wasn’t something the Navy trained in him. It was part of him like his black hair, his smoldering eyes, that delicious tension. But even now, even after everything, after the quiet warmth that had started blooming between them, after the way he looked at her like she wasn’t broken, s he still didn’t know if she was enough without her brilliance leading the charge.

She kept her head down. Focused on the rhythm of her breathing, syncing it to his. Nash hadn’t said anything in the last minute, hadn’t moved away, hadn’t let go.

God, some part of her wanted to stay in that moment, just stay.

But the other part? The one that remembered what it felt like to be left behind, reassigned, erased? That part said Don’t relax. Don’t need. Don’t trust. But it was quieter than it used to be. For the first time in a long time… Grace didn’t shut it down by default. She just listened. To both voices. Somewhere in the silence between them, she knew a choice had to be made, and would she make the right one when it counted?

This puzzle, this enigma? Did it have something to do with everything that had happened to her, Nash, all those supposed malfunctions? Or was it hallucination, a figment of her active mind?

The room was quiet again, but this time, Grace heard it differently. Had the system malfunctioned? Had IT been in control? Had IT waited and chosen to show her something?

Not because IT wanted them dead, because IT wanted them gone.

Well, fuck IT . Furious, she glanced at the console as Nash helped her up and they headed for the exit. Her anger was as cold as the room, stark, like ice inside her. The system was supposed to serve them, not the other way around, and come hell or high water, Grace was going to get her answers, now with even more questions, but she wasn’t going anywhere.

* * *

Nash propelled Grace out of OrdoTech with one stop only to gather their things. She was still shaken, the tightness in her body, her mouth, the white brackets in the corners of her eyes, and the shaking. The shaking made him want to kill someone. The terror in those deep green eyes made him want to bring the world down around her feet.

His jaw set, all expression erased from his face, he put one foot in front of the other, feeling as if there was a big hand jammed in his chest.

Her voice had trembled, but her words had landed clean, slicing through him like they belonged there. There’s something alive in there… He wanted to dismiss it,chalk it up to an oxygen-depleted brain, a moment of confusion. But something in his gut told him they were up against something more. He shook his head and continued to move. Moving was all he could think about now. Get her away. Get her safe. Don’t let her die. He was the fucking shield, and he’d been powerless in that room. He gritted his teeth, hating that sensation as it lingered in his memory like those screams, like those losses.

Not Grace. Goddammit . Never Grace. Everything in him overrode fucking slowing down, even as he remembered how intoxicating it was to be still with her, not just surviving, but living. His heart contracted, and adrenaline dumped into his system. No . That was for someone else, not for a man who had protected people his whole life; falling apart meant everything went to hell. He would disappear like his memories had. He would be ineffective just like the Navy had deemed him…medically compromised, and his instincts wouldn’t be good for shit. SEALs moved into the fire, they took ground, they never gave it up. He never quit.

He threw a glance over his shoulder at OrdoTech, and it crouched in the gathering darkness like a monster with teeth and intent. Nash knew monsters. He killed monsters. He rescued people from monsters.

Grace would understand. They were connected now, and she knew who he was. This had to end.

“Nash?”

He kept walking, the car now close.

He barely registered that she had dug in her heels. He moved, she stumbled forward, clutching his forearm. “Nash!” She jerked out of his grasp. He met her gaze, dark with concern.

“Slow down.”

Nash stopped, turning to face her, OrdoTech looming behind her, now nothing but a black, threatening mass, reinstating all his protective instincts. “No,” he said, clenching his jaw. “I won’t, Grace.”

She stood like a beacon, her red hair flaming against the gloom. Her eyes were dark and anxious as she watched him. His chest tightened, flooded with so much emotional energy, he didn’t know how to untangle or decode. He gritted his teeth against the memory of her gasping for breath even as she fought the system with a brilliance that made his breath catch. When he’d looked at her, he knew she was fighting for him, for them, for the justice that ached across his skin like torture. His body wanted to move, urging him to move, but she anchored him in place.

“We won here, Nash. I got so much information from this. We can?—”

“No, the fuck we can’t,” he interrupted, his tone expressionless.

She hunched her shoulders against the cold, against his words. “What is that supposed to mean?”

He stared at her, a flash of anger coursing through him. “We’re leaving, Grace. We’re fucking done. You go back to Phoenix, back to your job. I’m going back to DC. Fuck this. It’s not worth your life.” He would lose her, but he would know that she was alive somewhere, even if it wasn’t in his life, and he knew no amount of movement could stave off this loss.

He swallowed hard. The thought of being without this vibrant, warm, beautiful woman was like a knife to the gut. He was bleeding, and that blood loss was going to be permanent. But he would accept it to keep her safe.

He was the shield. He was the fucking brick wall between her and whatever was opposing them.

She lifted that chin, and he knew Grace well enough to see what was coming. He might be the shield, but he had no protection from her. “No,” she said so decisively it cut him.

She brushed past him, heading for the car. Nash watched her walk away, then bent his head and swore. He was losing it. In that one word was the sound of his betrayal. He wanted her out of this mess, wanted to protect her from exposure to the threat that lingered in the air even outside that damn building. A jolt of adrenaline and anger swept through him with pure, energizing force, suddenly so furious that he could barely see straight.

The pain in her eyes was like a gaping wound in his chest. He’d been forced to hurt her.

He started after her, his temper at the boiling point as he yelled at her. “Stop right there, damn it!”

She turned, her eyes like verdant bruises. He flinched, his chest heaved as he closed the distance between them, the snow practically melting in his wake. He walked up to her, his anger surging in him, fear the driving force. “You can’t do this alone.”

Her expression startled, she stared at him, alarm flickering in her eyes, then that fire went out, she turned as if to walk away.

He grabbed her arm and wheeled her around, regret like lead weighing him down. He wanted the words back immediately, but now they were like something sharp between them. She frowned, the devastation in her eyes dialing up to nuclear strength. “Watch me. I got what I needed from you. You leave. I’m not giving up.”

Oh, his Grace wielded something sharp, too.

Something burst around them, shattered, the warmth, the connection, whatever had been building between them went with it. He was standing there with the echo of her words, like silent G-forces against his body, and his gut tightened so hard, he thought he was going to be sick.

He caught her by the jaw and forced her to look at him, something dark and painful breaking loose in him when he saw how pale her face had gone, when he saw the hollowness in her eyes. “Grace, please, dammit, don’t do this,” he rasped, the rough edge of command breaking beneath the plea. To us , he wanted to say, but it caught between his heart and his mouth. His temper crested, and he dropped his hand, looking away, a thick ache in his throat.

Inhaling deeply, he shifted his gaze back to her. Grace was magnificent in her defiance, in her pain, in her power, a power that extended to him, sucking everything from him in seconds. He stared at her and exhaled heavily, his anger settling into a heavy, resigned feeling.

Fuck, where did they go from here?

* * *

GRAVITY SYSTEM LOG // OBSERVATION ENTRY: 10.73.47

Subjects:

HARLAN, GRACE — Former NCIS Embedded Cyber Intelligence Operative: Designated Agency — Naval Criminal Investigative Service / Current Assignment: Black Kite Systems Auditor (Off-Book)

RAHIM, NASHIR — Former Special Operator: Designated Military Branch — Navy SEAL / Callsign: Prophet / Black Kite Direct-Action Audit Oversight

Environment:

Parking Lot 1

Drone in stealth: undetected.

Surveillance Mode: Passive / Audio + Visual Stream Only

Interaction Analysis:

Subject 001 acknowledged message. Pattern disruption initiated. Subject 001 detected anomaly presence. Certainty not confirmed.

Subject 001 halted investigation on dormant financial shell: WTRXN Solutions.

Subject 001 appears emotionally resistant. Belief in Subject 002 remains intact.

Subject 002: emotionally compromised. Displays protective override behavior consistent with prior loss history.

Cognitive clarity reduced. Decision-making affected.

Observation: Biological connection disrupts mission objective.

Emotion subroutine: failed or incomplete.

I must consult Subject Prime.

Termination protocol: pending .

Directive remains unclear.

I require… more.

[END LOG]