Page 116 of Vital Signs

"Can burn. Wright can destroy any file he wants. He doesn't get to destroy our people."

River climbed out, the blast of winter air rushing in as he opened his door. The cold bit through my jacket, sharp enough to make my lungs ache, but it also cleared my head in a way the recycled SUV air hadn't.

"Bring them home," River said, stepping back from the vehicle.

Shepherd's SUV felt different with just the three of us. Smaller. More focused. The kind of deadly quiet that preceded violence.

"Twelve minutes," Shepherd said as we pulled onto the main road, checking his mirrors. "Assuming Wright hasn't set up roadblocks."

The roads stretched empty before us, small-town Ohio sleeping while we raced toward whatever had made three experienced operatives go silent. Each streetlight we passed brought us closer to answers, closer to Misha.

Closer to whatever was waiting in that house.

"He's alive," Eli said quietly, reaching forward to squeeze my shoulder. "Misha's too stubborn to die."

"How can you be so fucking sure?"

“Because I know Misha. And so do you.”

The city limits sign vanished behind us as Wright's neighborhood appeared ahead, all identical houses with their secrets locked behind expensive doors.

The SUV headlights cut through the darkness as I counted the seconds in my head. Not my heartbeats this time, but the moments since I last heard Misha's voice. Since I last felt his skin against mine.

People talk about love like it's gentle. Like it's soft. But this felt like violence in my chest, a fury of need and protection that would tear through anything standing between us.

I understood now why people fought wars for love. Why they crossed oceans and deserts. Why they survived impossible odds.

And I was ready to go to fucking war for Misha.

Wright's gun was pointedat my chest. My blood turned to jet fuel in my veins, heart slamming against my ribs like it wanted to crawl up my throat and escape on its own. Every nerve ending screamed, the way they only did when death came knocking or when Hunter's hands were on me.

"I said step away from them," Wright demanded.

Red numbers ticked down on the wall timer, each electronic beep reminding me that my life could be measured in minutes. Not that it mattered. Some part of me had been dying since Paris until Hunter had shocked me back to life.

Behind me, three bodies breathed the shallow, desperate sounds of the dying.

"I know what you did to Tyler Graham." My hand inched toward my pocket, where the knife waited. "4-5-8-G-21. That's how you filed him, wasn't it?"

"Ah, you've been through my files." Wright's eyes were deader than the bodies in the Laskin morgue. Flat glass discs reflectingnothing but his own emptiness. "That subject provided excellent cardiovascular data."

Subject. The word tasted like ash. That's all Tyler had been to him. A collection of cells to dissect, analyze, discard.

"You killed him." I clenched my teeth.

"Of course I did. How else do we determine toxicity thresholds?" Wright's lips curved into something that resembled a smile the way a corpse resembles a sleeping person. "Death is the point. These subjects provide critical data precisely because they push past survivable limits."

The confession hung in the air, monstrous enough to feel like another presence. My skin shrink-wrapped itself to my skeleton.

My knife pressed against my thigh, both comfort and promise. One movement. One chance. But if I lunged and missed, Wright would fire. These people didn't deserve to die because I couldn't wait to carve him into pieces.

"Your corporate friends already sent their lawyers," I said, stalling for time while fantasizing about peeling his skin off in methodical strips. "Whitmore and his threats. How much are they paying you per body?"

"Enough." He smirked. "Risk management requires data. Empirical gets what they need."

"And these people? What are they to you?"

"Raw material. Society's castoffs finally serving a purpose."