Total pages in book: 45
Estimated words: 41664 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 208(@200wpm)___ 167(@250wpm)___ 139(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 41664 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 208(@200wpm)___ 167(@250wpm)___ 139(@300wpm)
My office was down the hall from the side entrance. I liked it there—out of the way. It was far enough up and tucked away that most people didn’t bother me, but close enough to hear if trouble came through the door.
The industrial fan clicked as it turned, stirring warm air over rows of monitors that bathed the walls in a blue-white light. Wires coiled like snakes, routers blinked, and the hum of cooling fans filled the silence.
I tossed the paper Kane had given me on the desk, dropped onto the chair, and tapped a button to wake up my system. My fingers moved without thought—pure muscle memory, instinct, and addiction. I’d built this setup from the ground up. Three towers lashed together into one brain, a wall of screens that could bend the world with the right command, with even more monitors perched on my desk.
Her file came up in seconds. Lark Whittaker. Twenty-two. Assistant Event Coordinator at Brake Point Run. Some education after high school that appeared fine on the surface, a couple of references that checked out on first glance, and a credit score sitting right in the middle. Average.
Exactly average.
I leaned back, adjusting my glasses on my nose as I stared at the screen. Most people had clutter in their lives—late-night Amazon binges, old email addresses that never died, three or four forgotten social accounts that still carried embarrassing selfies from high school. People’s lives were messy as shit. Digital footprints were even worse.
Lark had none of that.
No clutter. No noise. Clean lines and neat corners. Credit was boringly healthy. One card, no loans. Rent paid on time every month. Utilities in her name. Zero flags. It read like the fucking instruction manual for “how to look normal.”
And the absence of chaos? That was the red flag.
I muttered under my breath and rubbed the back of my neck. My cock had finally cooled off, but my brain wasn’t letting this go. Her information felt…manufactured.
My fingers tapped faster, chasing threads. No social media of any kind. Nothing. What twenty-two-year-old woman didn’t have at least one account? Even Kane had one, though he swore he never touched it.
That itch under my skin wouldn’t stop. The one that made me toss and turn when code didn’t line up, when a lock didn’t crack fast enough, when the pieces of a puzzle looked right but didn’t fit. My body wanted her, sure. But my gut—the part that never lied—told me she carried secrets.
Secrets got people killed.
I scrubbed a hand over my face, groaning low, and shoved the chair back from the desk. The office smelled faintly of heated metal, old coffee grounds, and leather. I’d been holed up in here too many nights lately.
Sleep. That was the smart play.
I cut the lights, headed down the hall, and shoved into my room. The space was simple—a king bed with dark sheets, a couch against the wall, and a flat-screen TV above the dresser. The closet was half open, with boots lined up, and an extra cut hanging inside. The bathroom door was cracked, the smell of my soap and cologne wafting out.
I stripped down to my boxers and sprawled across the bed, my arm over my eyes. Tried to let the quiet take me, but it didn’t. My body twitched with leftover adrenaline. Even worse, every time I closed my eyes, I saw her face. Not smiling, not posing—just looking at the camera. Brown hair pulled back, pretty brown eyes steady.
I rolled onto my stomach and grunted in frustration. It was too fucking hot in the room.
I turned. Tossed. Flipped the pillow. Swore.
An hour later, I gave up, cursing as I yanked on sweats and padded barefoot back down the hall.
My office was waiting, screens cold until my fingers woke them. The glow painted my skin pale, glasses flashing with reflection as I pulled her file up again.
There had to be something.
Line by line, I went through it all. Address history: neat. Job history: passable. Education: a little light but explained by a quick course online. I pulled the metadata on her employment record.
And froze.
There.
One tag buried deep, something most systems would never show unless you peeled the code apart. I knew it because I’d seen it before. A badly scrubbed signature in the metadata—one that screamed federal hands.
WITSEC. Or at least, the shadow of it.
My stomach twisted. Not with fear, but with rage.
Whoever had built her legend had half-assed the work. They had pushed a twenty-two-year-old into a new name and new city, then sent her out into the world with the digital equivalent of a bright fucking orange vest. The thought of anyone touching what belonged to the Redline Kings had me itching to touch back harder.
What. The. Fuck.
I leaned back hard in my chair, the leather of the seat creaking as I scrubbed both hands over my face. My heart beat steady, but my head roared.