Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 60921 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 305(@200wpm)___ 244(@250wpm)___ 203(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 60921 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 305(@200wpm)___ 244(@250wpm)___ 203(@300wpm)
I huff a quiet laugh. “I’m not.”
“Liar,” she mutters, eyes still closed. “Your chest sounds like a tech support line.”
“That’s just my heart existing.”
“Tell it to log off,” she grumbles.
I glance at the clock on the nightstand. We’re coming up on the morning window we told Arrow we’d be online.
Reality seeps back in.
So does the familiar gnaw of worry.
“I have to talk to Arrow,” I say softly, smoothing her hair back. “And Dean if he’s with him. See what they dug up.”
Her lashes flutter, eyes blinking open. For a second she’s just… soft. Sleepy. Unarmored.
Then it all comes back—the cabin, the bounty, last night.
A blush creeps into her cheeks.
“Okay,” she says, voice small but steady. “I’ll… make coffee. And try not to imagine worst-case scenarios while you’re on a call with people who have ex-military in their job titles.”
“There’ll be at least one smartass on the line to balance them,” I say. “Gage’s probably awake by now.”
She manages a crooked smile. “Better. Go. I’ll be here. Not panicking. Much.”
I press a quick kiss to her forehead, then another to her mouth because I can, and untangle myself, ignoring my protesting arm. She makes a noise of displeasure at the loss of warmth but lets me go, rolling onto her back, one arm flung over her eyes.
I pull on sweats and a fresh t-shirt, then grab the little modem box and the tablet from the table. The cabin feels smaller now that it’s holding something I care about this much.
We cleared a corner of the bedroom yesterday for “comms”—which is really just a crate with the router on it and a chair. I plug the box in, angle the antenna, and wait for the tiny indicator light to flicker to life.
Connection.
I boot the encrypted chat.
Arrow’s already pinged, right on schedule.
ARROW: you alive?
I type back.
KNIGHT: define alive
ARROW: conscious & not perforated
KNIGHT: then yeah. Lark too.
Three dots.
ARROW: good. Dean’s here.
My stomach tightens.
We don’t loop Dean Maddox into the casual “we found a troll” cases. If he’s on this early, it’s not for fun.
I accept the incoming call.
The screen pulls up everyone online. Like one giant Zoom call. Gage in his apartment. Arrow and Ozzy and Riverside. Dean and a few other ex-military team members at the Maddox Security headquarters.
“Morning, sunshine,” Gage says. “Nice bedhead.”
“Nice face,” I shoot back automatically.
Arrow’s gaze flicks over my shoulder, clocking the rumpled sheets behind me, the second pillow, the displaced blanket.
His eyebrows climb.
“What happened there?” he asks.
“Focus,” I snap, more sharply than necessary.
Dean’s mouth twitches like he wants to smile but is too professional to commit.
“We can multitask,” Ozzy says mildly. “Apocalypse and feelings. It’s called range.”
I drag a hand through my hair. “Tell me you have something on Helios.”
The joking drains out of Arrow’s face. Dean straightens a fraction.
“We’ve got more than ‘something,’” Dean says. “We’ve got a name, a front, and a pattern.”
Adrenaline spikes.
“Hit me,” I say.
Dean flips a file toward the camera; the screen fills with a dossier.
Photo.
Dark suit, darker eyes, expensive watch. Smug.
Name stamped underneath: VIKTOR LUKA.
“Luka,” Ozzy supplies when my brain whirs. “Underground clearinghouse. Gun-running, cyber-brokering, little side business in contract hits. Likes staying one layer removed. He runs a network of middlemen who run networks of operators who run networks of idiots. You’ve tangled up some of his lower branches without knowing it.”
Pieces start to slot in.
“VANTAGE,” I say slowly. “Mask. Then Mask plus Asset. All tagged by the same vendor ID. ALFA07.”
Dean nods once. “We traced ALFA07’s wallets upstream. Wasn’t easy. He’s using a rolling series of mixers. But money always leaves a scent. It comes together here—” he taps the screen just off frame “—shell corporations, burner accounts, and then real-world holdings.”
Arrow pulls up a different view—nodes and connections, a web of lines.
“In the last eight months,” he says, “Luka’s posted four ‘interference’ bounties. Not just on you. On other ‘problems’ too. Smaller fry. Journalist in Denver. Activist in Miami. White-hat hacker in Prague. Those bounties went up, stayed up for a while, then went quiet. The public threads got archived. We’re still trying to track what happened to those people.”
Ice trickles down my spine.
“And us?” I ask.
Arrow zooms in.
Three nodes.
We’ve seen them before.
VANTAGE – 15 BTC
MASK-01 – 20 BTC
MASK-01 + ASSET – 35 BTC
Except.
Now the third figure isn’t 35 anymore.
It’s 60 BTC.
My stomach drops.
“He doubled it?” I say, voice flat.
“Almost,” Ozzy says. “He topped it up overnight. It pinged our watcher scripts. That’s why you’re getting the early call.”
“Why?” I demand. “We’ve been off-grid for days. We haven’t hit one of his clients since the last op. What triggered the bump?”
Dean leans forward.
“We think he got a better look at the asset,” he says.
For a second I don’t understand.
Then the penny drops.
“This is because they saw Lark,” I say, jaw going tight.
“Partly,” Dean admits. “But mostly because you’re not just an interference pattern now. You’re a story. A symbol.” His gaze is steady on mine. “The vigilante who won’t stay bought. The girl who helps him on the inside. Crews like Luka’s hate that more than anything. It encourages other people to stand up. He’s paying extra to make an example of you both.”