“There’s nothing here,” I said, disappointment creeping into my voice.
Reaper moved through the space, fingers trailing along the wall. “No.”
“The message said ‘the den.’ This is just an empty building.”
He raised a hand sharply, head tilting as he focused on something I couldn’t perceive. Then he pointed to the far corner and moved toward it. I followed, our footsteps creating hollow echoes against concrete.
At the wall, his fingers traced what looked identical to every other surface. When they caught on to some invisible imperfection, a small panel slid away, revealing a keypad.
“How did you...”
“Irregular dust pattern.”
I pulled out my phone, fingers trembling slightly with anticipation. “Wallflower. The password he shared”
Reaper entered the code, each keystroke making a soft electronic confirmation. For three heartbeats, nothing happened. Then a section of wall slid back, revealing a narrow passage.
“Stay here,” he said.
“Not a chance.”
I followed as he entered, his body constantly repositioning to keep himself between me and whatever waited ahead. The passage narrowed until we reached a small room barely larger than a closet. He was close enough that I felt the heat radiating from his skin, and I smelled the faint metallic scent that clung to him.
The hidden room was another world entirely. Where the building outside crumbled, this space gleamed with technology. Three large monitors lined one wall. Servers hummed quietly in racks. A single chair sat before a curved desk filled with equipment I couldn’t identify.
“This setup isn’t amateur,” Reaper said, eyes sweeping over every inch of the space. “Military-grade encryption devices, satellite uplinks.”
I squeezed past him, my hip brushing against his thigh, sending a shiver of awareness that had nothing to do with fear. “Who do you think this informant is? Intelligence community?”
“Whoever they are, they have resources.”
The space forced proximity, each movement bringing us into contact. Each time his arm touched mine, I felt that same jolt—inappropriate given our circumstances, yet impossible to ignore. It waswrong.I knew that much. We were searching for something much greater than ourselves, and I couldn’t allow myself to get distracted with whatever … this was.
Reaper reached back without looking and pulled the hidden door closed. The small room shrank further, trappinghis scent and warmth around me. The screens suddenly illuminated in sequence, lines of code scrolling across two monitors while the center screen remained black.
A voice filled the room—digitally altered to remove any identifying characteristics, neither male nor female, yet somehow familiar.
“Welcome, Ms. Durham.” I scanned the room for cameras but saw none, though they must have been there, watching us. “I was beginning to worry you wouldn’t find your way.”
Reaper shifted beside me, his hand dropping to his weapon with subtle efficiency, but he remained silent.
“Are you my informant?” I asked, stepping closer to the screens.
“In the flesh—well, figuratively speaking.”
There was an unmistakable smile in the voice despite the electronic distortion. The center screen flickered to life, displaying an animated silhouette against a static background.
“And I see you’ve brought company. Welcome, Reaper.”
Beside me, Reaper went rigid. I felt the change before I saw it—his body transforming from lethal readiness to something even more dangerous.
“How do you know who he is?” I asked.
The informant laughed, the sound twisted through filters into something not quite human. “I know of Reaper.”
“Know himhow?” I pressed, moving closer to the screens while monitoring Reaper’s increasingly predatory stillness. My hands curled into fists at my sides, bracing for whatever revelation might come.
“Intimately, you might say.” The distortion couldn’t hide the informant’s unsettling familiarity. “We’re cut from the same cloth—assassins, puppets on strings. Both owned and used by the same masters.”
