“And if what I find points at you?” I ask softly.
He stares at me for a long beat. “Then you point. I won’t hide.” He looks at Cassidy. “Kari’s looped?”
Cassidy nods. “She’s already pulling filings.”
He mutters something that sounds a lot like, “Of course she is,” then scrubs a palm over his jaw. “Keep it contained. Use the guest network, not the ops net.”
“We’re not idiots,” I say.
“Debatable,” he murmurs, but there’s no heat in it. He steps closer, near enough that the warmth of him brushes my shoulder. “Eat something. Then rest for two hours.”
“Orders?” I ask, lifting a brow.
“Common sense.” His eyes dip to my mouth and back. Heat jumps under my skin. He notices, of course he does. The corner of his mouth tugs as if he knows exactly what I remember from earlier. “Two hours,” he repeats, low enough that it feels like a promise.
He leaves before I can argue. Coward.
“You two are combustible,” Cassidy says.
“I am focused,” I lie.
She laughs quietly, then sobers. “Keep focused then. We’ll need it.”
By late morning, the house has the exhausted quiet of a place that has survived a storm. Someone fixed the shattered glass. Someone scrubbed the entry of blood. Outside, the sun turns the pasture into a sheet of white heat. Inside, we keep working.
Kari starts dropping files into a shared folder with ruthless efficiency.Shell A owns Shell B which leases to Holding C which paid for the island catering.Another note:Common director across three shells is an accountant in name only. Past work: moving defense contract money off-books.
A chill traces my spine. “This isn’t random.”
“Never was,” Cassidy says.
A new message flashes:Found the leak vector. Not your plane. Port-side longshoreman flagged a crate thatshouldn’t exist. It moved the same night you arrived in Texas. Same shell paid for both crate and villa. Shell director shows up in a donation file for a state-level PAC two counties over.
I read it twice. “They didn’t follow us from the gala. They were already in motion. The crate moved when I did. Parallel lines.”
“And those lines converged here,” Cassidy says. “Because we’re where targets go when Team W gets involved.”
Another ping from Kari:Also, your penthouse elevator tech from last month? His certification got renewed by a company that doesn’t exist. Guess who funds it.
I stare at the screen until the words blur. “They were looking at me before Aruba.”
Cassidy’s hand finds my knee and squeezes, anchoring me. “We don’t know that for sure.”
“We know enough to be scared.” I swallow hard. “Why me?”
She hesitates. “Because you saw something. Because you didn’t die when you were supposed to.”
The room tilts a little. I breathe until it steadies.
“Send Kari the names tied to the drone controller purchase,” I say, voice thin but steady. “And ask if any of those overlap with the villa rentals.”
Cassidy types. For a while the only sounds are keys and the quiet click of my mouth against a water bottle. The normalcy of it grates, then soothes, then grates again.
“Eat,” Cassidy says, shoving a granola bar into my line of sight.
I make a face but take it. She watches until I bite. Bossy older sisters are a universal truth.
By afternoon, I’m vibrating with too much coffee and not enough sleep. Gage swings by the doorway again, scans the room, lands on me. “Two hours,” he says.
