جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 220

Chapter 211Ravyn didn't sleep much that night.She lay beside Dante in the dark, listening to him breathe, and every time she closed her eyes, she saw it. Not the way it happened, because she hadn't been there. She saw it the way Dante had told it to her, quietly, at the kitchen table. A classroom. A whiteboard. Her boss standing in the middle of it, throwing an ugly word at the man she loved like it was nothing.And Dante, with his fists closing, then opening again. Because of her. Because of her job.That was the part that made her want to scream.She didn't scream. Ravyn Hawkins had learned a long time ago that screaming was for people who still believed someone would come running. She had stopped believing that the day the prison doors shut behind her.By the time the sun came up, she had made her choice.There would be no scene. No storming into his office. No angry speech in front of the whole floor. Rhys Larsen would not get the satisfaction of a fight.He would get something

Chapter 213 — The File GrowsThe bottle of hand sanitizer was still on Rhys's desk the next morning.He hadn't thrown it away. He told himself that was because he hadn't noticed it, that it was just one more small thing lost under folders and contracts and coffee cups. But that wasn't true. He had noticed it every time he looked down. He had noticed it at nine, and at ten, and again at eleven, sitting there by his keyboard like a small plastic judge.*You seemed worried lately about catching things from people.*She had said it so sweetly. That was the worst part. If she had shouted, he could have shouted back. If she had cried, he could have said sorry, or at least something close to it. But she had smiled. She had called him Mr. Larsen. She had closed his door so gently he barely heard it.And then, the day before that, there had been Jayce.Rhys rubbed his eyes and leaned back in his chair.*You're saying it because it's the easiest way to hurt me.*He hadn't denied it. He had stoo

Chapter 215 — The Price Goes UpMiles Archer did not like to wait.He never had. Not as a boy, when his father made him sit through long dinners with men in gray suits. Not as a young man, when the family company was handed to him piece by piece instead of all at once. And not now, sitting in the back room of a private club at one in the morning, watching a door that should have opened twenty minutes ago.When Marcello finally walked in, Miles didn't stand up."You're late," he said."Traffic," Marcello said, and sat down across from him without being asked.That was the first thing Miles noticed. The second thing was Marcello's hands. They were still. Too still. Marcello was usually a man who tapped on things, turned his rings, played with his lighter. Tonight his hands lay flat on the table, like he was holding it down.Miles filed that away."Have you seen it?" Miles asked.He didn't have to say what. Marcello knew."I've seen it.""Two million views," Miles said. "Two million. Las

Chapter 217— Too Close to HomeThe message came through at 3:12 in the morning.Ravyn was already awake. She'd been awake for a while, lying still so she wouldn't wake Dante, listening to the small night sounds of the apartment — the hum of the fridge, the tick of the radiator, R's soft breathing through the wall that she could only hear if she tried very hard.Her phone buzzed once. Just once. The special one.She slid out of bed without a sound, pulled on her robe, and padded to the kitchen. She closed the hall door behind her so the light wouldn't reach the bedrooms.The air-gapped laptop was already out. She opened it and plugged in the drive, and there it was, waiting in the blank window UNKNOWN always used. No name. No greeting. Never any of that.**JOB 002. Access required. Target system attached. Standard terms. You know what's on the other side of this one.**Ravyn read the last line twice.*You know what's on the other side of this one.*They always ended the hard ones like

Chapter 219 — The ParkRael liked going places with Jayce, because Jayce never asked too many questions.That was a rare thing in a grown-up. Most grown-ups asked and asked. Where did you get that? Who told you that? What does your watch do? But Jayce just drove, one hand on the wheel, and let Rael look out the window, and only talked when Rael talked first.Today Papa had a checkup at the hospital. A regular one, Papa had said, nothing to worry about, just the doctors making sure his chest was healing up right after the race that Rael wasn't supposed to think about too much. So Papa had asked Jayce to take Rael to the park to keep busy, and Jayce had said yes right away, the way he always did."You warm enough back there?" Jayce asked, glancing in the mirror."Yep," Rael said.He was wearing his cap pulled low and the soft blue face mask that covered most of his face. He always wore them out now. Papa said it was because of his chest being a little weak, catching colds easy, and that