I don’t answer.
Raelyn is now an asset as much as she is a liability.
How do I handle that?
As the SUV speeds toward the Rusnak intelligence compound, I take out the ID card in my pocket. Raelyn’s university ID photo. I swiped it when she ran into me. Deliberately. I’d banked on that, calculated every step.
I study the photo.
Her face strikes me more deeply than I expect—not just because she is beautiful, but because she carries the same fierce intelligence that once made her father dangerous. The resemblance is uncanny.
I’ve studied Raelyn for years, but seeing her in person is different. I force myself to focus, taking my mind off the way it makes me shift in my seat.
I tell myself my fixation is strategic, not personal. Yes, I’m invested in her. When you study someone for years, that tends to happen.
But my interest is purely business. Not personal. Never that.
Raelyn Hart is a job.
How I carry out this job successfully—that’s what I need to figure out.
It shouldn’t be hard. I’m thirty-five and have been doing jobs like this since I was eighteen. Experience like that doesn’t vanish. I can handle this with my eyes closed.
I put the ID away and turn to look out the window, letting the city blur past while I calculate my next move.
The SUV rolls through the outskirts of the city until we eventually reach the gates of my compound. The massive steel doors part instantly. Guards step aside, their weapons lowered but hands never far from triggers. The SUV glides along the curved drive, past sentries stationed like shadows along the walls, past armored vehicles lined in silent rows.
We arrive at the main building. Nik kills the engine, and I step out. Instantly, armed men flank me on either side, riflesheld loosely but with unmistakable precision. Another team meets me at the doors, trailing me to the surveillance room.
Only Nik follows me through the doors. It closes behind us with a solid thud, locking out the city. Inside, the hum of electronics and quiet movement fills the air.
I pull up the archived FBI documents Hart stole and compare them to Raelyn’s paper, pattern over pattern.
I didn’t need to steal her assignment. That’s why I only looked. My photographic memory has always been a loyal ally. Every line, every structure, every anomaly—I still see it all in my head.
The match is undeniable.
She’s the last vessel of an intelligence leak capable of crippling the Rusnak network if it ever reaches the public. I know she’s innocent. I know her father used her unknowingly, threading fragments into her work without explaining their weight.
But innocence doesn’t matter in this world.
Control does.
I need to take control of the situation before others get their hands on her. I’ve never failed or botched a job in seventeen years. I won’t start now.
I update her file.
IMMEDIATE EXTRACTION.
CONTAINMENT MANDATORY.
HIGH-VALUE.
Nik hums behind me.
“Extraction?” he asks.
I turn and give the order without elaboration.