Chapter 28 The Safe Spot #2
Together we move, the ancient rhythm of bodies joined at their cores. A dance older than pain, older than loss. A desire to escape what can’t be escaped, no matter how much the mind tries to plan.
So we fuck like it’s a penance, our hips acting out sentences spoken in tongues older than the earth. Moving in counterpoint, never still. Always seeking.
His fingers find my clit, strumming to the stuttering beat of our hips. My free hand tangles in his hair, pulls, demands his undivided attention.
On the periphery, shadows lurk and watch and wait. But tonight, here, with this man and his darkness and his infinite tenderness, they fade into the night.
Because if Max Brooks is a lesson, if my time with him is a temporary glimpse of a possible future, then I’m ready to accept its cost. I’m ready to pay it forward instead of back.
“I love you,” he breathes in my ear, his cock hitting the deepest spot, his fingers sliding along my wetness.
“I love you,” I answer, breathless and afraid and excited.
We fuck harder, faster, until it hurts. Until the slide of him, the heat and friction, the impossible fit of it all threatens to split me down the middle.
When he breaks, a roar muffled against my hair, I stay close, hold onto him, chase the orgasm that lurks just beyond reach.
It comes like a storm, an undeniable thing that was always going to happen regardless of my intentions.
Tenses my entire body, wrings a moan from deep in my chest, wraps me in the tightest hug of my life.
It lasts forever, and is not long enough. We are always there, together, a light and a reprieve and a relief.
We are together.
Afterwards, sweat-damp, tangled, overheated, I press my forehead to his shoulder and breathe his scent like it’s holy air, like he is a precious commodity I have not known before.
“We will survive this,” I vow softly.
“We will, or no one will,” he promises back.
And in that moment, I believe him. I understand that whatever happens to our bodies, our souls—or whatever remains when we discard the trappings of morality and legality and respectability—will endure beyond the reach of power-hungry shadow networks.
We move to lie tangled together on the makeshift bed Max creates from old blankets and couch cushions, our breathing gradually slowing in the dying firelight. My head rests on his chest, rising and falling with each breath.
“Max,” I murmur against his skin, tasting salt and satisfaction and the lingering sweetness of genuine intimacy.
“Mmm?”
“When this is over—when we’ve exposed The Architect and dismantled whatever’s left of the network—what then?”
His fingers trace lazy patterns on my bare shoulder, each touch a small promise. “Then we figure out how to be normal people. Finish school, buy a house somewhere quiet, adopt a dog, argue about whose turn it is to do the dishes.”
“That sounds terrifying,” I admit with a soft laugh.
“Terrifying and perfect.”
I shift to look at him properly, studying his face in the flickering light.
Tomorrow we’ll have to return to our war council, to planning operations and analyzing evidence and staying one step ahead of forces that want us dead.
But tonight, in this moment suspended between past and future, we can pretend that love might be enough to protect us.
That’s when I see it.
The mark is small, barely visible behind his ear where his hairline meets his neck. In the dying firelight, it could almost be dismissed as a shadow, a trick of perception. But I’ve seen this symbol too many times to mistake it for anything innocent.
The same stylized serpent wrapped around a crown that was carved into the boat at Shark Bay. The same mark tattooed over my parents’ hearts. The same symbol carved into Janet Wilson’s flesh. And the same distinctive shark tooth design next to it.
My blood turns to arctic water.
“Max.” My voice comes out strangled, barely recognizable. “What is that behind your ear?”
“What?” He reaches up instinctively, fingers probing the spot I’m staring at. “Belle, what’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“The mark.” I sit up abruptly, the blanket falling away as I lean closer to examine the symbol. “Max, there’s a mark behind your ear. The same one from the boat, from the documents, from—”
“What are you talking about?” He scrambles to his feet, moving to the broken mirror hanging on the lodge’s wall. In the firelight, his reflection is fractured, distorted, but I can see the moment recognition dawns. “Jesus Christ. Belle, I’ve never seen this before in my life.”
But even as he says it, I can see the doubt creeping into his expression. The same doubt that’s been poisoning my thoughts since we arrived at this supposedly safe location.
“When did you last look behind your ear?” I ask, though I already know the answer will be unsatisfying.
“I don’t know. Never specifically. Who looks behind their own ear?” His voice is rising, panic bleeding through his usual control. “Belle, I swear to you, I have no idea how this got here.”
I believe him—or I want to believe him. But the implications make my stomach churn with sick certainty. The Architect has been marking people for years, decades maybe. Potential victims, potential collaborators, potential assets to be activated when needed.
“How long have you been planning to bring down the network?” I ask, my mind racing through possibilities I don’t want to consider.
“Since I was fifteen. Since I found out what my father really did for a living.”
“And when did you first approach me at Shark Bay?”
“Nearly two years ago, when you returned after the Queens’ trial.” His eyes meet mine in the broken mirror, and I see the exact moment he reaches the same horrifying conclusion I have. “Oh, God. Belle, what if it wasn’t my idea? What if I only thought it was my plan?”
The hunting lodge suddenly feels like a trap—not the sanctuary we believed, but a carefully constructed stage for whatever The Architect has been orchestrating.
How long have we been dancing to someone else’s tune, believing we were making our own choices while instead following a script written years ago?
“The safe house,” I breathe, pieces falling into place with sickening clarity. “Max, how did you know about this lodge? And your family’s cabin? How did you know they would be empty, unmonitored?”
“My father brought me to Vermont once when I was twelve—” He stops mid-sentence, his face going pale. “Belle, what if that wasn’t coincidence? What if he was showing me this place specifically so I’d remember it later?”
The fire crackles and pops, sending shadows dancing across walls that now feel like they’re closing in around us. Every sound could be surveillance equipment. Every shadow could hide observers. The intimate moment we just shared could have been performed for an audience we never knew existed.
“We need to leave,” I say, already reaching for my clothes. “Right now. If this place is compromised—”
“Where can we go? If they can predict our movements, if they’ve been orchestrating this from the beginning—”
“I don’t know.” The admission tastes like ash. “But staying here feels like waiting for the executioner.”
As we dress with frantic efficiency, I can’t stop staring at the mark behind Max’s ear.
Such a small thing to carry such enormous implications.
How many people bear that symbol without knowing it?
How many of us think we’re making independent choices while actually following programming embedded so deeply we mistake it for our own will?
“Belle.” Max catches my hands as I reach for my jacket, forcing me to meet his eyes. “Whatever that mark means, whatever they’ve done to me or made me think I wanted—what I feel for you is real. What just happened between us was real.”
“How do you know?” The question escapes before I can stop it. “If they can manipulate memory, if they can plant motivations so deep you mistake them for your own desires—how does anyone know what’s real?”
For a moment, he doesn’t answer. In the dying firelight, he looks haunted, hollowed out by the weight of questions that don’t have comfortable answers.
“Because real feels different,” he says finally. “Real hurts more, costs more, demands more than the artificial programming done in Munich ever could. And Belle, what I feel for you—it’s the most expensive emotion I’ve ever owned.”
The words should comfort me, but they only highlight how little we really know about ourselves, our motivations, our capacity for genuine choice.
As we gather our evidence and prepare to abandon yet another temporary sanctuary, I wonder if we’re victims planning a rebellion or pawns being moved into position for some final, devastating gambit.
Outside, the wind picks up, rattling the hunting lodge like dice in a cosmic cup. Soon we’ll be back on the road, racing toward a confrontation with forces we don’t fully understand, carrying secrets that might be lies and love that might be manufactured.
But as Max’s marked hand closes around mine, as we step out into the darkness beyond our false sanctuary, I realize that, real or artificial, choice or programming, what exists between us is the only weapon we have against the architects of our destruction.
If we’re puppets, then at least we’re puppets who’ve learned to love the strings that bind us to each other.
And maybe, just maybe, that love will be enough to cut us free.