Chapter 23
Ty
Donovan shoved George through the door hard enough that the man stumbled, catching himself on the back of the couch.
My hand moved to my weapon before I even processed what I was seeing.
George Mercer—my Army buddy, the FBI agent who’d gotten me into this whole mess—stood in the living room, sweat beading on his forehead despite the cool morning air.
“Found him creeping around the gym,” Donovan said, his Glock still trained on George’s center mass.
That deadly calm in my brother’s voice—the tone that meant violence was imminent—signified George had about ten seconds before Donovan decided talking was overrated and removed the problem permanently.
“Look, it’s not what you—” George started, hands raised.
“Shut up.” I stepped forward, putting myself between Charlotte’s bedroom door and George. Everything about this screamed trap. “You’ve got thirty seconds to explain about that goddamned safe house before my brother decides you’re too much trouble to keep breathing.”
George’s eyes darted between us, then landed on Ethan. “Cross? What are you doing here? Can you talk some sense into them?”
“Actually, they already sound pretty sensible to me,” Ethan said, stepping closer to George with the fluid grace of someone ready for violence. “Especially since I just found out Ty and Charlotte are supposed to be dead right now.”
The blood drained from George’s face. “Dead? What the hell—what are you talking about? I couldn’t reach Ty.
Alex Richards has been in absolute panic mode since the stabilizer code was stolen from the building yesterday.
Ty told me he was doing that, but then crickets.
” His words tumbled out faster, desperation bleeding through. “Radio silence.”
“Bullshit.” The word came out harsh, anger building in my chest. “I left you three voicemails last night. Then I got your text with the safe house address. If I hadn’t had the forethought to check it out first, I’d be sitting here talking to you in roughly 1.7 million pieces.”
George’s confusion looked genuine, but I’d been fooled before. His brow furrowed, mouth opening and closing like he was trying to process impossible information.
“Voicemails? What voicemails? You can look at my phone. I never got any calls from you after our one conversation.” He pulled out his phone with shaking hands, careful to move slowly with Donovan’s gun still pointed at him.
“Look—nothing. And I never sent any text about a safe house. I was waiting to hear from you before I arranged anything. When I couldn’t find either of you, I started making calls. ”
“To whom?” Ethan’s question cut like a blade.
“Ty’s phone. Charlotte’s phone. The Vertex lab. When I couldn’t get anyone, I called Citadel. Nobody knew where you were. I thought you’d gone completely dark.”
I studied his face, looking for tells. The muscle tic when he lied. The way his left eye would narrow slightly when he was spinning bullshit. But all I saw were genuine fear and confusion. Either George had gotten a lot better at deception since our Army days, or he was telling the truth.
“Ethan,” I said, not taking my eyes off George. “We need Jace.”
Ethan already had his phone out. “Way ahead of you.” He hit a button with Jace’s name.
“Boss man,” Jace’s voice filled the room through the speaker. “How’s the surprise Missouri vacation treating you?”
“Jace, we need a full diagnostic on a potentially compromised phone.” Ethan was all business. “Bureau issue. Can you walk someone through it?”
“FBI phone? Ooh, Christmas came early.” The sound of rapid keystrokes filled the room like machine-gun fire. “All right, person-who-might-be-toast, listen very carefully and don’t get creative. We’re going to crack open that phone and see what’s been living inside it.”
George looked at me, and I saw real fear there. Not fear of dying—we’d both faced that plenty of times. This was fear of having betrayed a friend without knowing it. Fear of being a tool in someone else’s game.
George took the phone with trembling fingers.
For the next few minutes, Jace walked him through a series of steps to perform on his own phone—settings, diagnostic modes, hidden menus I didn’t even know existed.
George followed each instruction precisely, the phone’s screen flickering through various interfaces.
“Okay, now the interesting part,” Jace said. “Go to Settings, then About Phone, then tap the build number seven times… Yeah, I know it sounds like a cheat code. Trust me.”
More tapping. More screens. I watched George’s face grow paler with each step.
“Holy shit,” Jace breathed. “Boss, you seeing this? I’m getting the remote feed now and… Someone’s been having a party with this phone. Professional-grade piggyback program. Calls rerouted to fake voicemail, messages spoofed from his number. This is next-level stuff.”
“How long?” Ethan asked.
“It’ll take me a while to figure that out.
Right now, I’m only looking at the last forty-eight hours, but it could be much longer.
Every call from Ty’s number got intercepted and sent to a dummy voicemail.
Never even rang on George’s end. And that text about the safe house?
Definitely came from his number, but he didn’t send it. Someone was playing puppeteer.”
The gun in Donovan’s hand lowered slightly but didn’t disappear. “Could he have installed it himself? Cover story?”
“Negative,” Jace replied. “This kind of breach requires external access. Someone had to physically clone his phone or compromise it remotely using FBI credentials. Inside job, definitely, but our boy George here is a victim, not a perpetrator.”
The relief that flooded through me was immediate and overwhelming. George hadn’t betrayed us. But that raised an even bigger question.
“If not George, then who?” I asked.
“That’s the million-dollar question. But I can tell you this—it’s somebody who knows what the fuck they’re doing. I’ll keep looking into it.”
The room went silent except for George’s ragged breathing. I watched the knowledge sink in—he’d been violated, used as a weapon against us without even knowing it. The George I knew would be tearing himself apart right now, replaying every interaction, every moment he might have compromised us.
Donovan finally holstered his weapon, though his hand stayed close to it. “Didn’t expect to see you here, Cross.”
Ethan’s expression shifted, something almost like amusement flickering across his features. “I was planning to come see you anyway. Try to officially recruit you. Have a mission in Kenya you’d be perfect for.”
“Kenya can wait,” Donovan said flatly. “We’ve got bigger problems.”
“Agreed,” Ethan said. “Jace, what’s your read on the situation?”
“Based on what I’m seeing? You’ve definitely got a mole in the FBI, but they’re using George’s credentials and equipment to cover their tracks. The real insider might not be from Vertex at all. We might have been looking in the wrong henhouse.”
George sank onto the couch, head in his hands. “Jesus Christ. They used me. Used my access, my clearance. How many operations did they compromise?”
“Worry about that later,” I said. “Right now, we need to control the narrative. George, you’re going to report that Charlotte and I went to that safe house. There was an explosion. Unfortunate accident. Bodies presumed destroyed in the fire.”
His head snapped up. “You want me to lie to all my colleagues in the FBI? They’re not all traitors. There’s probably just one.”
“The FBI and everyone at Vertex. I need you to buy us time,” I corrected.
“Stick as close to the truth as possible. We went to a safe house. There was an explosion. Let them draw their own conclusions. See if anyone is particularly interested. Stall any investigation into recovering bodies. Blame it on the fire, structural damage, whatever you need to say.”
“For how long?”
“Until the auction. Three days. Give Charlotte a chance to finish the stabilizer code.” I met his eyes. “Can you do that?”
George straightened, and I saw the soldier he’d once been shine through the federal agent exterior. “Yeah. I can sell it. But Ty, if there’s really a mole with that level of access—”
“Let’s work one problem at a time,” Ethan cut in. “Deal with the fire about to burn down the house then we’ll worry about the bigger one in the distance.”
A soft footstep, barely audible, made everyone tense.
Charlotte stood in the doorway, wearing my old Army shirt that hung to mid-thigh, bare feet silent on the floor.
Her hair fell in tangled auburn waves around her face, and the morning light streaming through the windows showed just how pale she’d become.
The dark circles under her eyes looked like bruises, purple and deep.
She’d been up most of the night working on code while I stood guard, fighting through equation after equation, and exhaustion made her sway slightly in the doorframe.
“I heard voices,” she said, her voice still rough with sleep. “The mole isn’t someone from inside the lab?”
I shook my head. “No, it may be someone inside the FBI.”
“But George has to tell everyone at work that I’m dead?”
The vulnerability in her voice hit me like a physical blow. She’d caught enough of the conversation to understand what we were asking George to do. Her colleagues, her friends—they’d all think she was gone.
I crossed to her, fighting the urge to pull her against me. “We need to. It’s temporary. Just for a few days.”
“Darcy will be devastated,” she said quietly. “Marcus, Linda, the whole team. They’ll think—”
“They’ll think you died in an accident,” I said gently. “And in three days, when this is over, you’ll walk back in, and they’ll be so relieved to see you alive they won’t even be angry about the deception.”
She nodded slowly, wrapping her arms around herself. The gesture made her look smaller, more fragile. I wanted to tell her it would be okay, that I’d keep her safe, but the words felt hollow given everything we’d been through.
“Charlotte,” Ethan said, his voice gentling in a way I rarely heard. “I’m Ethan Cross, Ty’s employer. We’re going to keep you safe. You have my word on that.”
She studied him for a moment, that brilliant mind calculating behind tired eyes. “You run Citadel Solutions. Ty’s mentioned you.”
“Nothing bad, I hope.”
A ghost of a smile crossed her face. “He said you were tough but fair. And that you always protect your people.”
“That’s right. And right now, you’re under our protection. That makes you family.”
The word hung in the air, heavy with meaning. In Citadel, family meant everything. It meant we’d bleed for you, kill for you, die for you if necessary. Charlotte might not fully understand that yet, but she would.
George stood, pulling his shoulders back. “I should go. The longer I’m missing, the more questions there’ll be. I’ll sell the story, buy you the time you need.”
“Be careful,” I said. “Whoever’s running this operation, they’ve already shown they’re willing to kill. If they think you know something—”
“I’ll play dumb—not that that’s too far from the truth. I’ll lean into the grieving friend bit, shocked by the loss.” He moved toward the door, then paused. “Ty, for what it’s worth, I’m sorry. If I’d known my phone was compromised—”
“Not your fault,” I said firmly. “Just watch your back.”
He nodded and left, Donovan escorting him out and presumably making sure he actually left the property. The room felt smaller with just the three of us, the weight of what we were facing pressing down like a physical force.
“So,” Ethan said, his tone shifting to all business. “Three days until the auction. What’s our play?”
“Charlotte needs to finish the countermeasure before the auction,” I said. “Everything depends on that. We’re running out of time.”
Charlotte shivered slightly, and this time, I did reach for her, my hand settling on her lower back. She leaned into the touch, just barely, but enough that I felt the trust in that small gesture.
“Roger that,” Ethan said. “I’ll get the rest of the team here so you can get some rest before you fall over.”
“We’ve all got jobs to do,” I said, looking between Ethan and Charlotte. “Until the auction, we do what we do best—we keep everyone alive.”