Chapter 25
Charlotte
The final parameter locked into place with a soft chime from my laptop, the wave function entanglement protocols finally aligning like puzzle pieces I’d been trying to fit together for days.
I sat back in the desk chair, staring at the completed stabilizer code displayed across my screen.
Every frequency calibration, every interference pattern, every deployment pathway—all of it finally harmonized into something that could actually work.
Voices carried from the living room where the Citadel team had spread tactical maps across every available surface. Jace’s voice crackled through a speaker, tinny but clear.
“Sight lines are shit in that area.” Logan’s voice, deeper than the others, carried a note of concern I hadn’t heard from him before. “Multiple entry points, limited cover. If this goes sideways, extraction’s going to be a bitch.”
“We’ve worked with worse.” Ty’s tone was calm, analytical. “Remember that clusterfuck in Caracas? We had three exit routes compromised and still made it out clean.”
“That was different. We had aerial support and a clear evac route.”
“We adapt,” Ty said. “Logan, you take overwatch from the northeast corner—best vantage point for the approach roads. I’ll handle the western perimeter with Ben.”
“What about the buyers’ vehicles?” Ethan asked. “They’ll probably come in hot with their own security.”
“Let them,” Ty replied. “More vehicles mean more disorder if we need to bug out. It’ll work in our favor.” A pause, then his voice shifted, more focused. “Jace, can you tap into the industrial complex’s security feeds? I want eyes on every entrance twenty minutes before showtime.”
“Already working on it,” Jace confirmed.
“Good. And the Volkov cover?” Ty continued.
“Arms dealer out of Serbia, established presence on three different dark web markets. Has a documented grudge against NATO after they killed his brother in a bombing raid. The buyers won’t question it.
Ethan’s got the ugly mug and the accent down perfect. ”
“Flattery will get you everywhere,” Ethan said dryly.
My fingers hovered over the keyboard, frozen by the weight of what I was hearing.
These men—Ty’s team, his brothers in everything but blood—were walking into extreme danger based on a project I created.
If the Stabilizer failed, if I’d miscalculated even one variable, they’d be facing armed terrorists with nothing but conventional weapons and whatever luck they could manufacture.
The laptop pinged softly, a notification I hadn’t seen in weeks popping up in the corner. An encrypted message through the old research backdoor server Darcy and I had set up years ago, back when we were debugging the first quantum encryption protocols. My heart stopped.
The message was simple, tentative. “Charlotte? Is that you? Your access signature just showed up on our old server. I don’t even know why I was checking. I just can’t believe you’re gone.”
I stared at the words, cursor blinking in the reply field.
Darcy. My stomach twisted with equal parts relief and terror.
How had she even known to look? Was someone monitoring this channel?
The encryption was solid—we’d designed it ourselves—but after everything that had happened, could I trust any channel was truly secure?
Another message appeared before I could decide what to do.
“I can’t even tell you how much I’m hoping this is you. Alex said there was an accident, that you died in some sort of explosion. But I can’t make myself believe it. I can’t believe you’re gone. I can’t stop crying.”
My throat closed up. It was one thing to agree to the deception, another to see the actual impact on people I cared about.
I looked toward the doorway where Ty’s voice mixed with the others, discussing approach vectors and fields of fire. Every instinct screamed to ask him what to do, but I could hear the intensity of their planning session. Lives depended on them getting these details right.
My fingers moved across the keys before I could second-guess myself, typing carefully. “It’s me. I’m okay. Can’t explain everything right now.”
The response exploded across my screen in all caps, quintessentially Darcy. “OH MY GOD CHARLOTTE YOU’RE ALIVE! I KNEW IT! I KNEW IT!”
Messages flooded in as fast as I could read them, Darcy’s emotions pouring through the digital connection like a dam had burst. I caught fragments—explosion, accident, no body recovered—and my chest tightened. George had sold it well. Too well.
“What happened? Are you okay? Where are you? Are you hurt?”
I responded very briefly, not giving away any details about anything important. I wanted to, but knew I couldn’t until after the auction tomorrow, just in case this was being monitored in some way. I promised Darcy I’d fill her in on everything as soon as I could.
“I’m just glad you’re okay. That’s what matters. I won’t tell anyone.”
“Thank you,” I responded. “I should be back soon.”
I hoped.
“Good. Alex has been acting completely paranoid since George Mercer came by and told us the news. He’s been reviewing security footage obsessively, won’t leave his office, sleeps there most nights. Makes encrypted calls at weird hours. Everyone’s worried about him.”
I read that twice, my mind cataloguing the behavior. Alex, paranoid. Alex, reviewing footage. Alex, making encrypted calls.
Another message: “Everyone at the lab is devastated. They are going to be so excited to hear this was all a mistake!”
“Darcy, you can’t tell anyone. Promise me. It will be too dangerous for us.”
“I won’t. Promise. And…us? Please tell me tall, dark, and brooding is keeping you safe.”
Heat crept up my neck. Even through encrypted text, Darcy could read me too well.
“Yes, he’s with me. He’s… Yes. He’s keeping me safe.”
“Charlotte Louise Gifford, are you BLUSHING right now? Through TEXT? Oh my God, did something happen? Did you finally notice that man looks at you like you hung the moon?”
My fingers froze over the keyboard. Did he? I thought about the way Ty had held me last night, the night we’d spent together in that motel that I desperately wanted to repeat, the way he kept positioning himself between me and any potential threat without even thinking about it.
“I think I’m falling in love with him.”
The words were typed before I could stop them, transmitted through encrypted channels to the one person who’d understand what a monumentally terrifying admission that was for me.
Charlotte Gifford, who’d approached losing her virginity like a lab experiment, who’d never let anyone close enough to matter, was falling in love in the middle of running for her life.
Darcy’s response was immediate and perfect.
“Finally! FINALLY! Forget saving the world—you actually noticed a hot guy exists! And not just any hot guy, the one who’s been staring at you like a love-sick puppy since day one.
This is the best news I’ve gotten all week, which admittedly is a low bar since we thought you were dead, but still! ”
Despite everything, I laughed quietly. I’d forgotten what that felt like.
“I have to go,” I typed. “Stay safe. Don’t trust anyone right now, especially not Alex. And, Darcy? Thank you. For believing the explosion story was wrong.”
“I know you, Charlotte. You’re too stubborn to die. Plus, you’d never leave a project unfinished. Love you, you brilliant disaster. Come back to us.”
I closed the chat window, wiping at my eyes.
No time for tears. The stabilizer code window expanded back to full screen, every line of code a testament to what we were fighting for.
The final calibration was complete—quantum entanglement protocols aligned, frequency modulation perfect, deployment pathways verified.
It was ready. We were ready.
I saved the final version three times—local drive, encrypted backup, and a hidden partition I’d created just in case. Then I stood, muscles protesting after hours in the uncomfortable chair. My back cracked as I stretched, arms reaching overhead, working out the kinks from hunching over the laptop.
I walked into the living room, stopping just inside the frame, watching the scene in front of me.
All the men in the room moved with absolute confidence, checking weapons with the kind of practiced efficiency that came from years of muscle memory, but it was Ty I couldn’t stop watching.
He picked up an assault rifle from the table, cleared it, examined the magazine, tested the weight and balance, all while maintaining a conversation with Logan about overlapping fields of fire.
His movements were economical, precise, deadly.
This was part of who he really was. Not just the charming security contractor who’d brought me lunch and made me laugh. Not just the first one with a witty line. Not just the man who’d shown me what passion could really be.
Ty Hughes was lethal.
The same hands that had held me while I cried could field-strip a weapon in seconds. The same person who had found ways to make me eat when stress killed my appetite was now the tactical mind planning tomorrow’s operation.
God help me, I was definitely falling in love with Tyler Hughes.
He looked up then, catching sight of me in the doorway. Without breaking his conversation with the guys about overwatch positions, he reached out a hand toward me. The gesture was so natural, so unconsciously claiming, that my feet moved before my brain caught up.
I crossed to him, and his arm came around me automatically, pulling me against his side while he continued discussing tactical details. The weight of his arm was comforting, grounding. I fit against him like I’d been designed for that exact space, and maybe in some cosmic way, I had been.
“The algorithm’s ready,” I said quietly when there was a pause in the conversation.
He looked down at me, and for a second, his professional mask slipped. Pride, relief, and something deeper flickered in those brown eyes. “Yeah?”