Chapter Eight Jonah
I wake up with a crick in my neck and Jagger watching me from across the room.
He's sitting in the armchair, tablet in his lap, coffee on the side table. The bright morning light cuts across his face, highlighting the sharp angles, the dark circles under his eyes. He looks like he hasn't slept. Again.
"Creepy," I say, voice rough from sleep. "Very creepy. Do you often watch people while they're unconscious?"
"You were drooling on my couch."
"That's not a no." I push myself upright, wincing at the stiffness in my spine. The blanket slides off my shoulders, and I notice it for the first time. Soft. Expensive. Definitely not something I put on myself. "Did you tuck me in?"
He doesn't answer. Just looks at his tablet like it contains the secrets of the universe.
"You did." I can't keep the grin off my face. "Jagger Harrison, cold-blooded assassin, tucked me in like a toddler. This is going in my memoir."
"You're not writing a memoir."
"Not yet. Give me time." I stretch, hearing my joints pop in protest. The documents I fell asleep on are scattered across the floor, sticky notes everywhere. "How long was I out?"
"Six hours."
"And you just sat there? Watching?"
"I was working." He sets the tablet down and stands, moving toward the kitchen. "There's coffee."
I follow him, blanket still wrapped around my shoulders because I'm not ready to give up the warmth. The kitchen is bright, cleaner than it was last night. Jagger pours a second cup and slides it across the counter without looking at me.
"You found something," I say. Not a question. I can tell by the tension in his shoulders, the way his fingers tap against the counter.
"Maybe."
"That's not a maybe posture. That's a definitely posture." I take a sip of coffee. Black, no sugar, the way he makes it. I've stopped complaining. "Spill."
He pulls up something on his tablet and turns it to face me. A photograph, grainy and pixelated, showing a building I don't recognize. Modern architecture, lots of glass, surrounded by mountains.
"This was in a subfolder labeled 'Phase Two Candidates.' It's a fertility clinic outside Geneva. Officially, it provides IVF services for wealthy European clients. Unofficially—"
"It's connected to Kreiss."
"Three wire transfers in the past eighteen months. All routed through the same shell companies we flagged yesterday."
I stare at the image. Something tugs at the back of my skull, a sensation I've learned to recognize over the past week. Memory trying to surface.
"I've seen this place," I say.
Jagger goes still. "What?"
"Not in person. In files. Photographs." I press my palm against my forehead, chasing the fragment. "There was a folder. Physical, not digital. Someone showed it to me. Brown envelope, coffee stain on the corner. The photographs were surveillance shots. This building, a few others."
"Who showed you?"
"I don't know. I can't see the face." The memory slips away like water through fingers. I want to punch something. "Fuck. It was right there."
"Don't force it." Jagger's voice is softer than I expect. "The more you push, the more it retreats. Give it time."
"Easy for you to say. Your brain wasn't scrambled by psychopaths."
He doesn't respond to that. What is there to say? He was one of those psychopaths. We both know it. The silence stretches between us, heavy with things neither of us is ready to address.
"There's more," he says finally. He swipes to another image. "This is a staff roster from 2019. Most of the names are redacted, but I found one that wasn't."
I look at the document. One name is circled in red: Dr. Elena Andros.
"Who is she?"
"Reproductive endocrinologist. Specialized in genetic screening and embryo selection. She worked for Westpoint Academy for six years before the fire."
The name hits me like a fist to the gut.
I'm not in the kitchen anymore. I'm somewhere else, somewhere cold, fluorescent lights buzzing overhead. A woman in a white coat, dark hair pulled back, asking questions I can't hear. Charts on the wall behind her. Photographs of children.
"Jonah."
Hands on my shoulders. Jagger's face, close to mine, gray eyes sharp with concern.
"I'm here," I manage. "I'm fine."
"You're not fine. You're hyperventilating."
He's right. My chest is heaving, lungs burning, the kitchen spinning around me. I focus on his hands, the pressure of his grip, the warmth bleeding through my shirt.
"Breathe," he says. "In for four. Hold for four. Out for four."
I follow his count. One breath, two, three, four. In, two, three, four. The panic recedes, leaving me shaky and drained.
"Wait… I remembered something," I say when I can speak again.
"Tell me."
"The woman. Andros. I saw her. Not just in photographs. In person." I swallow hard. "It was for an interview on genetic medical advances. There were children's pictures on the wall behind her. Dozens of them."
Jagger's grip tightens on my shoulders. "What kind of questions did you ask?"
"I don't know. I can’t remember.” I shake my head. "But I remember feeling terrified. Not for myself. For whoever those kids were."
He releases me and steps back, running a hand through his hair. The gesture is so human, so unlike the controlled man he pretends to be, that I almost laugh.
"Andros disappeared three years ago," he says. "Same time you were taken. She's connected to all of it."
"So we find her."
"She's dead. Officially."
"And unofficially?"
He meets my eyes. "Unofficially, a lot of people connected to Project Omega seem to die right before they become liabilities. But bodies don't always stay buried."
I ponder on that. About the web of shell companies and dead ends, about Kreiss in Geneva counting money for men who don’t give a shit about anyone but themselves, about children's faces pinned to a wall.
"I want to help," I say. "Really help. Not just sit here and wait for my brain to cough up fragments."
"You are helping."
"I want to do more." I step closer to him, close enough to see the flecks of blue in his gray irises. "I was an investigative journalist. A good one. Before you people erased me, I spent five years digging into things that powerful people wanted buried. Let me use those skills."
"It's dangerous."
"More dangerous than what I'm already in? You've got me hidden in your apartment, off the books, remembering things that could get us both killed. The danger ship has sailed, Harrison. It's waving at us from the horizon."
His mouth twitches.
"What did you have in mind?"
"The files you pulled from Moore's archive. They're copies. You said that yourself. Copies can be altered, trails can be false." I tap the tablet screen. "But somewhere, there are originals. Physical documents. Hard drives. Evidence that can't be erased with a keystroke."
"Kreiss would have those."
"Then we figure out where he keeps his records. Not the digital ones. The real ones. The paper trail that exists because men like him are too paranoid to trust anything they can't touch."
Jagger considers this. His brow furrows and his eye twitches. It's the same look he gets when he's about to do something he knows is stupid but can't talk himself out of.
"There's a vault," he says slowly. "In Geneva. Kreiss maintains a private safety deposit facility for high-value clients. It's not on the official record, but I've heard rumors."
"How do we access it?"
"We don't. Not without credentials that would take months to forge, and contacts I don't have."
"What about your brothers?"
He shakes his head. "Jace is in lala land. Jinx is unpredictable. I won't risk them until I know exactly what we're dealing with."
"So we're stuck."
"For now." He picks up his coffee, takes a long sip. "But there might be another way. The Bonaccorso’s have been investigating Kreiss too. Aurelio mentioned it when I warned him off."
"The guy you threatened yesterday?"
"I didn't threaten him. I advised him."
"With threats."
"With information." He sets down the cup. "But he said something interesting. He implied that Kreiss is running his own game. Skimming. Building something that doesn't belong to the people who think they own him."
"So he’s is betraying The Silent."
"Maybe. Or maybe he's positioning himself for a power play. Either way, he's vulnerable. And vulnerable men make mistakes."
I process this. The pieces are starting to fit together, forming a picture I don't like but can't look away from. Kreiss at the center, money flowing through his hands. Andros and those children. Westpoint burning. My memories, locked away for three years, slowly breaking free.
"If he is skimming," I say, "he'd need somewhere safe to keep his own records. Separate from the Custodian stuff. Somewhere even his clients don't know about."
"You're thinking like a criminal."
"I'm thinking like a journalist who's covered enough criminals to know how they operate." I lean against the counter, arms crossed. "Men like him don't trust anyone. They keep leverage. Insurance. Documentation that proves other people are dirty, so no one can turn on them without going down too."
"A dead man's switch."
"Exactly. If we can find that, we find everything."
Jagger is quiet for a long moment. I watch him think, watch the flicker behind his eyes. He's not used to this. Not used to working with someone instead of just using them. The adjustment is visible in the way he holds himself, the small tensions and releases as he fights old instincts.
I've been watching him for days now, learning his patterns.
The way he drinks coffee in four precise sips, sets the mug down, picks it up exactly four minutes later.
The way his left eye twitches when he's frustrated with a dead end.
The way he looks at me when he thinks I'm not paying attention, like he wants to fucking devour me.