Chapter Eight Jonah #2
I'm learning other things too. The scar on his right shoulder blade, visible when he changes shirts. The calluses on his fingers from years of handling weapons. The way his breathing changes when I touch him, going shallow and fast before he forces it back under control.
He's beautiful, in a sharp and dangerous way. The kind of beautiful that makes you want to cut yourself on it just to prove you can bleed.
"We'd need someone on the inside," he says finally. "Someone who could access Kreiss's private files without triggering his security."
"Do you know anyone like that?"
"No." He pauses. "But Aurelio might."
"The guy you just told to back off."
"The guy who wants him dead for his own reasons." Jagger's eyes meet mine. "Enemies of enemies, Jonah. It's how the game is played."
"So we reach out to the Bonaccorso’s."
"Yes, but first, we need more information. More leverage of our own." He picks up the tablet again, swiping through files. "If I can find proof that Kreiss is betraying the Custodians, I can use that. Either to turn him, or to burn him."
"And if you can't?"
"Then we find another way." He looks at me, and there's something in his expression I'm learning to recognize. Not affection, exactly. Something rawer. More complicated. "I didn't bring you here to watch you die, Jonah. I don’t exactly know why I brought you, but it wasn’t to seal your fate.”
The words land somewhere deep in my chest. I don't know how to respond. Just nod, and reach for my coffee, and try not to think about how much I want to believe him. “Yeah… either way I think bringing me here sealed my fate. Whether it’s death or something else.”
He grimaces before turning and heading upstairs.
We spend the rest of the morning in his office, side by side, chasing ghosts through paper trails. He's methodical, precise, every search term calculated for maximum efficiency. I'm messier, following instincts and hunches, circling back to things that don't quite fit.
It's strange, working with him. In my old life, I remember that I did this alone. Late nights in my apartment, surrounded by takeout containers and cold coffee, building cases against people who wanted me dead. I never had a partner. Never trusted anyone enough to share what I found.
Now I'm sharing everything with the man who destroyed me.
The irony isn't lost on me. Neither is the fact that I don't care anymore. Whatever Jagger Harrison did to me three years ago, whoever he was then, that's not the man sitting next to me now. This version is cracked. Uncertain. Looking at me like I hold answers to questions he's afraid to ask.
I like this version better.
"Here," I say, pointing at a transaction record. "This doesn't fit the pattern."
He leans over to look. His arm brushes mine, and I feel the contact like electricity. Neither of us moves away.
"What am I looking at?"
"This transfer. It's going to one of the shell companies we flagged, but the timing is wrong. All the others are spaced exactly three weeks apart. This one is five days early."
"Could be an emergency withdrawal."
"Could be. Or it could be Kreiss moving money for himself instead of his clients." I pull up another document. "Look. The amount is different too. All the others are round numbers. This one has cents."
Jagger studies the screen. I watch his eyes track across the data, see the moment it clicks.
"He's skimming in plain sight," he says. "Using the existing infrastructure but changing small details. Anyone doing a surface audit would miss it."
"But we're not doing a surface audit."
"No. We're not." He turns to look at me, and there's something like admiration in his expression. "You're good at this."
"I was good at this. Before you people took it away." The words come out sharper than I intended. "Sorry. That was—"
"True." He doesn't look away. "I did take it away. I took everything from you, Jonah. And I'm not going to pretend otherwise."
"So what are you going to do about it?"
"Help you take it back."
By noon, we've mapped out a network of over a dozen shell companies, all connected to the Geneva fertility clinic. The money flows in a pattern I'm starting to recognize: in from legitimate sources, out through layers of intermediaries, landing in accounts that don't exist on our official registry.
"This is good," Jagger says, leaning back in his chair. "This is really good."
"It's a start." I tap one of the company names on the screen. "But we need more. Names. Locations. Something we can act on."
"We need those private files."
"Which we can't get without an inside man."
He's quiet for a moment. Then: "There might be another option."
"I'm listening."
"The facility in Geneva. The fertility clinic." He pulls up the photograph again. "If Andros worked there, her records might still exist. Patient files. Research notes. Things that couldn't be digitized because they were too sensitive."
"You want to break into the Swiss fertility clinic."
"I want to find out what they did there. What they're still doing." His voice drops. "What they did to us."
Us. Not just the faceless victims of Project Omega. Us. Jagger and his brothers. The children they manufactured… all of them… whoever they are.
"Okay," I say. "How do we get in?"
"I don't know yet." He stands, stretching, and I try not to stare at the way his shirt pulls across his shoulders. "But I'm going to find out."
He leaves the office to make calls. I stay behind, staring at the screen, at the connections we've built.
Somewhere in there is the truth about what they did.
I'm going to find it, even if the truth kills me.
He's gone for an hour. I use the time to keep digging, following threads he might have missed. My brain works differently than his. He sees patterns. I see anomalies. The things that don't fit, the details that seem too small to matter until suddenly they're the only thing that does.
I find three more irregular transfers. Same pattern as before: wrong timing, wrong amounts, small deviations that would be invisible to anyone not looking for them. I flag each one, building a timeline that tells its own story.
Kreiss has been skimming for at least two years. Small amounts at first, testing the system, seeing what he could get away with. Then bigger. Bolder. By my calculations, he's siphoned off nearly four million euros in transactions that don't match the established patterns.
That's not greed. That's a fund for something big.
For what, I don't know. But I'm going to find out.
When Jagger comes back, I'm so deep in the files that I don't hear him until he's standing right behind me.
"You should eat something," he says.
"In a minute. Look at this." I point at my timeline. "Kreiss isn't just skimming. He's accelerating. The amounts are getting bigger, the intervals shorter. Whatever he's planning, it's coming soon."
Jagger leans over my shoulder, studying the screen. His breath is warm against my ear, and I have to force myself to focus on the data instead of the heat of his body.
"You did this in an hour?"
"I had motivation." I lean back, tilting my head to look at him. "Also, I'm really fucking good at my job. Former job. Whatever."
"I noticed." His hand comes up, resting on my shoulder. The touch is light, almost tentative. "You should still eat."
"Is that concern I hear? From the cold-blooded assassin?"
"It's practicality. Starving assets don't produce results."
"There it is. Knew the sentiment had to end somewhere." But I'm smiling as I say it, and he's almost smiling back, and somewhere between the death and the danger and the impossible situation we've found ourselves in, this has started to feel like a relationship.
I don't know what to do with that.
So I do the only thing I know how to do… I keep working.
We eat lunch at the desk, sandwiches he made while he was supposedly making calls. The bread is fresh, the cheese is expensive, and there's some kind of fancy mustard that gives it a depth of flavor.
"Where did you learn to cook?" I ask between bites.
"I didn't. This is just assembly."
"It's good assembly. Very competent. Like everything else you do."
He looks at me sideways. "Was that a compliment?"
"Don't get used to it."
We keep working. The afternoon passes in a blur of documents and discoveries, everything getting more complex with every hour.
By the time the sun starts to set, we have a list of names, a map of money flows, and the beginning of a case that could bring down not just Kreiss, but everyone connected to him.
It's not enough. Not yet. But it's close.
Jagger pushes back from the desk, rubbing his eyes. He looks tired. Human. Nothing like the man who sat across from me in that interrogation room three years ago.
"We should stop for today," he says.
"A few more hours—"
"We should stop." He stands, stretching, and I watch the muscles move under his shirt. "You've been at this for twelve hours. Your eyes are bloodshot and you keep missing keystrokes."
"I'm fine."
"You're not." He holds out a hand. "Come on. Shower. Food. Sleep. We pick this up tomorrow."
I stare at his hand. It's such a simple gesture. So normal. Like we're just two people who share an apartment, not a prisoner and his keeper, not a victim and his destroyer.
Maybe that's what we're becoming… boyfriends.
Ridiculous, but I like the way it tastes.
I take his hand and let him pull me up.
"This doesn't mean I'm tired," I say.
"Of course not."
"I'm just humoring you."
"Naturally."
"And if you tuck me in again, I'm telling everyone."
His mouth twitches. "I didn't tuck you in. I placed a blanket in your general vicinity."
"Sure you did."