32. Finn
Finn
Sophie arrives at our house with a box of files under one arm and her laptop bag over her shoulder.
She’s in jeans and a dark sweater, her hair pulled back in its usual ponytail, and something about her is different tonight.
There’s color in her cheeks and her lips look fuller somehow, like her whole face has softened.
“Where do you want these?” she asks.
“Living room,” Max says from behind me. He’s coming down the stairs in jeans. “The table’s clear.”
Sophie walks past me into the living room.
I watch Max angle his body slightly away from her as she passes and Sophie’s hand tighten on the box when his sleeve brushes her arm.
Neither of them looks at the other. Sophie sets the box on the coffee table and Max reaches over and removes the throw blanket from the couch to give her space to sit.
Interesting.
Ethan appears from the kitchen with four mugs of tea. He hands one to Sophie, one to Max, one to me, keeps one for himself, and then he sits down and opens his notebook.
“Right,” I say. “Shall we begin?”
We spread everything across the living room.
Sophie drops to the floor, cross-legged, her laptop open on the coffee table in front of her.
Papers fan out around her in a semicircle—background checks, access logs, communication records, timeline charts.
She arranges them efficiently, like someone who’s built a hundred case boards in a hundred temporary spaces, and within two minutes the coffee table has disappeared under a mountain of evidence.
Ethan settles beside her on the floor, his back against the couch, his notebook on his knee. He reaches across for a stack of access logs and starts reading without being asked, his pen already moving, annotating margins.
Max takes the armchair that faces the room. He sits back, one ankle crossed over his knee, a stack of communication records in one hand, his coffee untouched beside him.
I’m on the couch, legs stretched along the cushions, Diana’s personnel file open on my lap.
We stay like that for a while, each of us immersed in the work, the room quiet except for the rustle of pages and the scratch of Ethan’s pen.
“Victor Hartman has been cleared,” Sophie says.
“I can’t believe we missed it initially and Synthera’s records didn’t show it, but he’s married.
Declan found the records. He’s also having several affairs and he’s using his work phone for encrypted personal communications because his wife monitors his personal device.
The military-grade encryption was sourced through a private cybersecurity company—Declan’s team was able to trace the purchase.
So it’s paranoid infidelity, not espionage. ”
“He’s married?” I say. “He asked you out on a date and he’s married?”
“With several affairs, apparently,” Sophie says, her tone flat.
Ethan shakes his head. “Military-grade encryption to hide his affairs. That’s almost impressive in its stupidity.”
“Yeah,” Sophie says, closing Victor’s folder. “At least we’ve cleared him now, where Synthera is concerned.”
“How did the dinner go?” Ethan asks.
“Quick,” Sophie says. “It didn’t take me long to figure him out.”
“And the drive?” I ask casually, looking at Sophie, then at Max.
Sophie’s eyes dart to Max then back to her laptop. “It was fine.”
Max glances at her and shifts in his chair.
Ethan and I look at each other.
I can see it too, Eth.
Sophie is already moving on.
“Now that Phoebe and Victor are cleared, we only have one suspect left,” she continues.
“Diana Quinn,” Max says.
“Yes.” Sophie pulls a thick folder from the box and opens it on the coffee table.
“Former Nexagen employee. Eighteen months at Synthera. PhD in pharmaceutical chemistry. Hired by Yoon’s team after a competitive interview process.
” She spreads the pages. “On paper, she’s clean.
No unexplained income and no debts. And she’s good at her job—genuinely good.
I’ve seen her work with the omegas in the clinical wing and I can tell she really cares about them and what Synthera is trying to do. ”
“But,” Ethan says.
“But.” Sophie taps a page. “Phone to the bathroom every single time she goes. A browser window she minimizes the second anyone walks by—and she nearly jumps out of her chair doing it. And this.”
She pulls up a spreadsheet on her laptop. “Diana’s been accessing formulation files outside her project scope. Three times in the last week—files she has no reason to open. Pre-launch formulations for products that haven’t been announced yet.”
“She could be cross-referencing,” Ethan says. “Researchers do that.”
“Maybe,” Sophie says. “But she also stays late on Thursdays. And that’s exactly when the research wing’s security cameras run a scheduled maintenance cycle, and during that window, the footage isn’t being recorded to the central system.” She pauses. “Diana never stays late on any other night.”
I sit up. “You think she’s timing her late nights to the gap.”
“That’s what it looks like,” Sophie confirms.
“Or she’s a dedicated researcher who happens to work late on the same night every week,” Ethan says. He’s defending her, and I get it—Diana is one of his best people. “Her work output during those late sessions is real. The data she’s generating is legitimate. I’ve reviewed it myself.”
“She can do real work and steal data at the same time, Ethan,” Sophie says gently. “That’s what makes her good at it.”
“Wanting it not to be her doesn’t make it not her,” Max says.
Ethan looks at the access logs, then at the ceiling. I can see the moment he accepts it.
“No,” Ethan says quietly. “It isn’t.”
We spend the next hour going through Diana’s files and the evidence keeps pointing in the same direction.
Then Sophie sits back. She stares at the papers spread across the coffee table.
“I feel like I’m missing something,” she says. “Like the answer is right in front of us and I can’t see it.”
Max sets his mug down. “It’s late. We should call it.”
Sophie nods and starts gathering the papers, stacking them with the same efficiency she used to spread them. Ethan closes his notebook and stands, stretching his arms above his head.
“I’ll send Declan what we have tonight,” Sophie says. “See you all tomorrow.”
Ethan nods and heads upstairs.
Max stands. He’s looking at Sophie. She’s looking at her files. The distance between them is three feet and a hundred unspoken words, and his hand twitches once at his side, like he’s stopping himself from reaching for her.
“Goodnight,” he says, and his voice is gruff. There’s something almost longing in the way he looks at her.
“Goodnight, Max,” Sophie says. She doesn’t look up, but her hand stills on the page she’s holding, and she doesn’t move again until his footsteps have faded up the stairs.
Then it’s just the two of us.
Sophie fills a glass of water from the tap and drinks half of it standing at the kitchen sink. I lean against the counter across from her, arms folded.
It’s the kitchen where she stitched her own arm. The pendant lights cast a warm glow across the counter, and in this light, with her hair pulled back and her face bare, she looks young and soft and like a completely different person.
“How is it in the research wing?” I ask.
She turns, glass in hand, and leans against the opposite counter, mirroring my posture without seeming to realize it. “It’s different, that’s for sure. Less talking.”
I almost laugh. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“I’m certainly not complaining,” she says, and takes a sip of water to hide the smile pulling at the corner of her mouth.
“I do miss the daily meetings, though.”
She raises an eyebrow over the rim of her glass. “You miss having someone to boss around.”
“Actually, I miss having someone who doesn’t let me.”
She lowers the glass. The smile she’s been fighting wins, and it changes her whole face, softer, warmer, the operative gone and Sophie in her place.
“Finn, I need to tell you something,” she says urgently, as if she’ll lose her nerve if she doesn’t say it now.
“It—” She swallows. “It’s about the gala.”
I go still. The gala. The balcony. The red dress and the kiss that I’ve replayed in my mind so many times the memory has started to fray at the edges.
She takes a deep breath before she continues. “That night we met,” she says, looking up, “for the first time since I started working for Sentinel, I fucked up.”
She pauses. Her fingers tighten around the glass, her knuckles going white against the clear surface.
“I was supposed to target another alpha, Finn.”
Something loosens in my chest. Because I already knew.
“I figured,” I say.
“You did?” Her eyes widen slightly.
“Yeah.” I lean against the counter. “I didn’t know then why you ran.
But after you showed up here in Synthera and you told me you were undercover that night, I put two and two together.
” I pause. “I remember you asked my last name. And the second I said it, you were gone. So I figured you must’ve mistaken me for someone else. ”
She sets the glass down carefully. “I’m sorry, Finn. I never meant to deceive you.” She swallows and closes her eyes.
“I felt like I had no choice. The alpha I was after... he hurt her. So, so bad.” Her voice fractures on the word bad. “You should’ve seen her, Finn. She couldn’t walk after. She was—he almost—”
She stops and presses her palm flat against the counter, steadying herself. I can see the tears forming, turning her eyes bright in the kitchen light.
“Sophie—” I push off the counter and move toward her, my hand rising, reaching for her arm, any point of contact that might anchor her before the current pulls her under.
Her eyes flash. The vulnerability snapping shut, replaced by something hot and fierce.
“He almost fucking killed her.” The words come out like shrapnel. “And I thought you were him. My handler sent me a photo of an alpha wearing a green suit. And I thought, who the fuck wears such an ugly suit?”
I almost smile. Almost.
“But you were also wearing a stupid green suit,” she says. Her voice is caught between fury and tears.
“It was a great suit.”
“It was hideous.”
My mouth twitches, but the humor doesn’t last. Not with the tears in her eyes and the image of an omega who couldn’t walk still hanging between us.
“I kissed the wrong man,” she says, her voice hollow, as if she’s confessing a sin she’s been carrying for months. “I had the wrong target and I kissed you and I—”
“Sophie.” My voice is steady. I need it to be steady, because hers isn’t, and one of us has to hold the ground. “I understand. I don’t blame you.”
I move closer to her and she doesn’t move. The kitchen counter is behind her, the marble edge pressing against the small of her back, and I’m close enough now to see the individual lashes framing her eyes, the tiny scar at the corner of her eyebrow that I’ve never noticed before.
“That night.” Her voice drops to something barely above a whisper. She’s looking at my chest, not my eyes. “It wasn’t a lie. Not all of it, Finn. Parts of it were real. Parts of it I was being... me.”
“I know, Sophie.” My voice comes out soft and I can’t seem to hide the ache in it. “It doesn’t matter what cover you wear.” I take another step and close the last of the distance between us. “I can see you.”
I lift my hand slowly, giving her time to pull away, to stop me, to do any of the things I’d expect her to do when an alpha reaches for her face.
She doesn’t pull away.
My palm settles against her cheek. Her skin is warm, and to my surprise she leans into my hand and closes her eyes.
“Even when I don’t want to,” I whisper. My thumb traces her cheekbone, feeling the smooth curve of it. “Even when I’m trying so hard to ignore you. I see you, Sophie.”
Her eyes open, dark and bright, and for once she doesn’t hide what she wants. She glances at my lips and I can see the exact moment she decides, the heat and vulnerability and the raw, terrified courage of a woman who is about to do something she can’t take back.
She rises onto her tiptoes and presses her lips to mine.
Soft. So soft it barely qualifies as a kiss, more a question than a statement, her mouth finding mine with a tentative, trembling pressure. Her hands come up to my chest, fingers splayed against my shirt, not quite steady.
I kiss her back. But I hold myself in check, every muscle in my body tense with the effort of keeping it gentle, of not deepening it beyond what she’s offering.
Because this is Sophie choosing me in a warm kitchen at midnight, with the lights on and the masks off and the full weight of everything she’s told me tonight sitting between us, and I will not be the one who pushes too far.
My thumb traces her cheekbone. My other hand slides to the side of her neck, my fingers threading into the hair at her nape. She leans into it, tilts her head, pressing her neck into my palm with a trust that makes my chest ache.
Then she pulls back.
Her eyes are heavy-lidded, her lips parted, her breath coming fast.
“Finn.”
“Yeah?” I ask, her cheek still in my hand.
“Kiss me properly.”
Every ounce of restraint I’ve been holding shatters and I pull her into me and kiss her like I’m drowning and she’s air, my hand fisting in her hair, her body crashing against mine, her back hitting the counter.
She gasps into my mouth and I swallow it, tasting her, faintly sweet, and the sound she makes—a low, desperate moan, vibrating against my lips—rewires something in my brain permanently.
Her tongue finds mine and suddenly she’s the one leading, her fingers gripping the front of my shirt, pulling me closer, kissing me like something inside her just let go.
Her hands slide up my chest, over my collarbone, her fingers brushing the side of my neck and I actually shiver and she makes that sound again, that breathless moan that I’m going to hear in my sleep for the rest of my—
Then I hear footsteps on the stairs.
We both hear them at the same time. Sophie pulls back, her eyes snapping open, and I turn toward the kitchen doorway.
Ethan.
He’s standing at the bottom of the stairs in a t-shirt and sweats, his hair mussed. He sees us. Sophie’s flushed face. My hands in her hair. And I’m pretty sure he knows exactly what we were doing.
His gray eyes find Sophie past my shoulder. The kitchen is silent.
I wait for it—for Sophie to shut down, to pull away from me, to reach for her bag and become the operative again.
But Sophie doesn’t step back. She stays exactly where she is, her hand still resting on my chest.