Chapter 38
JULIA
The data tells a story Julia Van Veen doesn’t want to read.
She stands before the wall of screens in her private monitoring station, arms crossed, watching the scrolling teal green numbers cascade in real time. Vanguard’s heart rate, his cortisol, all neural activity patterns that paint a picture of a man coming undone.
He kept that fucking woman in his penthouse for three days, she thinks bitterly, trying to fight the waves of jealousy that batter her. She might not believe in jealousy, but the emotion sure seems to believe in her.
She pulls up the neural mapping from the past seventy-two hours, watching the patterns pulse and shift like a living thing.
The attachment cluster has metastasized, spreading through his limbic system like a vine.
But it’s the other readings that concern her—the aggression markers climbing steadily, the possessive pathways lighting up like Christmas lights, the darkness pushing closer to the surface with each passing hour.
The programming is fighting against his emotional responses.
And the conflict is causing glitches.
Time gaps in his location data. Moments where his vitals flatline and then spike without explanation. Neural activity patterns that don’t match any baseline she has on file.
He’s destabilizing. Faster than she anticipated.
And now she knows why.
The message from Dmitri Volkov arrived three days ago—a courtesy from an old associate in Minsk who’d seen photos of Vanguard’s new journalist companion in the tabloids. Mia Baxter, the papers called her. But Dmitri knew her by another name.
The Moth. She nearly got me in Minsk. I never forget a face, Julia. Not even under a different wig.
Her real name is still unknown, but what is known is that Mia is an SOE operative. A weapon disguised as a woman, sent to evaluate whether Julia’s creation poses a threat.
She knew it. She knew it all along, that Mia wasn’t who she said she was, that she was up to no good.
And for some reason, she ignored her own instincts.
Because Vanguard seemed happy for the first time ever, and she thought she was being the bigger person by letting him feel that, instead of snatching it away.
When she first heard from Dmitri, she wanted Mia killed. She had so many ways of making that happen. But then, once her emotions calmed and she was able to think clearly, she realized that hasty, reckless actions would be a wasted opportunity.
So she’s let it play out these past few days, watching, waiting, using the spy as an unwitting stress test for Vanguard’s programming. After all, what better way to test her creation’s limits than with a woman designed to destroy him? A woman who will need to die, one way or another.
Her tablet chimes. A new alert from the surveillance network.
Julia checks the notification and feels a spark of interest.
A man. British passport that hasn’t been used much. Arriving at JFK three hours ago. Currently en route to Manhattan.
She pulls up the file. Calvin Jacks. The cover identity lists him as a media consultant, but Julia knows better now.
She runs his passport through the databases her Foreign Office contacts have shared—the ones connected to their quiet conversations about technology transfer and enhanced personnel programs.
It comes back as flagged.
He’s an SOE field operative. And according to the intelligence file, very close to Mia Baxter.
She checks his current location. A hotel in Midtown. And according to the tracking data, he went directly to the spy’s room upon arrival.
Julia pulls up the hallway surveillance and watches as Cal Jacks knocks on the door. Watches him disappear inside.
He stays for less than an hour.
When he leaves, his body language has changed. Shoulders tighter. Jaw set. The posture of a man who’s learned something he didn’t want to know.
She told him. About Vanguard. About whatever’s happened between them. About the mess she’s made of her mission, because she must know how badly she fucked up.
And now he’s here. A new variable. A rival. A threat that Vanguard’s programming will identify and categorize automatically.
Julia allows herself a small smile.
This could be exactly what she needs.
She gets to work and composes the message carefully.
Not a summons, no that would be too obvious. Not a direct order—that might trigger resistance. Just information, delivered in exactly the right way, at exactly the right moment, to produce exactly the right response.
Mia Baxter had a visitor. A man. British. He arrived this afternoon and went directly to her hotel room. He stayed for forty-five minutes.
She attaches the surveillance footage. The hallway camera. Cal’s face, clearly visible. The time stamp showing his arrival and departure.
Then she adds the last piece—the one that will burrow into Vanguard’s brain and fester there, activating pathways she laid down years ago.
I thought you should know.
She sends the message and leans back in her chair, watching the screen.
It takes less than thirty seconds.
His vitals spike immediately. Heart-rate jumping, cortisol flooding his system, the neural patterns shifting into something darker and more dangerous. The possessive clusters light up, while the aggression parameters climb toward the red zone.
Julia watches him for a long moment, her creation, her masterpiece, responding exactly as designed.
Then she pulls up Mia Baxter’s file one last time.
Such a pretty girl. Such a waste.
But weapons aren’t meant to have love stories. Julia knows this better than anyone. She’s spent her entire career building weapons, refining them, perfecting them. And the first rule of weapon-making is simple: You don’t let them choose their own targets because then they’ll never fire.
She closes the file and dims the screens, leaving only Vanguard’s tracking dot pulsing in the darkness. His location is already changing—moving toward the journalist’s hotel.
Going to see for himself.
Julia smiles.
One way or another, one body or another or both, this ends soon.