Chapter 23
CIPHER
The decryption algorithm crawled its final percentage points across my screen. Hours of work and Dread’s mysterious data chip was almost cracked. I rubbed my eyes, the glow of multiple monitors the only illumination in my bedroom besides the faux city lights filtering through the false windows.
Fucking Dread.
He was the entire reason my plans for the evening had gone to shit.
Annie and I were supposed to attend the fucking League function tonight, another public display of my ownership, another opportunity to watch her squirm in a cocktail dress while the rest of the underworld watched with envy.
Instead, I’d rerouted her to a mundane dinner with Dawn.
I had lied to her, of course. I told her I didn’t want her clinging to my arm, that she’d be a distraction while I handled actual business. The truth was far more pragmatic. I had breached the event’s security manifest and Dread’s name was sitting right there on the guest list.
I still didn’t know exactly how Annie was tracking the rogue, but I couldn’t risk putting her in the same room as the bastard.
She’d already come dangerously close to him at the Opener.
If she figured out Dread was her target too soon, this entire forced partnership would conclude.
The Aegis would pull her back to the Tower, and her flimsy excuse to stay in my bed would vanish.
I glanced over at Annie. She was sprawled across the bed, her brown hair fanned across my pillow. The fur throw I’d tossed over her had slipped, revealing the curve of her hip and the bruising on her thigh where I’d gripped her too hard.
I stared at the marks. I should have put her in the quarters I’d prepared for her. They were comfortable enough and far away from me.
Instead, I’d carried her here and dropped her into the center of my own fucking bed.
I ran my hands through my hair, tugging hard on the roots. Her taste was still on my tongue, the salt of her skin and the sweetness of her cunt. I’d fucked her until she couldn’t speak, until the only sound she made was a broken whimper.
It should have been enough.
I had calculated the variables. Saturation. Release. I thought if I used her thoroughly enough, if I drained myself completely, it would buy me some goddamn silence. I thought I could leave her in the Playroom, walk away, and function like a rational creature for a few hours.
The math had been wrong and I never got the math wrong.
The moment I’d pulled away from her and stepped outside the Playroom, the static had returned. The timer in the back of my skull had started ticking. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.
I had to bring her here. I had to keep her within arm’s reach just to keep those numbers in my head from starting again.
She shifted. The sheets rustled, and a wave of her scent hit me.
Sex and vanilla. It was a cloying, biological smell that had no business in my room.
I wanted to wake her up. I wanted to crawl over her, pin her wrists to the headboard, and use her again.
I needed to see if there was a limit. If I fucked her hard enough, if I buried myself deep enough, would the tether finally snap?
Would it buy me five minutes of peace where I didn’t need to be breathing her air to think straight?
A soft, melodic chime cut through the silence. One hundred percent. Decryption complete.
The files populated my screen. Lab reports, surveillance footage, communications logs, all of them belonging to Solstice. The same Solstice that Dread had murdered at the Season Opener.
Now I really was interested in what was on the data chip. What had Solstice been doing to incur Dread’s wrath despite their alliance?
But the longer I scrolled through Solstice’s files, the more my disappointment grew. For all the excitement, there was nothing here I hadn’t seen before. Lab reports on stellar radiation absorption rates. Equipment requisition forms.
Solstice had been competent enough, I’d give him that. Methodical in his approach, thorough in his documentation. But there was nothing in his research that seemed worth killing over.
I grew bored to the point I almost decided to send the results to Dread without caring to look further, until one file caught my eye.
LU Project Warden.
My finger froze above the screen. LU. The League Underground. Now that was interesting.
The LU operated as the League’s black ops research division, taking on projects too controversial or dangerous for public knowledge.
Even most League members weren’t aware of their existence.
I’d only learned about them after “accidentally” coming into possession of some classified files, and even then, the information had been deliberately vague.
I opened the folder, suddenly much more alert. My pulse quickened as I delved deeper into Solstice’s notes. This was far beyond the trivial power amplification research most of the other files dealt with.
I scrolled through pages of molecular diagrams and genetic sequencing data.
Solstice had been attempting to develop a compound that would temporarily suppress Trueborn Super abilities while simultaneously revealing their genetic markers.
The implications were staggering. And very fucking dangerous to someone like me.
As it was, the League had my blood on file.
I didn’t particularly care because that was business as usual when checking to see if someone was a good candidate for the Serum.
I had taken the Serum all those years ago, since it does absolutely nothing to a Trueborn, but it was a necessary evil so that I could appear to be a Serum based Super.
There was no way of telling if a person was Trueborn with only their blood, which meant I was safe. But If they figured out a way to classify it by genetic markers, I was fucked. My implants masking my Trueborn signature would be rendered useless.
My eyes caught on a hyperlink embedded in the text: “Warden Historical Records - Classification Level Alpha.” I clicked it immediately, only to be met with yet another wall of encrypted data.
“Shit.” The encryption was several levels beyond what Solstice should have had access to. It would take time, perhaps days, to decode this next layer, but I had to know what was in those files.
Returning to the parent document, I continued through Solstice’s personal research notes. His writing became increasingly agitated as the entries progressed:
Day 217: Another request to interview a living Warden denied by the Syndicate. How am I supposed to perfect this formula without direct genetic samples? The historical data can only take me so far.
Day 231: Requested access to Warden identities. Denied again. The League Underground insists this project is “highest priority” yet refuses to provide essential resources. Hypocrites.
Day 240: Rumors suggest there are only two Wardens left alive. If the Syndicate would just grant me access to ONE of them, I could complete this work in weeks instead of years.
I paused, frowning at the screen. Wardens? I’d never heard the term used in this context. I scrolled back, searching for any definition or explanation, but Solstice wrote as if the reader already knew what Wardens were. Which meant I had a significant gap in my knowledge.
That was fucking unacceptable.
I pushed back from the terminal, frustrated.
Solstice’s files had given me a tantalizing glimpse of something called “Wardens,” but little else of substance.
Every reference led to encrypted files or redacted information.
I could easily infer what a Warden was, clearly, they could neutralize Trueborn abilities, something current power dampeners couldn’t do, hence how Dread had been able to get into the League’s vault and steal the Hammer.
The only thing they could do to us at this point was give Trueborns the dampening serum, handicapping us so we were less godlike, taking away pieces of us to make themselves feel safer.
I needed more information and began searching deeper, my frustration mounting. Every single file encountered was marked with the same red classification tag: “Access Denied - Syndicate Clearance Required.”
I clicked on one anyway, already knowing what I’d find. A prompt appeared requesting biometric verification and a Syndicate access code. Even the metadata was encrypted. There were no creation dates, not even the fucking file sizes.
“Fuck,” I muttered, leaning back in my chair.
Fine. If the front door was locked, I’d find another way in. The Syndicate might control information flow, but they couldn’t erase every trace of something this significant.
And if Wardens were connected to Solstice’s project to suppress and expose Trueborn Supers somehow, I needed to know why and how.
And if these Wardens could suppress Trueborn Supers in some way themselves, they would need to be dealt with.
I couldn’t chance an unknown entity blowing my secret.
I would also have to scrub the data from the Underground’s database.
No sense in leaving any information on them at all.
The first thing I needed to do would be to see who had accessed Solstice’s files other than himself. If there were copies of his research, they would have to be destroyed. If there were people involved who knew the actual research, well, they would have to be destroyed too.
I was nothing if not thorough.
I opened the access logs and expected to find a lengthy list of collaborators and League Underground personnel. Instead, the access log displayed only two entries besides Solstice himself: Dread and a user named Underground-Alpha7.
Dread had accessed the files three days before Solstice’s death, Underground-Alpha last accessed it ten days before his death.
I stared at the screen, momentarily surprised. Just two? And one of them was Dread.
The other user, Underground-Alpha7, was more intriguing. Alpha clearance was reserved for the highest echelons of the League Underground, individuals who reported directly to the Council on behalf of the Syndicate. Someone with substantial power and influence.
I initiated a program to start working to uncover the identity behind Underground-Alpha7—Estimated completion time: six hours, seventeen minutes.
I set the program to automatically message my secure line once it had results. No sense in sitting here watching code scroll across the screen.
My fingers tapped restlessly against the edge of my keyboard.
I’d gotten what I needed from the data chip.
I knew the potential threat to my secrets, and I had a plan to neutralize it.
Though maybe, if I were patient enough, Dread would take care of it for me since the threat to him was the same as the threat to me.
We were both rogue, both unknown Trueborns.
I composed a brief message, attaching the decoded files:
Data successfully decrypted. Project Warden appears to be research into power suppression technology specifically targeting Trueborn Supers. Files contain references to historical Warden records that remain encrypted at Council level. How would you like me to proceed?
My secure line pinged immediately with Dread’s response:
Decode the Warden files. Identify Underground-Alpha7. I want to know everything about these Wardens and who’s pulling the strings. Report directly to me when you have answers.
I cleared the screen. The programs would run without me.
My gaze landed on Annie.
If she knew what I had just done, if she knew I was feeding information to the very monster she was trying to catch, she would turn her back on me. She would walk out that door, lock me out of her life, and refuse to ever let me touch her again.
She would leave me to the static, to the fucking timer in my head.
A normal man might look at the woman he’d just fucked into unconsciousness and feel a pang of conscience for betraying her trust to ensure she stayed.
All I could feel was satisfaction as I made sure the only path she could take led back to me. I was burning the exits. I was curating her reality until the only thing that made sense was staying right where she was.
I stripped off my clothes and slid into bed beside her.
She stirred when the mattress dipped and she shifted toward me, her back hitting my chest. I sucked in a breath as her bare skin made contact with my tattoos and the sensation of her flooded my system.
Fuck, she was everywhere, thrumming through my veins.
It took a few seconds to reorient myself and be able to fucking think with her touching me.
I’d experimented after the tattoos had reacted to Annie. I asked a few women who worked in the developmental labs to touch the tattoos on my arm. Nothing had happened. I had a few Henchmen try, just to see, but again nothing happened.
Annie was an aberration.
I lifted my arm. I wanted to wrap it around her waist and pull her flush against me. I wanted to bury my face in her neck and breathe in the sweat and sex until the world narrowed down to just this bed.
I forced my hand to stop, fingers twitching, before dropping it to the mattress between us.
She murmured something in her sleep, shifting closer, trusting the monster who had just used her to silence the noise in his head.
I stared at the back of her neck. The bruising I’d left on her skin was already darkening. I had taken everything I wanted. I had wrecked her. I had drained myself dry.
And I still wanted more.
The static was gone, but something worse had replaced it. A gnawing hunger. I thought if I consumed enough of her, I would get sick of the taste.
I was wrong.
Breaking her hadn’t fixed me. It had only made the addiction worse. Seeing her undone, hearing those broken sounds she’d made... it didn’t satisfy the beast. It made me want to do it again, harder, until there was nothing left of Annie Bishop but the parts that belonged to me.
I leaned in, unable to stop myself, and buried my face in her hair. The scent of sex and sweat filled my lungs. It was a dirty, human smell, but it made my mouth water. My teeth ached to graze the sensitive skin behind her ear, to mark her again.
I hated her for it. I hated that she was sleeping so softly while my mind was racing. I hated that I was terrified to move away from her.
I pulled my head back, putting inches of space between us.
This had to stop. The variables were spiraling out of control. If I kept this up, the sleeping in the same bed, the lingering, the blurring of lines, I would lose the ability to think. I would become enslaved by a fixation.
I looked at her one last time.
We would appear together when the narrative required it. I would fuck her when the static became too loud to ignore. That was maintenance. That was biology.
But everything else? The talking, the touching, the sleeping? That couldn’t happen anymore.
I turned my back to her, moving to the very edge of the mattress. I stared at the wall, listening to the rhythm of her breathing, and began rebuilding my walls. Brick by bloody brick.