41. Holden #2
“Security cameras,” Milo says, pulling out his tablet and holding it up.
Four feeds—front door, hallway, living room, kitchen.
All showing Sage’s empty apartment in real time.
“I installed them when I swapped the lock and cut the keys. Wide-angle, motion-activated, cloud-backed. It’s basic operational security—”
“Cloud-backed?” I cut in.
Milo stops.
“Tell me you didn’t put our exposure point, her roommate, and half this crew inside a backup anyone with a login could access.”
“I’m not that careless, Holden,” he argues. “Security is multi-layered. I’m the only one with access.”
“You put cameras in her home.” Eli jumps to his feet. “Without her knowledge. Without her consent.”
“Not in the bathroom! Not in the bedroom! Just common areas. Entrances. Her roommate’s boyfriend is a walking red flag. If he shows up when none of us are—”
“Give me that.” I take the tablet out of his hands before he can stop me and scroll back through the stored footage. Living room. Kitchen. Hallway. Days of it.
I watch it in reverse, fast. Sunday afternoon: Amy, two coffees in a cardboard tray, sitting close on the couch and then folding around her phone like it bit her. Before that—
Me.
Earlier Sunday. Me in her doorway. Me crowding her into the frame, my hand in her hair, her mouth open under mine. The kiss I’ve spent two days pretending I had under control.
Milo caught it. Milo could have watched it. Anyone with the login could have.
I keep scrolling, jaw locked, because if I stop on that frame I’ll put his head through the wall. There’s a bunch of her with Micah. Sage climbing into his lap, them kissing. Eli lifting her off the couch and carrying her to bed. Knox and Sage through the door. Milo at the stove.
Days of her. The most private hours of her week.
I turn the tablet face-down on the table, my stomach dropping when I realize my own part is in there too. “How much did you watch?”
Milo has the decency to look uncomfortable. “I didn’t watch them fuck, if that’s what you’re asking. The bedroom feed doesn’t exist. I’ve just seen enough to know they—”
“Enough.” Knox’s voice. One word. The quarter has stopped moving, his hand closed around it in a fist.
Micah hasn’t said anything. He’s standing behind the bar, both hands flat on the surface, his knuckles white. When he finally speaks, his voice is so cold it doesn’t sound like him at all.
“You watched her in her own home. Without her knowing.”
“I watched all of us. It wasn’t targeted at—”
“It doesn’t matter who it was targeted at.” Micah’s eyes are hard. “She gave us her trust, and you repaid that by turning her apartment into a surveillance op.”
“We’re literally surveilling her! That’s the job!”
“From outside,” Eli snaps. “From across the street. Where she knows we are. Where she’s agreed to it. There’s a line, Milo, and you didn’t just cross it, you installed fucking cameras on it.”
The room is vibrating. I’ve seen these men angry before—the cold, operational kind of anger that comes before a kill.
This is different. This is personal. Milo looks around at all four of us and for the first time since I’ve known him, the performance drops completely.
No grin. No deflection. Just a man realizing he’s fucked up.
“Okay,” he says quietly. “I hear you.”
“Do you?” Eli asks. “Because five minutes ago we agreed that she leads. That we don’t push, don’t pressure, don’t make decisions about her life without her involvement. And you’ve been recording her for a week.”
Milo swallows. Nods. “I’ll take them out. Today. I’ll tell her—”
“No.” I stand up and take the tablet again. “I’ll do it.”
Everyone looks at me.
“You go over there right now, she’s going to see the guilt on your face before you get a word out.
Then you’ll panic, start talking too much, and make this way worse,” I say.
“Let me tell her. Then she gets to decide what she does with it.” I grab my jacket, and look at Milo.
“Send me the access codes and camera locations. Delete the cloud backup. All of it. Before I get there. Then send proof—deletion logs, device IDs, every place that feed touched. If Fenrir, Loki, or Odin have access, I want to know before I walk into her apartment.”
Milo nods. He looks smaller than usual. Deflated. I almost feel sorry for him, I know his heart was in the right place. But I’m too busy being pissed off.
“For what it’s worth,” he says as I reach the door, “I really was trying to keep her safe.”
“I know.” I pause. “Doesn’t change the damage. You know that better than anyone.”
I leave before anyone can add to the pile-on. Milo’s taken enough hits, and if I stay, I’ll add more.
The morning air is sharp and bright. I sit in the car a minute, hands on the wheel, engine idling, and let myself think.
The fucked-up thing is, part of me gets it. Milo’s brain doesn’t draw the lines other brains draw. To him, information is safety and surveillance is love, and the idea that they could also be a violation just doesn’t compute.
But it did violate her. And she deserves to hear it from someone who’ll say it straight.
I pull into traffic and point the car at her building. No spin. No charm. No softening the edges. Just the truth, handed to her by someone who respects her enough to let her do whatever she needs with it.
Here’s the problem. Two days ago I stood in her doorway and kissed her like the building was on fire, and I’ve spent every hour since trying to file it under strategic instead of the first true thing I’ve done in years.
She saw through that version anyway. Saw through it the first morning, when I had her against a wall with her pulse going like a trapped bird and her eyes daring me to be something real. She’s always seen me. It’s why I can’t walk in there and lie. It’s why this is going to hurt.
Because now I have to tell the woman I just let myself want that one of us turned her home into a feed. That she and Micah are on a drive. That she was watched in the one place she’s supposed to be safe.
She can handle the truth. She’s stronger than any of us give her credit for. She can handle Milo’s particular brand of broken devotion, and she can handle me.
I hope.
Fuck. What if she hates us all after this?
I park outside her building. Kill the engine.
Then I grab the tablet, get out, and head upstairs.
Time to find out.