Chapter 23
KRISTI
When his arms wrap around me again, I feel anchored.
Grounded in a way no data file or protest ever managed to make me feel.
He’s warm and steady and real beneath the scarred pads of my fingertips, his chest still damp with the sweat of everything we’ve just shed between us—anger, distance, longing.
I curl into him like I’m afraid the bed might vanish. Like maybe the world should vanish for a few stolen minutes.
He doesn’t speak. He just holds me.
And I realize—this is what love looks like, when it’s scraped raw and battle-worn and still standing.
When it’s quiet.
Then I shift, just a little, so I can see his face. The lines around his eyes are deeper tonight. Exhaustion. Fear. Maybe a whisper of guilt. But the moment our eyes lock, it all softens.
“You didn’t have to carry that alone,” I whisper.
“I didn’t want it to break you.”
I lean forward and kiss his chest, right over his heart. “I’m not a glass doll, Kenron.”
“No,” he murmurs. “You’re a blade.”
His words spark something in me—hot and fierce and aching.
I rise to meet him, straddling his hips with slow deliberation. His hands find my thighs automatically, the way roots find water. I let my fingers trace the stubble along his jaw, feel the quiet tremble in his breath.
He watches me like I’m something sacred.
And gods, I want to believe I am.
Not because I’m flawless. But because he sees me anyway—flaws and fire and all.
The kiss this time is slower. Deeper. A question and an answer wrapped together. His lips part beneath mine, and I feel his breath catch when my palms flatten over his chest. His heart is pounding again. Mine too.
But there’s no rush.
No need to devour.
Only the slow, aching need to feel every inch of him. To remember him. To claim him.
My body moves against his in a rhythm born of memory and instinct. His hands slide up my back, tracing the curve of my spine, fingertips dragging along the notches like he’s mapping me into memory.
And when I sink onto him, it’s not with desperation—it’s with reverence.
His breath shudders out of him.
“Kristi…”
I rock my hips, slowly, deliberately. He groans low in his throat, eyes locked on mine.
There’s nowhere to hide in this. No shadows. No shields.
Just us.
And the slow, burning dance of skin on skin, breath for breath, promise for promise.
Parting is sweet sorrow, so they say. I say it sucks, but resistance fighters gotta do what we gotta do. Only I can sneak into my uncle’s private estate and get away with it.
Maybe.
The first lock is muscle memory.
I swipe the old admin badge across the exterior gate’s reader. It blinks red—twice—then flickers green, like even the system hesitates. I duck past the threshold before it can change its mind.
Dennis Montana’s estate hasn’t changed. Ornate fencing wrapped in hydrangea vines engineered to bloom year-round.
Smooth stone paths where even the night birds don’t dare land.
Security drones buzz softly overhead, but I’m a shadow tonight, tucked in matte-black stealth weave and nerve-thin patience.
The gala buys me a two-hour window. I gave it ninety minutes. I don’t need more.
He’s out pretending to save the world, charming press, holding fake children. But his real empire isn’t built on handshakes or policy.
It’s built on blood.
And tonight, I prove it.
The rear entrance to the study’s annex is buried beneath a koi pond. No, really. An underwater hatch. You’d think it was overkill if you didn’t know Dennis.
But I did.
He used to brag about it when he was tipsy. “If I ever have enemies smart enough to find it,” he’d slur, “they deserve to see what I’m hiding.”
Tonight, I take him at his word.
The pond smells like algae and imported purity.
I slip beneath the surface, breath held, fingers skimming along the carved stones until I find the latch.
A three-point scan: retinal, bioelectric, and an old-fashioned fingerprint pad I bypass using a polymimetic gel strip I lifted from a covert tech runner Kenron introduced me to.
The door yawns open with a hiss, and I crawl into darkness.
The study feels colder than it should. Like the air forgot how to breathe.
It’s not flashy. Dennis never believed in theatrical villainy. Just rows of filing cabinets. Shelves of binders. A console desk wired directly into untraceable nodes. And at the far end—a climate-sealed storage unit glowing faint blue in the dark.
I start with the physical files. They’re labeled in that arrogant, unassuming way only guilty men use. “Security Review 41A.” “Council Retention Memo.” “Civil Order Clearance.”
Each page is worse than the last.
Deployments. Surveillance authorizations. A redacted line item: Subject 298a—cleared for termination post-interrogation.
My hands start to tremble. I keep going.
Near the back, I find it.
A narrow black box. Sealed with bio-lock, but weakly—like he didn’t think anyone would ever find it. I override the mechanism with a heat pulse and a steady hand.
Inside: a nanite ampoule.
Labeled: Trial Batch—Verified Lethal.
The seal date matches the start of the vaccine distribution initiative. Meaning…
They’ve been prepping this for years.
I snap a holopic. Then another. Every angle. Every label. My breath fogs the inside of my mask. I move to the next cabinet.
And that’s when I see it.
A flat folder tucked under something labeled “Historical Correspondence.” It’s a hardcopy. Actual paper. A luxury few use anymore.
I slide it out.
Inside: a single letter. Printed. Signed in ink.
My stomach flips.
It’s addressed to a field agent by code. The date—two years ago.
The order: “Neutralize Fratvoyan Ambassador Narek Lehn. Maintain plausible deniability. Should be made to appear accidental—preferably cultural misstep.”
The signature?
Dennis Montana.
I stare at it until my vision swims.
Because this isn’t just some backdoor virus op. This isn’t even just ethnic cleansing under the guise of progress.
This is assassination. Diplomats. Cover-ups. Entire species targeted under a flag of Earth unity.
Earth First isn’t a movement.
It’s a regime.
And it’s already in power.
I shove the documents into my satchel. My breath comes faster now, but I force my limbs to stay steady.
I’ve got what I came for.
Now I just have to get out alive.
I almost make it out clean.
The data’s secured. My heart’s a war drum. My hands still tremble from snapping the holopics—pages of damning evidence, redacted lines exposed to light for the first time, and that vial. That fucking vial.
Verified Lethal.
The phrase echoes in my skull like a bell tolling for the dead. But I keep moving. Past the bookshelves. Past the biometric scanner I fried. Almost to the servant’s passage Dennis forgot existed. One more corridor and I’ll vanish into the pond tunnels—
“Kristi?”
My blood goes cold.
That voice.
I turn slowly, every hair on my arms rising like static before a storm.
Talven.
Of course it’s Talven. Council-loyal, Dennis-loyal, ex-Navy, regulation-sharp to the bone. I trained him myself back in the Archives. He used to carry my gear. Used to ask too many questions.
Now he’s wearing a stunblade and suspicion.
“Talven,” I say, voice dry as ash. “Didn’t know you pulled night shifts.”
“Didn’t know you still had clearance.”
His eyes flick to my coat. I feel it. The subtle bulge from the hidden satchel. He knows.
Shit.
“Just checking in,” I say, smiling like we’re old friends bumping into each other at a market stall. “Thought Dennis might’ve updated the archives—”
He doesn’t even blink.
His hand goes to his comm.
I move.
No more games.
I sprint down the corridor as the word “INTRU—” dies on his lips.
Boots hammer behind me. My lungs burn. The walls blur past, marble and gold streaking like I’m running through someone’s idea of power.
The window looms.
Second floor. Too high. Too late.
I leap anyway.
Glass explodes around me.
My body flies.
Impact.
I hit the ground hard. Too hard. The breath slams out of me. The garden tiles rise up to meet me in a rush of sharp white. Something crunches. My left thigh screams.
I roll. Shards bite into my arms, my hip, my side.
Pain flashes red across my vision. Hot and immediate. My coat’s torn. Blood wells. My boot is slick. But I don’t stop.
The sirens scream to life overhead.
I force myself up. One leg’s dragging. Doesn’t matter. I push into the underbrush, thorns slashing at my skin. Talven’s shouting behind me, his voice muffled by walls and distance.
A drone buzzes overhead.
I drop flat, my cheek pressed against mulch and shattered garden glass. I can smell the chemicals they use on the fake moss. Smells like rot and lies.
I wait three breaths. Four.
The drone veers right.
I crawl.
Over a fence. Down a slope. Into the trench near the koi recycling system. I slide through filth and algae and cold, greasy water, biting down a scream as my leg twists wrong.
When I come up, I’m in the lower district piping tunnel.
Safe. For now.
I limp through the conduit, one hand braced on the rusted wall, my bag still tight against my ribs.
When I surface, the lower city’s breathing.
Neon signs sputter above narrow alleys. Spiced steam rolls from a corner vendor. A child sings in broken Vakutan while her mother trades smuggled ration cards. The world turns.
And I—bleeding, filthy, half-dead—I smile.
Because I made it.
Because now we have everything.
Proof. Names. Orders. A kill-switch labeled “justice” just waiting to be flipped.
And as I disappear into the shadows of a city that eats liars alive, I whisper to the air:
“Your move, Dennis.”