Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
Three days at the cabin and Isaac had almost convinced himself they could stay forever.
Almost.
The morning routine had settled into something dangerously close to normal—Fallon at the kitchen table with his laptop, working through whatever Cassandra had sent overnight, Isaac cooking eggs neither of them were particularly hungry for.
Her wrist was improving. The compression wrap came off for longer stretches now, and she could close her hand into something that resembled a fist if she didn’t think about it too hard.
But the information from Cassandra’s last call sat between them like a third presence in the room.
Former targets had organized and pooled their resources, and the money was flowing through channels that suggested they’d hired a professional to find Fallon and Cassandra.
The search was narrowing by the day. They were safe for now, but the clock was ticking underneath every quiet morning.
His resignation made it worse. He’d told Fallon about the email two days ago, and she’d gone quiet in a way that was worse than anger.
The idea that he’d given up his career because of her—because of the choices she’d made, the life she’d built, the danger she’d pulled him into—sat badly with her.
She’d told him as much. They’d moved past the argument, but not past the bruise underneath it.
Things between them were good. That particular wound just hadn’t closed yet.
Isaac quietly set down the spatula and grabbed the Glock on the side table on his way to the door. Fallon’s head came up from the laptop screen as he walked by, eyes tracking his movement. He walked to the window and checked outside—nobody should be here.
Ian DeRose was standing on the porch.
Isaac set down the weapon and opened the door.
Jeans, a canvas jacket, sunglasses pushed up on his head. Arms loose at his sides, weight centered, the unhurried stillness of a man who had never once in his life arrived anywhere by accident. He could have been a neighbor stopping by to borrow a drill.
“Morning,” Ian said.
“Morning.”
Isaac should’ve been more surprised to see his boss—former boss—here.
This was Ian. The man had a talent for knowing things he shouldn’t know and showing up where no one expected him.
Plus, the cabin was Isaac’s family property, traceable if someone knew where to look.
Finding this place would have taken him about ten minutes.
“You going to invite me in,” Ian said, “or do I need to stand out here and admire the lake?”
Isaac stepped back. Ian walked in, his gaze sweeping the room—exits, sight lines, the full picture taken in before he’d crossed the threshold. His eyes found Fallon standing near the kitchen table.
“Ian, this is Fallon Hemingway. Fallon, Ian DeRose. Zodiac’s founder.”
Fallon straightened. Shoulders squared, chin up, her entire frame tightening into the particular alertness of a woman assessing whether the person in front of her was a threat.
Ian extended his hand. “Nice to meet you, Fallon.”
She shook it. Her grip was her left hand—the right wrist still wasn’t ready for that—but Ian didn’t comment.
“Likewise.”
Ian seemed to have zero surprise at finding a woman in Isaac’s cabin. If Isaac didn’t know better he would’ve said Ian had been expecting to find her here.
Fallon looked between the two of them. Whatever she read in the silence told her what she needed to know.
“I’ll give you two some space to talk privately.” She picked up her coffee and Isaac’s laptop and walked toward the study. The door closed behind her.
Ian sat down at the kitchen table. Isaac turned off the stove and sat across from him.
“I’m not accepting your resignation,” Ian said.
That wasn’t at all what Isaac had been expecting. If anything, he would’ve thought Ian was here to give him a talking down. “You should.”
“Good thing I don’t give a shit about your opinion on this particular matter.”
“Ian, I walked away from an active client detail. Left my team in the middle of the Endicott assignment. Used Zodiac resources—Peter’s time, the safehouse network—for personal reasons.
” Isaac leaned forward. “That’s not a gray area.
That’s a compromise no security firm should absorb, and you know it. ”
“I do know it. And I’m still not accepting the resignation.”
“You’d fire anyone else for half of what I just described.”
“Maybe. But you’re not anyone else.”
“That’s not a good enough reason, and you know that, too.”
Ian’s hands were folded on the table. Patient. Unhurried. Letting Isaac throw everything he had before he responded.
“Are you done?”
Isaac exhaled. “I resigned to get ahead of being fired. That’s the reality of the situation.”
“Here’s the reality of the situation.” Ian’s voice dropped.
Quieter. Harder. “I’ve run Zodiac for a long time.
Built it from nothing. Picked every operative on that roster by hand, including you.
And in all those years, I have never once had a man I trusted walk away from a detail without a damn good reason.
” He held Isaac’s gaze. “You wouldn’t have left Endicott if something serious hadn’t pulled you.
I know that because I know who you are.”
Isaac’s jaw ached. He’d been clenching it without realizing.
“The team handled it,” Ian continued. “They handled it because you built a team that could function without you, which is what a good leader does. Endicott’s stalker was caught.
Case closed clean. So yeah, I’ll drag you into the sparring ring and beat the hell out of you for leaving your team.
But fire you?” He shook his head once. “No.”
The relief didn’t arrive all at once. It came in a slow, crushing wave—days of carrying the weight of that email, of telling himself he’d made the only responsible choice, of staring at the ceiling at two in the morning wondering who he was without the work.
The certainty that his career was over. That the life he’d built after walking away from his family’s money, the only identity that was truly his, was gone.
It wasn’t gone.
His throat tightened. He swallowed against it.
“Your resignation is denied,” Ian said. “Now stop falling on your sword and tell me what pulled you away.”
Isaac nodded. Took a breath. “It’s Fallon. The woman you just met.” Isaac rubbed a hand across his jaw. “She’s a criminal, Ian. She steals. Breaks into homes and offices. Operates completely outside the law. And I’m personally involved with her.”
He braced for the reaction. The disappointment, the recalibration. The resignation Ian had just denied landing back on the table between them.
Ian’s expression didn’t change.
“I know,” he said.
What? “What do you mean, you know?”
“The pattern came across my radar about a year ago.” Ian leaned back in his chair.
“Wealthy, corrupt targets being systematically dismantled. Financial crimes exposed. Assets stolen. Press tipped simultaneously. Consistent playbook, consistent sophistication. I had Jenna Franklin-Outlawson helping me track it.”
Jenna. Former Zodiac tech expert. Brilliant, meticulous. Retired now, living her best life out in Oak Creek, Wyoming, home of Linear Tactical. Isaac had worked with her for years. As good as Peter was, nobody touched Jenna.
“We didn’t have names,” Ian continued. “Didn’t have faces. But the pattern was real, and we suspected at least two women working together. Someone in the field and someone running the tech side.”
“How long have you known it was Fallon?”
“About a week. Peter flagged the Mansoor takedown in Austin. Around the same time, I found out you were involved with a woman and had gone off the grid.” The corner of Ian’s mouth kicked up. “Wasn’t exactly a difficult puzzle after that.”
His boss had assembled the picture before he’d even opened the front door. Before the resignation email, before Chattanooga, before any of it. Ian had been ahead of him the entire time.
Ian leaned back. “I’ll be honest. When we first started tracking it, I found the whole thing entertaining.
Shitty people getting exactly what they deserved.
That’s like catnip for me.” His expression shifted.
“Then I studied the method behind the takedowns more closely. The consistency. The discipline. The sophistication of the target selection alone—whoever was running these operations had judgment most intelligence agencies would kill for.”
Isaac let that settle. Ian DeRose didn’t hand out praise lightly, and he’d just described Fallon’s work with more professional respect than most Zodiac operatives ever earned.
“You were right about two women,” Isaac said.
“Fallon handles the fieldwork—reconnaissance, the break-ins, the signature drops. Her partner is a woman named Cassandra. She’s the tech side.
Research, target financials, digital forensics, coordinating the press leaks.
Everything you tracked back to a sophisticated operation runs through Cassandra’s work as much as Fallon’s. ”
Ian nodded slowly. “That tracks with what Jenna and I mapped. The digital footprint was too clean for one person. Both of these women are damned talented at what they do.”
“That’s the problem, at least for Fallon.
What she’s able to do? Physical things that should be impossible, like getting into tiny spaces or scaling a fucking wall nobody but Spiderman would try?
It comes from a condition called hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome.
hEDS. It gives her extreme flexibility. She can dislocate and reset her own joints, move in ways that don’t look human. ”
“Holy shit. I didn’t even know that was a thing.”