Chapter 12 #2
"I'm saying we should have had backup." Tension shows in the set of his shoulders, the way he won't quite meet my eyes. "I'm saying I put you in danger because I wanted to work with you again, and that clouded my tactical judgment."
The admission cuts deeper than expected. It's true. I felt it too, that pull toward partnership, toward working operations together like we used to when trust was absolute and silence didn't exist between us.
"We both made the choice," I say. "We both knew the risks."
"Doesn't make it the right call." He runs a hand through his hair, weariness showing in the gesture. "Kane's putting protocols in place because we proved we can't be trusted to operate alone together without taking stupid risks."
We took stupid risks. We prioritized working together over proper operational security. We let personal history affect professional judgment in ways that could have gotten us killed.
"So what now?" The question comes out harsher than I meant. "Do we just pretend the last two days didn't happen? Go back to barely speaking, avoiding each other, acting like we're strangers?"
Something hardens in his expression. "I don't know."
It's honest. It's frustrating. I have no answers either. The space between professional partnership and personal wreckage feels impossible to navigate. Was the connection I felt during the surveillance operation real, or just nostalgia for what we used to have?
My phone buzzes. An encrypted message from an unknown number appears on the screen.
I pull it out, scan the text. I go still.
"What is it?" Micah moves closer, reading over my shoulder.
Cross is contacting me directly with intelligence about Committee operations.
"She's warning us about Reeve," I say. "The Committee has him auditing their network security."
Micah's expression darkens. "Which means they suspect someone's been compromised but don't know who yet."
"Or they're being proactive." I stare at the message. "Running security checks on all their intelligence assets to verify no one's been turned or identified."
"Either way, if Reeve finds Masters, he'll eliminate him." Micah's voice is grim. "We need to move before the Committee realizes we've identified their leak."
But we don't need to move immediately. Reeve is running security audits, which means he's methodically checking multiple assets. That gives us time to plan properly, to coordinate with the team, to develop a strategy for approaching Masters.
"Why is Cross telling us this?" I turn to face him. "If she's working with the Committee, warning us about Reeve makes no sense. If she's playing both sides, giving us this intelligence risks burning her relationship with them."
"Unless she wants to remind us how valuable she is." Micah crosses his arms. "Providing this kind of intelligence reinforces that we need her. Makes us more dependent on her network."
Or she's doing what our files say she does—selling information to everyone except the Committee, maintaining her reputation as an independent broker who provides quality intelligence.
"We need to show this to Kane," I say. "If Reeve is running security audits in the Pacific Northwest, we need to move carefully. He's too good to stumble into accidentally."
Micah nods. "And we need to decide how to approach Masters. If we move too obviously, we tip off the Committee that we've identified him. If we wait too long, Reeve might reach him first."
It requires careful planning, proper coordination with the team. Surveillance, strategy, timing—the kind of work that takes days or weeks to do properly, not hours.
My phone buzzes again. Another message from Victoria:
I don't work for them. Never have. Never will. But I know how they operate, and Reeve doesn't leave loose ends. Whatever you're planning, don't take too long.
I show Micah the second message. He reads it, expression unreadable.
"She's telling us she's not Committee," he says.
"She's telling us what we want to hear." But doubt creeps in.
Cross's track record supports her claim—selling intelligence to everyone except the Committee, providing warnings that proved accurate, maintaining independence in a business where most brokers eventually get absorbed by one organization or another.
"Maybe." He looks at me directly. "Or maybe she's exactly what she claims to be, and we're looking at her meeting with Masters wrong."
What if the dead drop went the other direction, and we've been reading the operation backward?
"We need to show Kane," I say again, but this time the urgency is different. It's not emergency crisis response, but strategic concern that requires planning and proper coordination.
Micah checks his watch. "He said to reconvene later. That gives us time to rest, think through the implications, develop options for approaching Masters before Reeve's audit reaches him."
He's right. We're running on adrenaline and stubbornness now. Better to brief Kane with clear heads and tactical options than rush in with incomplete analysis.
"Fine." I pocket my phone. "We rest, we think, we come back with a plan."
"And we figure out what Cross's real game is," Micah adds. "Because whether she's helping us or manipulating us, she knows more about Committee operations than anyone outside their organization should."
We walk in silence toward the residential wing, fatigue pulling at both of us now that immediate crisis isn't driving us forward. My room is a few doors down from Micah's, close enough to be convenient for team coordination but far enough to maintain separation.
The hallway is empty, most of the team either training or deployed on operations. Our footsteps echo against concrete walls, the only sound in the quiet space.
Micah stops outside my door. "Get some sleep. We'll figure this out this afternoon."
"Yeah." But I don't move to unlock the door, don't step away from him. Everything we haven't said, everything that happened over the last two days that we're both pretending is purely operational—it keeps me anchored here.
His eyes find mine, and for a moment the distance dissolves. Just a moment, just enough to remember what it felt like when partnership was simple and trust was absolute.
Then he steps back, and the walls go up again.
"Later," he says.
I nod. He walks to his own door, disappears inside.
Then I unlock my room. Sleep won't come, but that's fine. I'll spend the next few hours replaying how naturally we fell back into working together, and how much that complicates everything I've been trying to protect myself from.