16. Cam
What the hell have I agreed to?
She’s parading through my house like she owns it—touching everything I specifically told her not to. And that damn cat? He’s made the couch his kingdom and is now systematically shredding the armrest like it’s personal.
At this rate, I’m going to need child locks. Or maybe an exorcist.
Talia leans against the doorway of my office, arms crossed and eyes sharp. She’s in full lecture mode, voice like a whip.
“We thought you were dead. You realise that? No check-in. No message. Nothing.”
“I was a little preoccupied,”
I mutter, attention drifting back to the security monitors—just in time to catch Nell rearranging my kitchen cupboards with zero shame. Boomerang is licking himself on the counter like a smug little tyrant.
“That girl?”
Talia rounds the desk, peering over my shoulder.
“She held you hostage?”
Her brows lift as Nell fumbles a can, sending it rolling across the floor with a metallic thunk.
“I think you’re losing your touch, old man,”
she smirks, that razor-edged grin of hers digging deep.
“Not you too,”
I grunt, scrubbing my face, almost forgetting about the bruise that acts as a burning reminder of how this girl managed to subdue me.
“Well, to catch you up on what you missed during your… time away. Operational patterns are holding. She’s next on the target list. I’ve assigned a couple operators to track the details—we’ll update as soon as we establish a window. Now that you’re confirmed active, I’ll loop back in once we have solid intel. I should be able to make contact within the next seventy-two hours, give or take. The priority is containment—keep her locked down and off radar until we move. Unless, of course, we can bait her?”
As tempting as it is to walk away, I can’t risk her being taken. Not like the others.
And the crazy part? After two days of being tied to a chair, I actually feel like I owe her something. Maybe it’s guilt. Maybe it’s the concussion talking. But there’s something about her I can’t quite shake—something that makes me want to keep her safe.
“Let’s simplify this,”
Talia continues.
“If they’re going to look for her, better they look where we decide. Set the routine. Set the trap. Where’s she been living?”
“About ten minutes out,”
comes my reply.
If we’re aiming for a clean extraction, predictability is leverage. And like it or not, she might be more useful to the op than she realises. Not to mention, she owes me a solid—preferably one that balances out the part where she knocked me out cold.
“I’ll set her up next door,”
I decide, voice steady.
“She can use the tunnel if she needs to move discreetly. Also, can you get one of the operators to temporarily assign the safe house under her name? Just enough to make it look authentic. I don’t know how deep they’ve dug on her in the last forty-eight hours, and I’m not taking any chances.”
Everything’s moving fast now.
But so am I.
From the outside, my second property next door looks ordinary—just another house on a quiet street. But under the surface, it’s something else entirely. A ghost property. No title, no trail. Built to disappear and protect.
And in Nell’s case, a property that can be used to stage a life that we can tailor just for Manticore.
And right now, Nell needs both.
“I think we can work with that,”
she says, already shifting gears.
“Keep feeding me her routine and I’ll get the team in position to reset. We don’t get another shot at this.”
“I know,”
I nod, tension threading through my voice.
“We’re running out of chances.”
Truth is, I’d rather keep Nell locked down in here until Manticore implodes. But we need the illusion—need her visible, predictable.
We need the story to sell; business as usual.
By the time we’ve wrapped the tactical briefing and everyone’s looped into the plan, my stomach growls like it’s staging a protest. I haven’t had a real meal since this whole ordeal started, and now I’m craving something substantial—anything that doesn’t come in a foil wrapper.
In the last two hours, Nell has apparently discovered every room in the house. Thoroughly. And the cat? The cat has claimed every horizontal surface like some tiny, furry despot.
I hover near the office door, reluctant to step back into the fray.
Mess makes my skin itch. Clutter, animal hair—chaos in general. I like things the way I like them; neat, ordered, predictable.
But there’s a walking whirlwind in my kitchen, and it’s wearing my hoodie and feeding its accomplice chicken scraps off my good plates.
The moment I step into the kitchen, my skin crawls. It’s carnage. I knew where everything lived—each utensil, each spice jar, every mug with a crack I refused to throw away. There was order.
Now?
It looks like someone lobbed a grenade and walked off whistling. Pots stacked like Jenga, crumbs trailing across every surface, a trail of destruction that screams Nell was here.
How she managed to create this level of chaos in under an hour is beyond me.
“I hope you don’t mind,”
she says, casually sipping my orange juice like we’re roommates, not acquaintances.
“I didn’t have any jumpers—and it’s freezing in here.”
I arch a brow, gesturing to the countertop now painted in toast crumbs and a streak of juice like modern art.
“I’m more concerned about that,”
I mutter, brushing past her to grab a cloth.
“I set rules for a reason, Nell. I like my space clean. I like my room to stay mine. It’s not a dressing room or a laundry drop zone or—whatever this is. And my kitchen isn’t a free for all. We need boundaries. And if you can’t stick to them, this arrangement won’t work.”
God. I sound like my father.
She just leans against the counter, entirely unbothered, like she owns the place. Strutting around in my jumper, rearranging my house one boundary at a time.
I’ve never had a woman settle in this fast. Definitely not one I’ve known for forty-eight hours and who, until recently, had me tied to a chair.
“Gotcha. Boundaries. I’ll try to remember them.”
“Not try,”
I mutter, pinning her with a look.
“Will remember.”
“Sure,”
she chirps, brushing crumbs from my jumper with mock seriousness—though her touch lingers a beat too long where her nipples peak beneath the material, the curve of her mouth betraying just how unserious she is.
She’s not wearing a bra.
Interesting.
And just like that, she changes the subject. Seamless.
“So. What’s the plan? When do we attack?”
She straightens, full of misplaced enthusiasm.
“I did karate when I was a kid, you know. I’ve got moves.”
Of course she does.
“No moves,”
I cut in, deadpan.
“I’ll brief you after dinner. I haven’t had a proper meal in almost two days—thanks to someone.”
She grins—clumsily—and pats my chest like we’re old friends. Her greasy fingerprints trail down my shirt, leaving translucent lines in their wake.
“What’re you cooking?”
she asks, oblivious.
I stare down at the stain with the dead-eyed calm of a man clinging to the last thread of order in his life. This shirt is going straight in the wash the second I escape her orbit.
Does she not believe in napkins? Soap? Basic post-meal hygiene?
“Something that doesn’t require you in the kitchen,”
I say tightly.
“Do me a favour—go sit somewhere. Anywhere. Just try not to cause any more chaos. I’ll call you when it’s ready.”
“Roger that,”
she replies with a salute, like we’re in some sitcom about espionage and not neck-deep in lethal territory.
She still thinks this is a game.
But she won’t for long. Once I show her what we’re actually dealing with—what Manticore’s capable of—maybe she’ll start treating this with the seriousness it deserves.
Maybe.