Chapter 17
You’re Not Walking Away from Me Again
Ghost
Icaught it before she did.
Not because she wasn’t paying attention, but because I’d spent longer watching the watchers than she had.
Mira moved like someone who knew how to survive inside a system like this, eyes up, reactions measured, never giving more than she had to.
But Silas didn’t hunt the way most people did.
He didn’t react to mistakes. He waited for patterns.
And she was starting to look like one.
I saw him across the floor, not close enough to be obvious, not positioned in a way that screamed oversight. He leaned against the far railing like he had nothing better to do, gaze drifting across the operation with casual disinterest.
Anyone else would’ve missed it. Would’ve written him off as another piece of Ironhand’s structure, keeping things moving.
I didn’t because his attention kept circling back to her.
Not in a straight line. Not obvious enough to call out. But every few seconds, his eyes landed on the same point, tracking her movement through the space like he was mapping it without needing to write it down.
It wasn’t curiosity. It wasn’t a coincidence. It was intent.
My focus narrowed immediately, everything else on the floor dropping out as the situation recalibrated in my head. This wasn’t passive observation anymore. This wasn’t a general tightening of the system or loose suspicion drifting through the ranks. This was targeted. Specifically. At her.
She moved like she always did, controlled, deliberate, unaware of just how closely she was being watched.
That wasn’t a failure on her part. It was the way Silas operated.
He didn’t announce pressure. He applied it slowly, quietly.
The person on the receiving end didn’t realize they were caught until it was too late to get out clean.
That wasn’t happening. Not this time.
The shift in me was immediate and clean, the same way it always was when a situation crossed from manageable to something that required direct intervention.
Passive protection wasn’t enough anymore.
Adjusting routes, redirecting attention, and smoothing edges so she could move without interference had worked when the threat was abstract.
It wasn’t abstract anymore.
She wasn’t just part of the environment now. She was the focus of it. Which meant every move from here on out had to change. Because once Silas locked onto something, he didn’t let it go. And if he was locking onto Mira? Then she wasn’t just at risk. She was a target.
I didn’t confront her right away. Not when I first saw it, not when Silas’ attention started circling tighter around her, not even when the pattern became obvious enough that I could’ve dragged her off the floor and forced her to see it.
Timing mattered. Reacting too fast would’ve drawn the exact kind of attention I was trying to keep off her.
So, I waited.
Two days.
Long enough to confirm it wasn’t a fluke, long enough to map how often his eyes tracked her movement, how his people adjusted around her routes, how the pressure built in small, controlled increments instead of one obvious shift. It gave me the full picture, and the picture wasn’t good.
By the time I moved, I was done pretending this was something she could work around.
I caught her in a lower corridor between rotations, one of the few places where the noise didn’t bleed in as hard, and the traffic stayed light enough that we wouldn’t draw eyes immediately.
She didn’t see me until I was already in her space.
My hand closed around her arm and pulled her just far enough off her path that we weren’t standing in the open.
This time, I kept it cold. I didn’t let the heat get there first.
“You’re being watched.”
No lead-in. No warning. Just the truth, dropped exactly where it needed to land.
Her expression didn’t crack right away, but I saw the shift in her eyes, the way her focus sharpened … how she didn’t brush it off like she usually did when I came at her like this. She knew I wasn’t guessing.
“Silas,” I continued, keeping my voice low, controlled, every word measured so it didn’t carry past us. “He’s not just monitoring the system anymore. He’s tracking movement. Yours.”
She pulled against my grip slightly, not panicking, not reacting the way someone inexperienced would, but testing the space like she was already recalculating her next move instead of accepting what I was saying.
“You don’t get to pretend you’re invisible anymore,” I said, tightening my hold just enough to keep her attention locked where it needed to be. “That window’s gone.”
Her jaw set, irritation flaring up fast, but there was something else under it now, something quieter, sharper, the part of her that understood exactly how bad that was without needing me to spell it out.
“Then I adjust,” she shot back, her voice steady, controlled, like she was already pushing back against the idea of stepping away before I even suggested it.
Of course she was.
“You adjust wrong,” I said, cutting her off before she could turn this into the same argument we’d been having on repeat, “and you won’t see it coming when he moves. That’s how he works.”
She didn’t respond right away, and for a second, the silence between us felt different. Not softer. Not calmer. Just heavier, like the stakes had finally landed in a way that went beyond the two of us and whatever the hell we were doing with each other.
I held her gaze, not backing off, not softening it.
“This isn’t theoretical anymore,” I added, my voice dropping just enough to drive it in. “You’re not background noise to him. You’re a variable he’s trying to solve.”
And if she didn’t start acting like that mattered? Then I was going to have to start making moves she wouldn’t like.
Her eyes snapped at me the moment I finished, annoyance flared into something fiercer, something that cut through.
“You don’t get to say that to me,” she spat back immediately, quiet but fierce. She crossed the space between us instead of stepping away. “You don’t just get to walk back into my life and start dictating how things are going.”
“That’s because you’re not dictating!” I sniped back, annoyance winning out just enough of my composure to let me say something sharper. “You’re dictating like everything is fine.”
“It is fine.” She retorted quickly.
“No, it’s not,” I mumbled, and stepped forward before I could stop myself, hand rising to grasp her wrist and pull her into me. “It’s not.”
She didn’t resist. She didn’t pull away.
That was when I lost it.
There was no distance between us, tension pulled tight, every semblance of games we played suddenly collided all at once. She gasped, hands tightening on my hips, and for a moment, there wasn’t anything rational about it.
Not our fight.
Not the distance closed.
Not how we finally gave up pretending we didn’t feel it.
Her breathing was already ragged. Mine was too.
The fight didn’t stop. It just transitioned, passion bled through frustration until there was no distinct line between anger and lust. Every harsh word spat at the other hung unfinished between us … but neither of us cared.
Not when she pressed herself against me. Not when she didn’t pull away.
I knew the second it happened. Could feel the tension snap from pent-up to something a lot fucking worse. My hand moved from her forearm to her chin, thumb pressed beneath her jaw, and I held her face as I pressed between her thighs.
She kissed me back this time, hard and instant, no holding back like before.
It wasn’t cautious or thoughtful. It was needed.
All the words left unsaid, promises left broken, years suppressed slammed together into a sudden onslaught.
My hips bucked into the small of her back as her hands found my hips and tugged urgently at my shirt.
Fuck.
Warmth rushed through me, low and hungry, desperate.
It took every ounce of my will not to pull her closer, to feel just how far gone we both were.
Anger and stress built up over the years didn’t just disappear.
It fueled it. Things intensified, hard to let go of even after you started letting go.
My fingers curled into her hair tighter, and my lips fought for purchase as she melted closer still.
Because neither of us was going to let go.
I could tell by the way she ground herself into me instead of creating space. The way her kiss didn’t waver or hesitate, but instead took a sharper angle … messy like she was giving herself to me, too, just as much as I was to her.
Past the point of no return.
We both knew that. Knew what would happen if we kept going.
Neither of us stopped. Not when we both realized it.
It wasn’t a mistake. We both knew that much. Past mistakes were messy, consequences we couldn’t ignore. They lingered. Took hold and clawed their way into everything, which was why this was different. This was choice.
Holy shit, Mira was in my arms, and I did not want to let her go. I knew that much with every frantic movement she made, every half-desperate press of her lips.