Chapter 17 Poe
SEVENTEEN
POE
The second the words left my mouth, I knew I fucked up.
“I think I deserve a call to my sister now.”
They hung there between us like smoke after a gunshot, thick and choking.
I watched Orchid’s face change in real time, and it gutted me.
The soft flush coloring her cheeks, the dazed, heavy-lidded look in her eyes from the way she had just come apart on my tongue, it all vanished in a heartbeat.
Her expression shuttered completely. That cold, perfect mask she wears like second skin slid right back into place, smooth and impenetrable.
Her shoulders straightened. Her chin lifted a fraction.
The woman who had been trembling, gasping, and gripping my hair like I was the only thing keeping her upright was gone.
In her place stood the enforcer again, distant and untouchable.
I feel like absolute shit. Stomach-turning, chest-aching, can’t-look-at-myself-in-the-mirror shit.
Because I didn’t say it to be cruel. I was still half out of my mind from the taste of her, from the way her thighs had shaken around my head, from the broken little sounds she made when she came.
My body was still screaming for more, cock so hard it hurt, and the words just slipped out in a haze.
But the second they left my lips I realized how they sounded.
Like I dropped to my knees and ate her out until she shattered just so I could cash in a favor.
Like the whole thing had been nothing but a transaction.
It wasn’t. Not for me.
I genuinely care about her. I know how insane that sounds.
She works for Serafina. She’s the one keeping me locked in this cage, the one holding the leash that keeps Enley’s life dangling by a thread.
But there’s more to Orchid than the fake badge and the sharp orders and the way she barks at me to obey.
I’ve seen it in flashes that keep replaying in my head.
The way her eyes went soft when I talked to Enley on the phone.
The hesitation in the office when I refused to hack Maddox, like part of her didn’t want me to cross that line either.
The way she looked at me during that ridiculous pool party, fighting the same pull I’ve felt every time I touch her in front of the neighbors.
She’s not a bad person. She’s stuck in something bigger and uglier than she lets on. I can feel it in my gut.
I wanted to tell her that right then. I wanted to pull her back against me, kiss the hurt off her face, and say I didn’t mean it the way it sounded.
That I’ve been lost in her, that I still am.
That tasting her, feeling her come apart, had nothing to do with bargaining and everything to do with how badly I want her.
But she was already turning away, rushing up the stairs like she couldn’t get away fast enough.
Her heels clicked hard against the hardwood, each sharp step landed like a little stab in my gut.
I stand frozen in the entryway for a long minute, heart still hammering, cock still painfully hard in my slacks, the taste of her still coating my tongue and lips.
The house feels too quiet around me. I drag a hand down my face, mutter a low curse, and force myself to move.
If I stay here thinking about the way her thighs shook around my head or the broken way she moaned my name, I’ll lose my mind.
I head straight for the office.
The triple monitors glow to life when I power everything up.
I drop into the chair, crack my knuckles, and start the hack Serafina wants.
My fingers move on autopilot at first, slipping through the outer layers Maddox had built years ago.
I map the dummy systems, spot the tripwires and false data trails.
It’s clever work. Progress bars fill slowly.
Reports generate. Everything looks perfect from the outside.
But I can’t focus. Not after tonight. Not after watching that mask snap back over Orchid’s face like a steel door slamming shut.
I open a side window and start digging into Orchid.
Quietly. Carefully. I know I can’t do a full deep dive without tripping alarms, but Serafina has brought me in for a reason.
She probably doesn’t have anyone good enough on her payroll to handle real dark-web level work. That gives me a narrow window.
I run every search I can think of. Name variations.
Partial prints pulled from the safehouse system logs.
Scraps of facial recognition from the cameras.
Nothing. It’s like she doesn’t exist. No social media history.
No old employment records. No traffic tickets, property listings, or anything that would tie a normal person to the real world.
She’s a ghost. Clean, professional, and completely erased from every database that matters.
That only makes me more certain there’s a story there. Someone has gone to enormous trouble to bury her past. And someone like Orchid doesn’t end up as Serafina’s enforcer unless she’s got a damn good reason. Or a damn bad one.
I sit back, staring at the blank results, and make a decision. I need to reach out. I need to know what the team knows. I need to know if they’ve found Enley yet.
I navigate to an old, buried message board Ozzy and I used to haunt years ago, back when we were just dumb kids screwing around with code and conspiracy theories at three in the morning.
It’s ancient, barely maintained, hidden behind layers of dead accounts and forgotten forums. The kind of place no one would ever think to look.
I log in with an old handle I haven’t touched in forever and drop a single line into the private thread we used to share.
P here. Need to talk. Blackmail situation. Enley.
I wait, heart pounding harder than it has when I had Orchid pinned against the wall. Minutes tick by in agonizing silence. Then the cursor blinks and a new message appears.
O here. Holy shit. You okay?
Relief hits me so hard my shoulders sag against the chair. Ozzy. Alive. Online. Still on my side. Hopefully.
I type fast, fingers flying.
Blackmailed hard. They made me kidnap Salem’s dad from the hospital.
Have Enley hostage. Forcing me to hack Maddox core.
I stopped the second I saw what it was. They’re using her to make me burn the team from the inside.
I’m in a safehouse outside town. Orchid’s the handler.
She’s not what she seems. There’s more to her, but I can’t risk Enley. Tell me you’re close.
Ozzy’s reply comes quick, but he doesn’t rush.
Good to know you’re not dirty. We thought…
well, nevermind what we thought. We’re close.
Traced the phone. Got a solid hit on a warehouse district near the river, then another ping from some restaurant.
We think we have Enley’s location narrowed down to two possible sites.
Maddox has dummy systems layered all over the core.
Do the hack. Feed them junk data. It’ll look completely real from their end.
Buy us time. Lay low and don’t do anything stupid that could get Enley hurt.
I let out a long breath, some of the weight lifting off my chest. They know I’m not dirty. That’s the most important thing. It’s smart. A dummy hack. Of course Maddox would have that in place. The man plans for betrayal like other people plan Sunday dinner.
I type back.
Doing it now. I’m feeding them the dummy streams as we speak. Hurry, Oz. I don’t know how much longer I can stall without them hurting her. She’s scared.
Ozzy responds almost immediately.
We’re moving as fast as we can. Knight and Gage are on one site with Maddox ALPHA team, Arrow and Render on the other with brAVO. Maddox is coordinating from the safehouse. Stay alive. Keep your head down. And Poe… keep your head on straight. We’ll get Enley. Then we’ll get you out. You good?
I hesitate, fingers hovering over the keys.
I want to tell him everything. About the pool party, the training in the yard, the way Orchid had looked at me tonight in that black dress.
About how I dropped to my knees for her and meant every second of it.
About how I’m starting to care about her in a way that makes no sense at all.
But I don’t.
Instead, I type:
I’m good. Just get Enley. I’ll keep feeding the dummy hack. Tell the team I’m sorry for how this looks. I never wanted any of this.
Ozzy’s next message comes slower, like he’s thinking.
We know you didn’t. We’ve got your back. Just stay breathing. Lay low. We’re coming.
I stare at the screen for a long moment, throat tight.
I close the board, wipe every trace of the conversation, and go back to the official hack.
I start feeding the system the dummy data Maddox had prepped, making it look like I’m giving Serafina exactly what she wants.
Progress bars fill slowly. Reports generate.
Everything looks perfect from the outside.
But my mind keeps drifting upstairs. To Orchid. To the way she rushed away from me like I burned her. To the way I saw something real crack in her eyes right before the mask slammed back down.
I care about her. More than I should. She’s not the villain in this story. She’s trapped in it, same as me. And tonight, for a few minutes against that wall, she let me see her. The real her. Not the enforcer. Not the mask.
I want to go up there right now and tell her that. I want to pull her into my arms and say I’m not using her. That the way I touched her, tasted her, was real. That I still want her so badly it hurts. But I can’t. I need to focus on the hack. On saving Enley and myself.
I keep working, feeding the dummy hack through the system, buying every precious minute I can for Ozzy and the team. Every line of code feels like another second I’m stealing back for all of us.
The house stays quiet around me. Upstairs, Orchid’s door remains closed.
I wonder what she’s doing. I wonder if she hates me now.
I wonder how the hell I’ve gone from hating the woman who locked me in this cage to wanting nothing more than to hold her and tell her I’m sorry for the way the words had come out.
I keep typing.
I keep hoping.
And I keep the secret of how much I’m starting to care for her locked tight behind my own mask, because right now the only thing that matters is getting Enley back safe.
Everything else, including the beautiful, complicated woman sleeping down the hall with her walls back up, has to wait.