3. Render
Render
Morning light slips through the cabin window in thin gray slices, and I’m already awake. I never actually fell asleep.
Enley’s sleeping now, really sleeping this time.
Not the careful act she put on last night when she slipped out of bed and headed for the go-bag like she might vanish into the dark.
I don’t blame her for trying. I probably would’ve done the same thing, only faster.
But she stayed. She laid out her conditions and sat on that hard floor and chose to be here with me.
That choice means more than any lock I could’ve put on the door.
She’s curled on her right side with one hand tucked under the pillow and the other resting palm-up on the mattress.
The raw marks on her wrists look worse in the pale morning light.
They’re red and angry. Her breathing’s slow and deep, and the tight, guarded look she wore all night has softened.
In sleep she looks younger, closer to the girl who used to show up at the loft with takeout bags and strong opinions about everything.
I let myself look for only a few seconds. Then I get up, fold the blanket, and start the day.
I step outside into air that smells like wet pine and cold earth.
I walk a wide circle around the cabin, checking for any sign that someone found us overnight.
Nothing. Just our own tire tracks from yesterday, already softening in the dew.
The tree canopy is thick enough that a satellite pass wouldn't pick up the car even without the pine branch overhang. We’re as invisible as two people can be out here.
Back inside, I light the little gas burner and set water heating in an old pot. No coffee, but hot water with a protein bar beats the cold version, and I’ve learned to appreciate small comforts.
I pull out the laptop and set it on the scarred wooden table. While the water heats, I get our connection going. It’s not simple, but I keep it straightforward. Layers that make sure no one can trace us back here. I check the emergency lines first.
Dean’s main channel is silent. So are the backups. One of them has a short message waiting from twelve hours ago. I open it.
The crew is compromised. Six of them are being held. We don’t know the exact location yet. Knight got away. The rest of the support teams are scattered. Regroup protocol is in effect.
Knight made it out. That’s something. He’s the most disciplined of us, and if anyone could slip away when the others were caught, it’s him. The ALPHA and brAVO teams being scattered means we’re all in survival mode right now.
I send a quick reply. Failsafe active. Package secure.
Then I open a private line to Knight.
You alive?
His answer comes after a short wait. Took a graze. Nothing serious. I’m in a safe spot south of the city. Saw them load the crew into two black SUVs heading north. They have six. Poe, Arrow, Gage, Ozzy, Orchid, and Lark.
My stomach drops at Lark’s name. She’s Knight’s person, the way Enley is… something I don’t have a word for yet. Knight doesn’t show feelings the way most people do, but knowing Lark is locked up somewhere has to be tearing him apart inside.
I type back. Enley’s with me. I got her out last night. She’s bruised but okay.
Good, he replies. Poe will need to know that when we get them out.
When. Not if. That’s Knight.
I send him details for a dead drop where I can leave updates and close the line. Then I start pulling together everything we know so far about Serafina’s operation.
I hear the mattress springs shift behind me and know Enley’s awake before she says anything. There’s a different kind of comfort when someone’s watching you.
“How long have you been up?” she asks. Her voice is rough with sleep, and it does something low and warm to my chest that I try to ignore.
“A while.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“Since before dawn.”
She gets up and moves to the kitchenette. I hear her check the hot water and dig through the go-bag for the protein bars. She doesn’t ask permission. She moves through the small space like she already belongs here, and something about that confidence makes the corner of my mouth twitch.
She pulls the second chair over to the table and sits down with her breakfast. Her eyes go straight to the laptop screen. I don’t hide anything. She asked for full honesty. She gets it.
“Goldenbell,” she says, reading the name on the screen. “That’s Serafina’s front company.”
“You know it?”
Something flickers across her face, quick and guarded. “I know the name. Poe mentioned it a couple of times.”
I file that reaction away but don’t push. Trust is still new between us. We’re only hours into this partnership that started with her trying to sneak out.
“Knight’s alive,” I tell her. “He got away before they could catch him. He’s hiding south of Saint Pierce.”
Her whole body relaxes a little, tension draining from her shoulders. “Who else?”
“Just Knight for sure. Juno, Salem, and River are safe at the main office. The six they took are Poe, Arrow, Gage, Ozzy, Orchid, and Lark. All confirmed held somewhere, but we don’t know where yet.”
She processes it quickly, the way Poe does, but I see her fingers tighten around her cup.
“What’s the full picture with Maddox?” she asks. “Poe never told me much. He kept me completely out of the operational side.”
This is the conversation I knew was coming. Telling her how things really work means pulling back a curtain her brother tried hard to keep closed.
“Dean Maddox runs everything. He built Maddox Security as a private security outfit on the surface. They take normal jobs for regular clients. But the real work is going after people the system can’t touch.
Traffickers. Financial predators. The kind of bad guys who hide behind lawyers and money.
The crew finds them, gathers evidence, and either hands it over or handles it themselves. ”
“Handles it,” she repeats, testing the word.
“Yes. Different situations need different solutions.”
She holds my gaze for a long moment. I let her see all of me. The guy who works quietly on computers and the guy who kicked in a warehouse door last night. She gets both or she gets nothing.
“Okay,” she says finally. “Show me how we stay hidden.”
I turn the laptop so we can both see and start explaining the basics of our setup.
I keep it simple. Hidden connections online.
Ways to move around without leaving tracks.
She leans in closer to look at the screen.
Her shoulder brushes mine, and I become very aware of how small the table is and how good she smells even after everything she’s been through.
“That part right there,” she says, pointing. “It’s smart. The way it keeps changing paths.”
I glance at her. She’s focused, eyes bright, lips slightly parted. The morning light catches the gold flecks in her green eyes, and for a second I forget what I was saying. She’s beautiful when she’s thinking hard like this. She’s a dangerous kind of beautiful.
I clear my throat. “Yeah. It changes constantly so no one can follow us.”
She asks good questions. Not just how things work, but why I set them up this way. Questions that show she’s been thinking about this stuff for a long time on her own. Her mind is sharp, and watching her pick everything up so fast does something to me I shouldn’t be feeling right now.
We sit side by side at the narrow table.
There’s no way to avoid touching. Our elbows brush when we reach for the keys.
Her knee presses against my thigh when she shifts.
Each small contact sends a spark through me.
I notice every one. So does she. I catch the tiny pauses, the way she holds her breath for half a second before continuing.
We both pretend to ignore it.
By midday she’s built something solid on her own. It is not perfect yet, but it’s good. Really good. She sits back and looks at me, surprised and a little proud.
“It works,” she says softly.
“It does. There’s a small timing glitch in the program, but you’ll see it when you check.”
She finds the issue and fixes it herself. The solution is different from what I would’ve done, and probably better.
She turns and really looks at me. “You’re actually going to teach me everything.”
“That’s what I said.”
“People say a lot of things they don’t mean. Poe promised to bring me in for years before I stopped believing him.”
“I’m not your brother.”
“No.” She holds my gaze a beat longer than necessary. “You’re not.”
The air between us feels warmer. Thicker. The space between her elbow and mine is only a couple of inches, and it would be so easy to close it. I want to. But I know better.
I look back at the screen. “Let’s keep going. Next I’ll show you how we can listen in on Serafina’s communications without her knowing.”
“Show me.”
I do. And the afternoon stretches out in front of us, full of work and soft touches and this growing pull I don’t know how to ignore much longer.