Chapter Six
Elise
The Steele Compound
I kept jogging until the rock-hunting group disappeared behind a rise, and only then did I let my pace break. My lungs burned, but the fire in my chest had nothing to do with the elevation.
The desert air felt heavier now, or maybe that was only the weight of everything Brady had said looping through my head, refusing to settle into anything I could categorize and file away.
He’d asked me to dinner just like that. As if it were the most natural thing in the world to suggest food and conversation to a woman he hardly knew.
I replayed the moment from his tone, easy timing, to his lack of hesitation and felt heat creep up my neck. That had been a mistake. Not his. Mine.
Dinner would have been useful. A controlled environment. Time. Proximity. A glass of wine as a catalyst. I could have asked discreet probing questions. I could have mapped his social graph and looked for the packet loss in his stories. Instead, I’d shut him down with clean, immediate efficiency.
“Brilliant,” I muttered.
Now I had nothing but guesses. If he was attracted to me, that was an advantage. Unfortunately, I was similarly afflicted.
All the signs were there. The way my body leaned toward him before my mind approved the movement.
The ghost of his shoulder brushing mine while we crouched over that rock still hummed along my skin.
The lingering memory of our hands grazing when I handed back the spray bottle.
Beneath the desert sun, our bodies had heated and the scent of him was undeniably addictive.
I tried to push his memory aside, but it remained like a persistent notification. I slowed my pace further, stepping off the main path onto the narrower one that curved toward the outer boundary of the compound.
He was also an enigma.
On paper, Brady Holliston was exactly what I’d expect from old money: incognito, confident, carefree because he hadn’t had to fight for what he had.
What was unusual was his humility. His affinity for manual labor. The way he quickly converted strangers into friends. Why?
And how much of who he seemed to be was real?
He was unlike anyone I’d ever met, and I didn’t consider that a good thing. Different was dangerous. An unpredictable opponent was nearly impossible to defend against. In a world where threats morph and evolve daily, information is currency.
Some people choose the wait-and-see approach when it comes to determining a situation’s risk level. My family tended to be more proactive. Trust was a blind spot my father had made sure I understood as soon as I was old enough to ride a bike.
“If you walk down the street with ten thousand dollars hanging out of your pocket,” he used to say, “someone will eventually take it. Not because everyone is evil. Because you made the asset too easy to reach.” The same rule applied to information and access.
If you exposed something valuable, someone would reach for it. The only variable was who and when.
So why did Brady feel like the exception?
I picked up my pace again, like I could outrun the question. I couldn’t.
The first gate appeared exactly where it should be, hidden in plain sight as just another break in the rock. Two guards stepped out before I fully approached, their eyes sweeping over me in a routine, non-invasive check. They didn’t smile. They didn’t need to. I was a recognized credential.
Once the door opened, the shift was immediate. The cool, controlled air of the outer ring always felt the same: concrete floors, quiet corridors, and the low hum of systems running beneath everything. It was functional and intentional, with nothing wasted on comfort.
“Your father’s been asking about you,” a woman with a handheld scanner noted as I passed.
“I’ll shower first,” I said, and kept moving. My skin felt gritty, coated in the dust of the tailings and the lingering warmth of where Brady’s hand had brushed mine.
The layers changed as I moved deeper into the compound.
First controlled, then secured, and finally home.
The transition still caught me sometimes.
The walls softened, the light changed, and the space opened up into a home that was expensive without being showy.
Technology was woven so seamlessly into the luxury that it disappeared.
Safe. Contained. Known.
And yet somehow felt heavier than it normally did.
I showered quickly, scrubbing the desert off my limbs, but I couldn’t seem to scrub the “zing” out of my nervous system.
I found my father at the counter, a tablet in one hand and coffee in the other. When he looked up and saw me, everything in his expression shifted. The hard lines around his eyes smoothed out. “There she is.”
I stepped into his arms, breathing in the familiar scent of his aftershave and leaning into the steady, solid presence I’d relied on my whole life.
“How was your run?” he asked, pulling back to pour me a glass of water.
“Good. I ended up rock hunting with some tourists.”
“Really?” His eyebrows rose in surprise. “New friends?”
I shrugged. Brady would have likely answered yes, but I couldn’t imagine giving anyone that designation that quickly. “Trying to be open to possibilities.”
He frowned. “What do you know about them?”
“Beyond that I’ll likely never see them again and birth control wasn’t a priority in their marriage, not much. All we talked about was how to spot rocks worth taking home.”
Finally he smiled. “Sounds like you had fun.”
“I did.”
“Good.” He leaned against the counter, his tone shifting to the work. “Keaton filled you in on Sentinel-7? We finally stabilized the recursive feedback loop. Prompt-injection neutralization is holding under forty milliseconds.”
“That’s a significant jump,” I admitted, feeling a spark of the old excitement. This was the language I knew. The logic I could control.
He nodded. “It is. It puts us in front of the wave. We’re increasing security protocols across the board. In town as well. Even a rumor of what we’re doing could jeopardize our ability to roll this out without credible competition.”
There it was. The opening. I wrapped my fingers around the cool glass of water, the condensation slick against my palm.
Say it.
I met a man—
The words hovered in my throat. If I said his name, the machinery would start.
My father would want everything. Details of how we met.
A transcript of every conversation we’d had.
It wasn’t that my father didn’t want me to date.
At least, he said he did, but experience had taught me that the only ones who passed his inspection were ones he had direct knowledge of and often some leverage over.
He would instantly pull a background check on Brady.
Financial history. Associates. Travel logs.
A sweep so thorough it would make my own look casual.
The mystery of Brady Holliston would disappear, replaced by a digital dossier.
Any threat would be neutralized. And my life would return to its calm, predictable pattern.
It was what I should have wanted. But the thought of reducing Mr. Gorgeous Dimples to a series of encrypted files was like being asked to return a library book before finishing the story.
I couldn’t. I just couldn’t end it there.
“I understand,” I said instead.
It might have been something in my voice that had him looking me over again. My father and I were close. I didn’t want to lie to him, didn’t want to hide anything. Until recently I’d never felt the need to do either.
But I needed more than the compound could offer, and I didn’t know how to explain that to him. Basin Ridge wasn’t just where I decompressed, it was where I was slowly discovering new sides of myself.
Eventually, he nodded. “I’m excited to get your feedback on our progress. You always bring unique insights.”
His faith in me and trust in my skills made it impossible to resent how he’d raised me. He couldn’t understand why our shared mission to provide not only our government, but major corporations with the security they required to keep functioning wasn’t enough for me.
Our work was important.
And my contributions would likely be recorded by historians as substantial.
But I didn’t have a single person to invite over to watch a movie marathon or talk about my feelings. If I implied something was wrong, my father or Keaton wanted to fix it and sometimes I just wanted to talk.
Keaton joined us then, bumping my shoulder and teasing me about my “new hobby” of hunting rocks.
I glared at him.
He shrugged, “You were right outside the compound.”
“We’ve talked about this. Even if you know where I am and what I am doing, let me bring up what I want to discuss.”
My father intervened. “Old habits die hard, Elise. And we’re only trying to keep you safe.”
Keaton shot me a shameless, I-would-do-it-again smile that had me rolling my eyes. Brothers. “I can’t handle you on an empty stomach,” I moaned.
He laughed. “Then it’s a good thing I told the kitchen to whip up a veggie omelet for you with a side of watermelon. You’re always hangry after a run.”
“You’re forgiven, but barely.” My smile was reluctant.
“I’ll take that,” he responded with a chuckle. “Dad, do you have time to join us?”
He checked the time on his watch then nodded. “I had a call scheduled, but I’ll push it back. Ask the kitchen to double what they’re making for Elise.”
“On it,” Keaton said as he sent off a text.
We moved to an informal dining area that had always felt like my father’s one concession to whimsy.
Everything around it was understated. The lighting was soft.
The chairs sculpted. The surfaces smooth and polished.
Quiet luxury. But the table glowed from within, a long pane of translucent glass laced with blue schematic lines and shifting symbols, as if family breakfast required its own futuristic command center.
It was absurd, a little impressive, and very much his kind of humor.
Our shared meal was light and easy. Full of laughter. Stories from the past. Comical snags in processes. Keaton recounted a board drama that sounded like a Shakespearean tragedy playing out with modern day tech rivalries at the heart of the story.
Yes, my family was odd. But I loved them. This was who we were and what we protected. Brilliant. Hyper-focused. Slightly corny.
Every time there was a lull in the conversation, I felt the weight of the secret pressing against my ribs.
Brady Holliston is looking for you, Dad.
I didn’t say it. I watched my father laugh, watched the way he trusted the perimeter he’d built, and I kept my mouth shut.
When I promised to spend the next day running edge-case ethics tests on the new integration layer, my father’s eyes lit up with pride. He asked if he could count on me for the whole week. I committed to a few days but told him I’d need to head back to town after that.
“Help me understand why,” he said softly, covering my hand with his. His skin was dry, papery. “What does the town give you that you don’t have here?”
“It’s like your library, Dad. Your cigars. Your old movies. Or Keaton’s speaking trips. Time in town clears the noise. I come back sharper.”
He studied me. I kept my breathing rhythmic. Then he nodded. “I’m proud of you, Elise. For the work, and for knowing how to stay at your best.”
My throat tightened. “Thank you.”
Keaton nudged me, his eyes dancing. “You’ll have to stay sharp. I’m dominating this project. My code is elegant. Yours is just . . . thorough.”
I huffed softly. “So confident. So misguided. Don’t worry, I’ll find the weaknesses in your coding and give you plenty of time to patch them before I test it again.”
He groaned. We laughed. Our father reminded us it wasn’t a competition. It absolutely was. It drove us. Bonded us. Defined us.
Until now.
I hugged my father before I left for my quarters. He held on a second longer than usual, a rare display of lingering affection. So did I.
The walk back to my suite was too quiet. The door closed with a soft, final click that echoed. I sat on the edge of my bed, staring at the blank white wall.
My father could dismantle a corporation in an afternoon. If Brady were a threat, my father would end it cleanly and permanently.
So why didn’t I tell him?
Because I want to see Brady again.
The truth settled. Uncomfortable. Unavoidable. I didn’t know what Brady Holliston was yet.
A threat? A distraction? Or something else entirely?
But I knew one thing: I wasn’t done with him.