15. Ursa #3
“No, but it does make you feel stupid for bleeding.”
His expression darkens. “Do not speak of yourself that way.”
“It’s a metaphor.”
“I dislike it.”
“I’ll submit future metaphors for approval.”
“Good.”
The ridiculousness of his stern tone pulls a breath from me that almost becomes a laugh and almost becomes something worse. I turn back to the ledgers because the evidence is easier to face than the tenderness in his eyes.
“I need to make backups before Dawson locks me out of network access,” I say.
“He may not do it immediately because he’ll want to preserve plausible deniability, but he’ll start limiting my channels.
I should transmit the raw interview archive to independent escrow, encrypt the financial trail, and make sure Bellamy has enough to know where to look if I disappear professionally. ”
Gnash listens without interruption. “You trust Bellamy.”
“With documents, yes.”
“With your safety?”
“That’s different.”
“Is it?”
I glance at him. “Bellamy is a good reporter and a better friend than he pretends to be. He is not built for a knife fight.”
“I am.”
“Yes, I noticed.”
He moves to the archive terminal and enters a command sequence. A secure transfer field blooms above the table. “Use station escrow.”
I blink. “What?”
“Guyver independent archive. Triple-shielded, off-network, backed through two hidden nodes and one courier drone that does not officially exist.”
“That sounds wildly illegal.”
“It is extremely illegal.”
“Of course it is.”
“It is also difficult to erase.”
I stare at the transfer field, then at him. “You would give me access to your secure archive for my reporting?”
“Yes.”
“Even if that reporting eventually damages you?”
His jaw flexes. “Yes.”
The answer lands heavier than anything Dawson threatened. Trust is not soft from Gnash. It is metal, weight, a weapon turned handle-first.
“Why?”
He gazes at me, and the bond between us hums beneath the cold air. “Because you chose truth when lies would have protected your career.”
“That doesn’t make me safe to trust.”
“No,” he says. “It makes you worth trusting.”
He moves closer, and this time when he lifts his hand, I step into the touch before he reaches me.
His palm settles carefully against the side of my face, warm and rough, his claws held away from my skin.
I just told my boss to go to hell in the most professionally devastating way possible.
And the monster Reaper is touching me like I am perfection itself.
“I’m scared,” I admit.
“I know.”
“I hate that.”
“I know that too.”
My eyes open. “Do not make this the part where you say you’ll protect me from everything.”
His mouth curves faintly. “I was preparing a better lie than that.”
“Don’t.”
“I will support your decision,” he says. “I will give you access. I will give you protection where you allow it. I will give you every ugly record I possess if it helps you find the hand behind these transactions. I will not ask you to make me look clean.”
The pressure in my chest breaks into something painfully close to relief.
“Gnash.”
“You will continue digging,” he says. “And if Dawson tries to bury what you find, we will find another path.”
“We?”
“Yes.”
“That is dangerous language.”
“So is no.”
I laugh softly, though my eyes sting. “You liked that part?”
“I liked every part after you stopped letting him own the room.”
“He can still hurt me.”
“Yes.”
“He can hurt the story.”
“Perhaps.”
“He can make me look compromised.”
Gnash’s thumb moves once against my cheek, a careful stroke that sends warmth through the entire exhausted wreck of my body. “Then we make the truth stronger than his accusation.”
I stand there in the archive cold, surrounded by suspicious transactions, hidden Combine trails, and the wreckage of my relationship with the network that made me and used me in equal measure.
My career may have cracked tonight. My access may vanish.
Dawson may already be drafting the first polite memo that will become a professional execution.
But the evidence is still here.
The story is still here.
And Gnash is here, not standing in front of me, not silencing me, not turning my choice into his command, but beside me.
I pull in a breath and step back from his hand, though I let my fingers brush his wrist before I return to the table.
“All right. We start with Halcyon Resource Arbitration, the Atrament Star, Vara Vell’s debt transfer, and every vessel that paid through a broker with Combine-adjacent distressed asset exposure. ”
His eyes gleam. “That sentence would frighten many warriors.”
“It should. Financial crime is where cowards go to stab people from climate-controlled offices.”
“I prefer knives.”
“I know. That’s why you need me.”
His smile is slow and fierce. “Yes.”
I pick up my compad, open a fresh file, and begin building the cleanest evidence chain of my life. The room remains cold. My hands still tremble a little. Dawson’s threat lingers like smoke in the back of my throat.
But the numbers are waiting.
And this time, I am not digging alone.