Chapter 11

Conner

The second the feed flickered, I knew. The code on Nico’s screen stuttered, scrambled, then wiped itself clean like it had never been there at all. The lines of code dissolved into black. Then, slowly, deliberately, the screen lit up with a new feed, grainy at first, then sharpened like a knife sliding into focus. Her. Hood up. Mask on. But I’d know that posture anywhere. The tilt of her chin. The way she sat, like her body had long since learned to be a weapon. A shadow -stitched into skin. The ghost. No…my ghost.

“Shit,” Nico muttered. “She’s in. She’s not just in, she’s hijacked the whole damn rig.”

I didn’t answer. I was frozen in place, watching her watching me.

She didn’t speak right away. She just stared, like she was trying to decide how much she could give away. Then her fingers danced across her own keyboard, and her voice, her voice…came through the speakers like a whisper made of smoke and memory. “Hey darling.”

My breath hitched.

“You need to listen to me,” she said. No preamble. No flirting. Just ice and fire, wrapped in urgency.