“I’m already compromised.”
His eyes hold mine. He’s not surprised. “If I’m wrong about you, every person who trusted me is exposed.”
Every person.
Not the network. Not the operation. The people.
“And if you’re right about me, I find who killed her.” My voice tightens around the last part. “Which is what you hired me to do.”
Not because I’m beautiful. Not because he enjoys having me here. Because I’m… useful.
Selin is dead. She’s been dead for weeks, and he could have replaced her at any point. Instead he’s been hunting her killer.
I know exactly what Zavin Sethrak is. A man who measures people by their usefulness. One who doesn’t let sentiment interfere with business.
But he didn’t forget her. He’s trying to find her killer. Not erase her.
His eyes lift to mine. Whatever he sees on my face makes his expression harden. “Don’t read more into this than I can give you. I need that mole found. With that mind of yours, you’re the only human female who stands a chance of finding them.”
He storms to the door. “I’ll get you everything you need. Full access. No more redactions.” A pause, jaw tight. “But don’t mistake this for something it isn’t.”
The door closes behind him. Controlled, deliberate, which is somehow worse.
Chapter Nine
ZAVIN
The lock seats behind me with the double-click of my own signature, and I take the passage toward the lower levels without seeing any of it. I told her about Selin.
There was an easier version of that conversation available from the moment she looked at me and said she’d found something. A reassignment. A transfer. A dead end wrapped in enough truth to satisfy her. I know exactly which pieces of information people need and which ones they don’t. If I’d wanted to move her away from the answer, I could have done it before she’d finished the question.
Instead I poured her a drink and told her about a female who trusted me to keep her safe.
I told her not to read more into it than I could give her. That’s the sort of thing a male says when he’s already failed to keep his distance.
The worst part is that she didn’t need the confirmation. She’d already found the evidence. The missing profile. The scrubbed records. I simply told her the rest.
I keep turning that over as I walk.
I don’t make moves I can’t account for. Every conversation has a purpose. Every disclosure buys something—the reason I’ve survived inside this family as long as I have. Yet I gave a contractor a truth I’venever spoken aloud to my own brother, and when I try to identify what I gained from it, I come up empty.
Most people would’ve gone hunting for the leak. Miro stopped at the hole Selin left behind and looked straight through it. A female she’d never met. A name she’d never heard. Yet the first thing she cared about wasn’t the network or the damage done to it. It was what had been done to Selin. Most of the people who work for me wouldn’t have seen a person at all.
The residential heat thins behind me as I descend, the stone cooling against the sensing pits along my jaw. Wall panels shift from amber to the deeper copper of the commerce levels, and the air changes with them. Incense. Sugar. Perfume. Sweat. The familiar blend of transactions happening behind a hundred closed doors. Normally I wouldn’t notice any of it. Tonight my attention keeps circling back to a human female three floors above me.
I adjust my jacket and keep walking.
Attraction isn’t new. I’ve spent half my life surrounded by beautiful beings. Desired them. Been desired in return. Wanted someone, taken them to bed, and moved on with both of us understanding exactly what the exchange was worth. Simple. Temporary. Controlled. This should be no different.
Instead I find myself replaying conversations.
Her habit of catching patterns before anyone else sees them. The way she argues. Her refusal to look away from the thing everyone else steps around. I tell myself it’s intellectual curiosity. Professional respect. She’s useful, exceptionally so, and useful people attract attention. The explanation should satisfy me. It doesn’t.
Most beings see what I give them. The charm. The smile. The second son who collects secrets and sells information. They see theperformance because that’s what I built it for. Miro keeps looking past it as though she doesn’t realize there’s supposed to be a wall there.
She found Selin. Not the data. Not the breach. Selin. And somehow that’s lodged itself under my scales.
The sensible solution would be distance. Finish the investigation. Find the mole. Put her on the first ship leaving Vahiri Prime and go back to the life I had before she arrived. Instead I keep assigning more security to her corridor. I keep finding reasons to walk into her workspace. I keep noticing things I shouldn’t notice.
