Page 55 of Override

Then I open the message.

Please don’t cry.

Everything inside me goes completely still.

Chapter 12

Keaton (Skee)

The second the message sends, every survival instinct I possess activates at once.

My stomach drops so hard it physically hurts.

“Oh no.” The words leave my mouth out loud while I stare at my phone in absolute horror.

What the fuck did I just do?

The audio feed from the guest bathroom crackles softly through my headphones, uneven breathing filling the silence while the message sits marked delivered on the burner screen in my hand.

Me:

Please don’t cry.

Jesus Christ.

I surge off the couch so abruptly I almost slam my knee into the coffee table.

“Nope. Absolutely not. That was deeply inappropriate.”

Pacing starts instantly. Kitchen. Turn. Living room. Turn again.

My fingers tap rapidly against my thigh while adrenaline spikes harder and harder beneath my skin.

Because that—that was not surveillance.

That was emotional instability.

I drag both hands hard down my face.

One second I was sitting on the couch listening to her cry quietly through the bathroom mic while rerouting Gallagher financials, and the next my phone was already unlocked and the message was gone before my brain fully processed what my body was doing.

Like my nervous system bypassed logic entirely.

Unacceptable.

I stop pacing long enough to stare accusingly at the burner phone sitting in my hand.

“This is why people don’t trust feelings,” I mutter.

Because clearly emotional attachment immediately turns me into a psychologically compromised idiot.

The audio shifts softly through the headphones.

Movement. Then silence.

Then Maeve’s breathing catches sharply.

My entire body stills.