Page 210 of Black Reign

Fuck.

I get into the waiting Blackwell car.

“Drive.”

My security chief is already in the passenger seat. “Team is mobilizing.”

“How long?”

“First unit, nine minutes.”

“Too long.”

“We're twelve away.”

“Make it six.”

He looks back once.

Whatever he sees on my face makes him turn around without responding.

My watch pulses.

Another message.

VESPER: PLEASE, XAVIER.

I stop breathing.

Not Ghost.

Xavier.

She used my name.

And the fear in that single word tears something open inside me.

I have spent years chasing Vesper because she fascinated me.

Because she beat me.

Because she was the single problem I couldn't solve.

That's what I told myself.

Then she became the person I looked for every morning.

The last message I checked at night.

The one mind I never had to slow down for.

The woman who understood when silence was an answer.

She became the place I went when every room full of people still felt empty.

I fell in love with a ghost in a machine.

I don't know when.