Page 132 of Dark Night of the Soul

“No,” I agreed.

“Someone who can slip in and out unnoticed. Without raising alarms.” She sat still, rigid, tension lining her shoulders. “I hate this.”

“We’ll find who it is.” And destroy them.

Silas hadn’t said, which meant he didn’t know, either.

She wasn’t falling apart. She wasn’t breaking down. She was angry. Which meant she was willing to do something outside her moral boundaries. And I couldn’t let her do that.

“What are you thinking?” I asked.

Her gaze lifted to mine. “I’m thinking whoever planted those devices needs to understand what happens to them when they violate my home.”

There it was. The line she was willing to cross.

“Anna—”

“Don’t,” she said sharply as she got to her feet. “Don’t try to tell me to be reasonable or tell me there are rules. They broke all the rules when they came after me. I’m done.”

This was a knee-jerk reaction. Coming from a place of deep-seated anger. I understood the impulse. God, I understood it. But this was how good people became the thing they fought against.

“They watched me sleep. They listened to private conversations. They listened to us. Studied me like I was some experiment in a fucking lab. There are no rules anymore. And I want to go back.”

Her words were fire. Her expression pure wrath.

My hand landed on the side of her neck against her wildly beating pulse. “That’s a trap and you know it.”

“At least I’d be doing something besides sitting here hiding, waiting for the next violation.”

“You’re not hiding.”

“Yes, I am.” Her eyes met mine, and I saw it all there. The rage. The exhaustion. The desperate need to control something. “I’m doing nothing while waiting to see what else they’ll take from me.”

I understood the need to act when everything felt out of control. I’d felt it myself for weeks now. Watching her suffer violations I couldn’t prevent, couldn’t undo.

But this wasn’t the move.

“If you go back now,” I said carefully, “you’re not hunting them. You’re letting them dictate your movements. You’re reactive instead of strategic.”

Her jaw worked. “So, what do you suggest?”

“We finish what we started.” I held her gaze. “Munich first. Take down the infrastructure. Burn every server, every backup, every copy of those feeds. Then we find who had access. And when we do—”

I let the pause stretch. Let her hear what I wasn’t saying.

“When we do?” she prompted.

“You can do whatever you need to do. And I’ll stand with you.”

She searched my face. Looking for the limits. The boundaries I’d impose. The moral lines I’d defend.

But I meant it.

“Whatever I need to do?” Her voice was a whisper.

“Yes.”

“Even if it means—”