Page 135 of Collateral Love
I looked down at Charles one last time.
Cameron lost her shield tonight.
But she got exactly what she wanted.
Us visible.
Us committed.
And Miles?
Miles just realized he was standing in the middle of a war he no longer controlled.
I turned away from the body to the cleanup crew that arrived.
“Bag ‘em,” I ordered. “Burn the site. Erase the stoplight footage. Move.”
The soldiers moved instantly. They recovered a laptop at the scene before it all went up in flames.
As we walked back toward the cars, rain washing the alley clean behind us, I felt it settle in my bones.
This wasn’t an escalation.
This was alignment.
And Cameron was about to find out what happens when you push men who learned restraint the hard way.
When we got backto our office. We washed our bodies and burned our clothes. I locked Miles in the war room; death was coming for him soon enough.
X pulled Charles’s recovered laptop.
It took my bro less than 2 minutes to uncrack the password.
Channy stood beside him, arms folded tight, eyes hollow in that way that comes after adrenaline leaves.
“Pull everything,” she said. “Messages. Drafts. Voice memos. Deleted shit.”
X nodded once and went to work.
The room was quiet now. Too quiet.
Xavier froze.
“I need you both to look at this,” he said, motioning for Channy and me to come closer.
On the screen:
A message thread.
Cameron:
He’s asking questions again. Your people need to tighten.
Charles:
Already spoke to her. She’s nervous but compliant.
Cameron:
