Page 155 of What We Bury

Micah’s face does something complicated. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, nothing.” Milo examines his fingernails. “Just that the cameras I set up caught you.”

The room goes still.

“You fucking what?” I demand, rounding the bar.

Micah’s mouth drops all the way open. “What cameras, Milo?”

“Security cameras,” Milo says, pulling out his tablet and holding it up. Four feeds—front door, hallway, living room, kitchen. All showing Sage’s empty apartment in real time. “I installed them when I swapped the lock and cut the keys. Wide-angle, motion-activated, cloud-backed. It’s basic operational security?—”

“Cloud-backed?” I cut in.

Milo stops.

“Tell me you didn’t put our exposure point, her roommate, and half this crew inside a backup anyone with a login could access.”

“I’m not that careless, Holden,” he argues. “Security is multi-layered. I’m the only one with access.”

“You put cameras in her home.” Eli jumps to his feet. “Without her knowledge. Without her consent.”

“Not in the bathroom! Not in the bedroom! Just common areas. Entrances. Her roommate’s boyfriend is a walking red flag. If he shows up when none of us are?—”

“Give me that.” I take the tablet out of his hands before he can stop me and scroll back through the stored footage. Living room. Kitchen. Hallway. Days of it.

I watch it in reverse, fast. Sunday afternoon: Amy, two coffees in a cardboard tray, sitting close on the couch and then folding around her phone like it bit her. Before that?—

Me.

Earlier Sunday. Me in her doorway. Me crowding her into the frame, my hand in her hair, her mouth open under mine. The kiss I’ve spent two days pretending I had under control.

Milo caught it. Milo could have watched it. Anyone with the login could have.

I keep scrolling, jaw locked, because if I stop on that frame I’ll put his head through the wall. There’s a bunch of her with Micah. Sage climbing into his lap, them kissing. Eli lifting her off the couch and carrying her to bed. Knox and Sage through the door. Milo at the stove.

Days of her. The most private hours of her week.

I turn the tablet face-down on the table, my stomach dropping when I realize my own part is in there too. “How much did you watch?”

Milo has the decency to look uncomfortable. “I didn’t watch them fuck, if that’s what you’re asking. The bedroom feed doesn’t exist. I’ve just seen enough to know they?—”

“Enough.” Knox’s voice. One word. The quarter has stopped moving, his hand closed around it in a fist.

Micah hasn’t said anything. He’s standing behind the bar, both hands flat on the surface, his knuckles white. When he finally speaks, his voice is so cold it doesn’t sound like him at all.

“You watched her in her own home. Without her knowing.”

“I watched all of us. It wasn’t targeted at?—”

“It doesn’t matter who it was targeted at.” Micah’s eyes are hard. “She gave us her trust, and you repaid that by turning her apartment into a surveillance op.”

“We’re literally surveilling her! That’s the job!”

“From outside,” Eli snaps. “From across the street. Where she knows we are. Where she’s agreed to it. There’s a line, Milo, and you didn’t just cross it, you installed fucking cameras on it.”

The room is vibrating. I’ve seen these men angry before—the cold, operational kind of anger that comes before a kill. This is different. This is personal. Milo looks around at all four of us and for the first time since I’ve known him, the performance drops completely. No grin. No deflection. Just a man realizing he’s fucked up.

“Okay,” he says quietly. “I hear you.”