Page 70 of Make Them Pay

"The crew. The work. The whole thing. Not as Poe's sister. Not as your partner. As me. Enley Cameron. The person who mapped a criminal empire from a storage unit and built a biometric exploit in ninety minutes and went through a nineteen-year-old's bank account because the evidence was worth the cost. That person. I want her to have a seat at the table."

He turns off the stove, and gives me his full attention. The weight of it, the focused, unwavering quality that used to feel like surveillance and now feels like sunlight.

"You've always had a seat at the table," he says. "The table just didn't know it yet."

I call Dean the next morning, and tell him my answer. He says, "Good. Be here Monday. Lark's been asking when you're starting for three weeks."

Monday. I start on Monday. A seat at the table in the room where the work happens. Not on the other side of the wall. Not in the safe little space that Poe built with good intentions and insufficient understanding. At the table. Where I belong.

Render drives me to Maddox Security on Monday morning. The building is unremarkable from the outside, commercial office space in a district that specializes in unremarkable, the kind of facade that says "nothing interesting here" with the specific conviction of a place that is hiding everything interesting behind its ordinariness.

Inside, the crew is waiting. Not formally. They're just... there. Arrow at his workstation with a second chair pulled up beside it. Gage leaning against the doorframe with a coffee mug that says "World's Okayest Hacker" which is either a gift or a trophy and I'm afraid to ask which. Knight in the corner, acknowledging my arrival with a nod that contains the compressed warmth of a man who watched me run digital infrastructure during a facility breach and has revised his assessment accordingly.

Lark sits on Ozzy’s desk, feet dangling. She’s chewing gum and blows a bubble occasionally and Ozzy keeps trying to pop it.

“Seriously, River’s got every girl in here chewing that Misfit gum,” Ozzy mutters.

“It’s only the best,” River says, standing and crossing the room to offer me a piece of gum.

I smile and take a piece, removing the wrapper and popping it into my mouth. “Thanks,” I say, and Ozzy rolls his eyes.

“Oh no, she’s recruited another one.”

Gage laughs. “The gum’s not half bad.”

I glance around, looking for the one person who I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for him.

Poe’s at the back. Standing. Arms crossed. His face has healed to the point where the damage is visible only in certain light, the ghost of bruises that have faded but not disappeared, the thin scar along his hairline that will be there permanently. He looks at me walking into the operations center and the expression on his face is the one from the porch: love and pride and the specific, complicated letting-go of a brother who built a wall to protect someone and is now watching her walk through the door he left open.

"Don't break anything on your first day," he says.

"No promises."

Arrow spins his chair to face me. "I've set up your workstation. Dual monitors. Custom encryption suite. The ghost layer Render built is preloaded but I've added some modifications based on that rotation fix you designed in the cabin. Also, your coffee order is a flat white with an extra shot, which Gage is going to get because he lost a bet."

Gage pushes off the doorframe. "I didn't lose a bet. I lost an argument, which is different."

"You argued that Enley wouldn't join for at least six months. She joined in three. That's a bet you lost."

"That's a prediction that was optimistically wrong. There's a difference."

"The difference is you owe her a flat white."

I sit down at the workstation. Dual monitors. Custom encryption suite. A chair that swivels and a desk that's solid and a view of a room full of people who started in a printing shop and built something that saves lives and are now, apparently, willing to let the sister with the stolen fries and the self-taught code sit beside them and do the work.

Render stands behind me. He doesn't say a word. He doesn't need to. After everything we've survived, the simple fact he's here is enough..

I open the laptop. The ghost layer loads. The screens fill with data.

I start working.

Epilogue

RENDER

One year later.

The loft is louder than it used to be.