Page 162 of Operation: Defiance

“Okay,” she whispers. “I’m good now.”

I drop my hand, but don’t take a step toward the bedroom until she returns to the table.

A few minutes later, as I tug on my boots, Raine looks up from the screen. “Asher? Be careful. If they aren’t looking for you yet, they will be soon.”

“I know.”

Chapter Thirty-Five

Raine

My eyes keep drifting to the bottom corner of the laptop screen. Forty-five minutes since Asher left.

He’ll have the tech gear by now. But groceries…

He’s fine. I’m fine. Everything’s fine.

I take another sip of tea and focus back on the logs. Four files end in disposal.

Mine.

The man Asher was sent to extract.

And two others. All in the last thirty days.

I map the escalation paths side by side. Two contractor IDs appear in all four. One always shows up near the beginning, right after intake—C-23. The other—C-96—only appears at the end.

Patterns begin to align in my head. They’re not clean. So many of the codes don’t mean anything to me. Until I find a tight cluster across three of the files.

My vision blurs.

A voice I don’t want to remember surfaces anyway.

“This is a correction.”

Fingers dig into the nerve bundle at the base of my neck. A sharp, electric jolt radiates down my spine. I choke back a cry.

I hadn’t even known what I’d done wrong.

I swallow, prepared to feel the hood ties at my throat. But there’s nothing. The music shifts, and it’s enough to pull me back to the present.

I label the codes as a correction and move on.

Other codes bring up sensations I can’t name—and don’t want to. Not alone. Not without Asher nearby.

I’m about to make another cup of tea when the phone rings. I memorized Asher’s number yesterday when he left to pick up my clothes, and this isn’t it.

Inara.

I swipe my finger across the screen but don’t say anything. Just in case.

“Raine? Are you there?” Inara asks, caution in her tone.

“Yes. Did you find something?” My heartbeat ticks up a dozen notches.

“Someone ran your passport number through a federal identity verification system. Probably trying to see if it’s been used recently.”

Cold prickles across my skin.