Page 170 of Operation: Defiance

“I do.”

She nods, some of the tension easing from her shoulders. “I’m not ready to act on it yet. Not tonight. There’s someone I can call tomorrow. Someone I think…survived it—is surviving it. But I need to let things settle before I know what to ask her.”

“If she’s being monitored…”

“There’s no evidence monitoring includes real-time surveillance,” Raine says. “But that’s why I need to ask the right questions. In the right way. And use a burner we trash as soon as I hang up.”

“Okay. I still have three in the closet.”

That surprises her. “Only three?”

“There are five more in the storage unit in the basement,” I admit.

“That tracks.” She inhales, and a hint of a smile curves her lips. “The potatoes smell good. Can I…help with anything?”

“If you feel up to it, you can set the table. Otherwise, relax. I’m almost done.”

After the dishes are put away, we move to the couch, sitting close enough our shoulders almost touch. Close enough it wouldn’t take much.

Raine draws her legs up, curling slightly so her knee rests against my thigh. Another choice that feels like more than a tiny victory.

“I’m burning everything related to Mason Locke,” I say quietly. “He’s not tied to this safe house in any way. Neither is Asher Cole, for that matter.”

She turns her head just enough to look at me. “What about the client?” she asks. “The one who sent you⁠—”

“He can’t expose Locke without exposing himself. And he’s too much of a coward. If he weren’t, he’d have extracted the target on his own.”

“Asher, if nothing else, they have your face. I only ever saw one camera the whole time,” she says, her voice rough. “After the first couple of hours, they never removed the hood. But I heard them.”

“They have me entering, yes. And in the hall outside the cells. They even have me escorting a detainee. But there were no cameras in that tiny room they’d put you in.”

Raine flinches once, and I kick myself for not being more careful with her. Even if she does deserve the unvarnished truth.

“I didn’t take off your hood until we were in the loading bay. There was only a single camera there, and I kept us out of range.”

She nods, processing again. “GSD has access to global facial recognition systems. They’ll tie Mason Locke to any other alias that’s ever been caught on traffic cameras, gone through an airport, gotten a passport, a driver’s license…and one of those is going to link back to Asher Cole.”

“There isn’t a single photo, fingerprint, or travel document tied to Asher in at least eighteen years. I’m very careful with my real name.”

Raine frowns. “You weren’t with me.”

“No,” I agree. “I wasn’t. And I have no regrets.”

She exhales slowly, filing that away somewhere for later.

“I texted Inara while I was at the store. She’s expanding her searches to include Mason and the shell company tied to this apartment. She’d already found Mason’s driver’s license photo and knows he’s…well…me. Anything pops, she’ll call.”

“That helps.” I can feel the truth of her words in the way her knee presses more firmly against my thigh. She’s quiet for a moment. “They’ll tighten the net before they move,” she says. “They have access to financial patterns. Communications metadata. Travel. Not everything at once, but enough to look for correlation.”

I nod. That fits with what I know about the Global Security Directorate.

“They don’t need certainty,” she continues. “Just justification. Once they have it, they’ll move on both of us.”

Both of us.

“If they catch me,” she says, her voice barely above a whisper, “they’ll finish what they started. They won’t bother erasing me. They’ll move straight to disposal. And if they catch you…”

Her pause tells me more than words ever could. I finish the thought for her.