Page 171 of Operation: Defiance

“They’ll use me as leverage to get to you.”

She nods.

“That would be a mistake.” I press my thigh lightly against her knee. “Leverage only works if you understand the person you’re using.”

“Good.” Raine tugs at the sleeve of her hoodie, one of her little tells I’ve come to learn. “Then we’re aligned.” She leans forward with a slight wince and picks up the remote control. A moment later, the next episode of Law & Order starts up at a low volume.

She drifts—not asleep, not disengaged—letting the cadence of familiar voices and predictable outcomes take over the part of her mind that keeps wanting to run ahead. Her knee stays against my thigh. She doesn’t move it. Neither do I.

I pull my tablet from the side table and rest it on my leg, angling the screen away from her without hiding it. She knows what I’m doing. That matters more than whether she watches.

I start with the alias.

Mason Locke comes apart in layers. Old accounts closed and folded into unrelated activity. Residual logins—changed so many times, a Saint Bernard couldn’t track them—killed. A travel record that never quite existed scrubbed from the handful of places it could still surface. Anything that once connected that name to a physical location is either buried under routine data or cut loose entirely. All but one email address. If anyone decides to push, they’ll push there.

Then I shift my focus to my real identity.

Hard freezes on my credit. Anything that links me to a place or a date gets corrected or stripped.

By the time I’m done, there’s only one version of me in circulation, and if anyone touches him, I’ll know.

Beside me, Raine exhales and sinks deeper into the cushions. The show keeps going. The District Attorney makes his closing argument. The judge rules. Predictable outcomes in a world where everything breaks loudly and on schedule. One where the good guys win in the end.

My phone vibrates on the arm of the couch. I glance sideways. Raine hasn’t noticed. She’s watching the screen, eyes unfocused, letting the noise do its job.

The encrypted mailbox aggregates messages for all the aliases I’ve used in the past five years. This one is owed enough favors to make a difference. And the man on the other end of this text isn’t prone to exaggeration.

I’ve been asking questions about Coherent Path. Anyone with the answers isn’t talking. That doesn’t happen by accident. If I were you, I’d disappear before someone made me.

I read it once, then again, before I return to my tablet. One more account to close, and I’ll have done all I can tonight.

Raine shifts slightly. The movement brings her leg a little closer to mine, but she doesn’t look away from the TV. Not yet.

“That wasn’t nothing.”

“No. But it doesn’t need to be dealt with tonight.”

She nods, then settles a little closer. “Okay. Then you’ll tell me when it does.”

I set my tablet down, drape my arm over the back of the couch, and turn my focus to the television until the credits roll.

“I’m…tired.” She covers her mouth with her hand, stifling a yawn. “Can we…?”

“Get in bed and read?” I reach for the remote, silencing the TV with a click, and turn the volume back up on the Bluetooth speaker.

Raine disappears into the bathroom while I trade in my jeans and Henley for a pair of gym shorts and a t-shirt. When she emerges in her sleep shirt, I let my gaze drift to her bare legs for half a second.

She catches it, and one corner of her mouth lifts, just slightly. She doesn’t comment on it.

By the time I’ve brushed my teeth and taken care of other pressing needs, she’s in bed with the Christie novel open in her lap. I pause, staring at the light gray comforter. At the space where the pillow was this morning. Raine lifts her hand, her fingers brushing the mattress beside her.

It’s an invitation. Brief, but intentional.

I don’t ask if she’s sure. Raine doesn’t do anything she hasn’t thought through ten times over. And for a moment, I’m struck by the sheer normalcy of sharing a bed with a woman I’m starting to truly care for.

She scoots one leg closer, and the tip of her sock brushes my calf. She doesn’t pull away. We read in the quiet of the room for a few pages. As if we aren’t being hunted. As if Raine hasn’t been chewed up by a system designed to leave no survivors. Until she sets her book on the nightstand and turns on her side, facing me. She slides her left hand under her pillow, keeping her right tucked close to her chest, protecting her shoulder.

I mirror her position.