Page 1 of Override

Prologue

The city is quieter after midnight.

Not silent. Chicago is never silent. There is always something humming beneath it—the distant whine of tires, a siren too far away to matter, music leaking out of a bar door before it slams shut again—but quieter. Muted enough that I can hear the low throb of bass coming through the speakers in my car and the clicking protest in my left shoulder every time I turn the wheel.

Wheels had slammed me with an elbow during extraction. He claimed it was accidental. I claimed he drove like a suicidal raccoon and nearly got us all killed. Matt told us both to shut up.

A successful mission, all things considered.

I pull into my apartment lot and kill the engine, but the music keeps playing for another few seconds, vibrating through the leather seats while I sit there staring through the windshield at the yellow security light above building two. My fingers tap once against the steering wheel in time with the drums. Once. Twice. Then I shut the system down completely and the quiet folds in.

We got the girl back.

That should be enough to let my brain power down.

A father with more money than common sense hired Grayline after his ex-wife vanished with their daughter. Matt took the case because Matt has a soft spot for anything involving kids, even though he pretends he doesn't. Wheels handled transport. Bullet watched our backs from a rooftop three blocks over. I sat in front of six screens for the better part of eighteen hours tracing toll cameras, burner purchases, and one very stupid social media check-in that gave away the mother’s location.

People always slip. Always. You just have to know where to look.

That part of the job never gets old. The search. The patterns. The moment a lie starts unraveling because somebody somewhere thought they were smarter than the system they were trying to beat.

They never are. I smile to myself as I reach over and grab my keys.

The government figured that out before I did.

One day I was nineteen, half asleep, living on gas station coffee and proving to myself that no firewall built by federal employees was actually secure. The next, I was in a room with two humorless men in pressed suits being informed that my choices were prison or patriotism.

I picked patriotism.

Mostly because I am far too pretty for prison.

A laugh escapes me as I climb out of the car, the sound bouncing off the empty lot.

Rachel says it’s weird that I laugh at my own jokes. Rachel also owns decorative towels no one is allowed to use, so her opinion is frequently invalid.

I lock the car and start toward the building, rolling my shoulder once. It aches all the way down into my spine, but it is the good kind of ache. The earned kind. The kind that comes after a mission closes clean and everyone walks away breathing.

Three years ago, when the military spit the four of us back into civilian life with enough classified trauma to fill a landfill, Matt decided retirement looked boring.

He called us all to his kitchen table. Said he wasn't interested in watching us scatter into separate corners of the country pretending we knew how to function like normal men. He had a plan. Matt always has a plan.

Grayline became his answer to the problem. A private security and operations company for the jobs no one else can touch without lawyers, warrants, or body bags. We take the calls that come in hushed voices. We do the work people are too scared, too desperate, or too connected to ask for publicly.

Most days it feels a lot like our old life with less paperwork and significantly better coffee. I prefer it. In the military I was useful. At Grayline, I am necessary. There’s a difference.

Second floor. End unit. Minimal neighbors. Good line of sight from the parking lot. I chose it because the internet infrastructure in the building is decent and because Cindy liked the hardwood floors.

Cindy.

My hand tightens around my keys as I take the stairs. She texted me earlier asking if I was going to be home tonight.

Home yet? Miss you. A red heart.

I think of the memory of it and try to summon something warm.

I like Cindy. That sounds terrible, but it’s true.

She’s easy to be around when she isn’t asking too many questions about where I disappear to for days at a time. She smells expensive. Laughs at things that aren’t funny. Leaves half-empty wine glasses all over my kitchen counter and complains that my place has no personality.