Page 126 of Override

The sound surprises me enough that I glance around the empty room.

As if someone might have heard it. As if someone might question where it came from.

The loneliness settles beside me again.

Quieter this time. Less sharp.

Because for the first time in weeks, I don't feel completely alone with it.

And that realization might scare me more than anything else.

Chapter 26

Keaton (Skee)

The conference table in Matt and Rachel's dining room is covered in files. Actual paper files, because Matt insists some things are easier to see spread across a table instead of on a screen. Personally, I think he's eighty-seven years old trapped in a thirty-eight-year-old body.

The operation itself is straightforward.

At least by Grayline standards.

A biotech company in Seattle has a senior researcher attempting to walk away with proprietary research and sell it overseas. The company can't prove it, the FBI can't move without evidence, and the board wants answers before millions of dollars disappear into a competitor's hands.

Which means we do what Grayline does best.

We watch.

We wait.

We collect enough evidence that nobody can argue with the truth.

Rachel sets a plate of cookies in the middle of the table before disappearing back into the kitchen. Across from me, Bullet studies surveillance photos with the same unreadable expression he wears for just about everything. Wheels is somehow upside down in his chair, balancing on two legs for reasons known only to him, while Matt quietly works through travel logistics with a yellow highlighter in one hand.

I should be paying attention.

Instead, my phone vibrates against the table.

Just once.

Before I can stop myself, I glance down.

The Gallagher feeds load almost instantly.

Maeve is curled into the oversized chair in the library with a book resting in her lap. From anyone else's perspective, she'd look completely absorbed.

Mine tells me she hasn't turned the page in almost four minutes.

The familiar ache settles somewhere beneath my ribs before I can talk myself out of it. My fingers move on instinct, pinching the screen to zoom in just enough to check her face.

"How's she doing?" Rachel's voice catches me completely off guard.

I look up to find her standing beside the table with a steaming mug cradled between both hands. Every conversation around the room has somehow stopped.

Traitors.

Every last one of them.

I flip my phone over, face down on the table.