The table stretched straight and unbending, long scarred wood under a scatter of fresh printouts and yesterday's maps, corners curled from handling. The air felt altered, rinsed cleaner, edged with the faint bite of disinfectant and the dry heat of coffee steaming from the urn in the corner. Harper sat midway along the run, Cole on her left, Price on her right, the rest of the crew spaced out along the benches. All of them faced the far end where Vex stood with Nolan and Brock. The three men formed a fixed silhouette against the pale glow of the monitor, its looping footage washing cold light across their faces.
Last night he'd left her door resting against the jamb, a thin line of hall light across the floor where the lock usually sat between them. It had tilted the whole room off its usual angle. She'd watched that line until the meds dragged her under and still stayed in the bed. He'd trusted her not to run. He'd been right. Morning was his knock, a tray and coffee on the desk, his hand at her elbow steering her through the corridors into this chair in the briefing room.
Nolan's voice carried steady. "Two trucks taken. No losses. Cargo's already inventoried and getting staged for transfer. Timing at the choke point held. Pike's lockdown did what it was supposed to. Truck Two tried to push the side lane—reinforcements came in heavier than intel. That stretched the engagement, but we cut it down and both trucks came out clean."
Vex's gaze shifted down the table until it landed on Brock. "I was made aware there was a deviation?"
Harper's hand flattened against her thigh under the table. The word pulled an older one up with it, Vex's voice in the office down the hall, telling her once was all it would take for him to end her. She saw Vale's gaze flick her way from across the table.
Brock didn't look at her when he answered. "Voss left her post at Truck One without orders and moved through the containers to my position on the spur. When she got there, she shoved me out of the line of fire from a flanker coming through a container gap and took the hit instead. It gave me the opening to put him down." He let the words hang, then added, "It wasn't in the plan, but it was the right call in that moment."
The silence after was heavy enough to touch. Heat curled in Harper's chest, tangled up with the way he'd framed it. The acknowledgment. The fact he'd said it in front of everyone. Her stitches tugged when she drew a breath. A boot tapped against her knee under the table—Cole, a flicker of wry approval before his gaze slid forward again.
Vex's focus cut to her. "Regardless of the outcome, you still disobeyed a direct order. That isn't how we operate." His tone stayed level, but it carried. For a second she waited for the rest, the part where he cashed in the threat he'd laid down in his office down the hall. It didn't come.
Vex straightened before he continued. "That said, two trucks secured, cargo intact, and no one came home in a bag. That's the job. You did it."
Air slipped out of her in a slow, uneven breath, relief sitting strange in her chest.
"You'll draft the after-action with Nolan," he went on. "Every move, every call, in sequence. Learn where the gaps were and why they matter."
Nolan turned his head just enough to catch her eye, one brow lifting, half challenge and half promise. She held his look.
"Everyone else, clear out. Lawson, Reyes, Voss—stay."
Chairs scraped back, legs rasping against the scarred floor. The shuffle of boots filled the room as the team rose, low voices passing over her head. Faces and shoulders moved past in a loose stream toward the door, some indifferent, some curious. Vale's glance as he passed was brief and cool, the kind that measured and dismissed in the same instant. Mason didn't look at her at all, just tipped his chin at Brock before stepping out. Cole gave her knee a quick tap under the table as he went, a ghost of a grin gone before she could catch it.
The door thudded shut behind the last of them. The air felt heavier for their absence, too still, the faint hum of the monitor loud against the hollow quiet. She stayed frozen midway down the table while Brock and Nolan dropped into seats nearer the head. Vex didn't sit. He braced his hands on the table's edge, eyes fixed on Brock like she was an entry in a ledger they were both reviewing.
Vex's tone stayed calm, as if he were discussing supply inventory. "Three months was the deal. You've had almost two. The Maw raid gave me an early look at what she can do." His gaze cut across Harper just long enough to remind her she was the subject. "It also showed me the gaps. She moved when she shouldn't have. That's enough to tell me one thing: the clock doesn't matter if the foundation's still unsteady."
Cold slid through her, a clear drop in her gut. That sounded less like a warning and more like an ending.
Brock's shoulders tightened before he let them ease back, one arm hooking over his chair. "Off one op, you're getting half the picture," he said. "If you're ready to throw out the clock, at least do it off a full read. Give her a few more runs, something controlled and clean, then you'll know if she holds."
Nolan shifted, broad shoulders easing against the chairback, his eyes cutting from Vex to Brock in a slow, measuring pass before they settled back to Harper.
Vex studied Brock for a long moment, unreadable, then tipped his chin. "Two more jobs. She completes both, inside her lane, and then I'll make the call. If she doesn't, I don't need the month to know."
Her fingers curled hard against the scarred wood, the words lodging under her ribs. Two jobs. The cushion of time was gone; the clock had nothing left to offer her. Just a line she had to hold.
The faintest trace of something like satisfaction moved through Brock's eyes before it vanished. Harper's grip whitened on the table edge before she eased it back.
Vex straightened from the table. "That's it for now. Lawson—with me." He didn't wait for a reply, just turned for the door.
Brock's gaze cut to her, that half second of hesitation she recognized now. He didn't leave her unattended. If she was out of his sight, there was a lock in play, and this was the first time Vex had pulled him away while she stayed on the wrong side of an open door. Something tight climbed up under her ribs.
Vex caught the pause, one brow ticking. "Nolan will keep her on task. She's got her report to begin."
Nolan leaned back in his chair, the slow curl of a grin settling under his stubble. "Lucky me."
Brock's eyes stayed on her a moment longer, a silent check she'd learned to read, before he pushed up from the table and followed Vex out. The door shut behind them, leaving only the hum of the lights and Nolan's amused stare.
For a few seconds she felt the absence like a pulled wire. No Brock at her shoulder, no lock between her and the room, just Nolan across the table and the space he could cross in a step.
"Alright, Firefly," he said, dragging a stack of printouts and a folded map from down near Brock's end. Papers whispered across the table as he worked them into a loose pile, then scooped the whole thing up and dropped into the seat beside her.
The chair creaked under his weight, close enough that she felt the air shift with him. The nickname prickled, not playful in his mouth but something that pinned her in place. She kept still, eyes flicking to the edge of the papers instead of him, every muscle tuned to whether this would tip toward menace or something else, the memory of other men in doorways standing up at the back of her mind.
"Let's make your side of this read clean."
He flipped the map open between them, smoothing the crease with the side of his hand, and slid a pen her way. "Start here—Truck One's hold. Structure it: objective, timeline, positions, comms, deviation, outcome. Full sentences."
She hesitated a fraction, then leaned in, elbow settling on the table, fingertip tracing the lane. Better to focus on the page than on him. "Cole on the rear, Price on the—"
The shift in her chair tugged at her ribs, pain bright enough to steal her breath. She swallowed hard to cover it.
"You good?" His tone was light; his eyes weren't.
Her jaw clicked. For a moment she waited for the jab, the smirk. It didn't come. "It's fine," she said, eyes fixed on the paper. "Stitches just hate me."
"Yeah, well, hate 'em back by not tearing 'em open." His pen tapped the map, brisk. "And don't write 'I felt.' It's 'I observed' or 'I heard.' Driver's or passenger side—pick one."
The tension in her shoulders eased, not gone but shifted. She adjusted the page under her hand. "Driver's side. I observed Cole covering rear approach, Price on the driver's side close to the bumper. Objective was to hold Truck One until relief arrived."
"Better." He opened a radio log, thumb marking a line. "Timeline: you moved when?"
Her pen hovered, the hesitation obvious.
"Mark it," he said, eyes scanning. "Overwatch called the push at 05:46. Make your departure 05:58 and note why."
She wrote, slow and uneven. "Okay… 05:58, fire came in from the stacks on the passenger side of Truck One. I moved to find the shooter, and one of them rushed me, close enough to grab. I put him down. After that I heard heavier fire from the spur, so I cut through the containers to back them up."
Nolan's pen froze. His head lifted, eyes on her. "Close enough to grab?"
Her jaw went tight. "He tried. Didn't land it."
For a moment he didn't write. His stare weighed, like he was trying to decide where to file her now that he knew she'd taken that on alone. Then his pen moved again. "We'll call it 'engaged at close range, neutralized.' Clean."
He spoke as he wrote, voice back to even. "Positions: Team Two forward of Truck Two's bumper; Gunner floating passenger side; Vale rear. Comms: brief callouts only, fire covering movement."
Harper nodded, sketching routes and cover points in uneven lines while he mirrored the cleaner version beside hers. Every so often he cut in: "call it driver, not near," "name the shooter if you saw a patch," "don't assume—if you didn't see it, leave it out," never making it sound like a test, never letting it slide either.
When she reached the moment she'd shoved Brock into the panel, her pen stilled. "I yelled at him, then pushed him out of the way. Took a graze on my left side. He dropped the guy coming through the gap."
Nolan angled the page toward himself, dictating as he wrote. "Deviation: left assigned post without orders; upon arrival, issued verbal warning, physically displaced Lawson from active fire lane; enemy flanker emerged through container gap; Lawson engaged and neutralized target." He flicked his pen toward her. "Chain of care."
She pressed the pen down again. "Graze to the ribs, left side. Graves patched it when we got back." Her breath snagged on the words, memory tugging along her side like fresh stitches catching.
"Noted." He underlined Outcome, nodding at her page.
She bent back over it. "Outcome… both trucks secured. No Syndicate dead. Cargo intact. Fight ran longer 'cause they brought more men than we thought."
"Good. Add: 'Lessons learned—maintain comm discipline; confirm relief ETA before leaving hold; flanker risk on lateral gaps higher than expected.' Keep it simple."
They worked through the map piece by piece, filling the seams between what she'd seen and what the team had logged. His notes stayed neat, angled and deliberate, each page stacked in order before they moved on. She found herself matching his pace, the rhythm settling into something steady—point, mark, write—until the wall clock's buzz marked hours instead of minutes. Somewhere in there, his presence shifted from something to watch to something to follow.
When her shorthand clipped into fragments, he tapped a finger on the blank space and didn't move on until she filled it properly. If she wrote vague, he leaned back and waited, pen idle, until she rewound and wrote it clear. He didn't hurry her, but he didn't let her slide either, pulling her up into the language line by line.
By the time they closed the last folder, her side ached from sitting too long in the same position and the edges of her concentration were fraying. Nolan stretched, rolling his shoulders until they cracked, and gathered the stack into a tidy pile.
"Not bad, kid," he said, sliding the top sheet straight. "Could've written it worse for you, but I'm generous like that."
She gave him a sideways look. "That the story you're going with?"
"Positive," he replied, a corner of his mouth ticking up. "Now let's get food in you before I hand you back to your shadow."
Her stomach answered first, a low twist reminding her she hadn't eaten yet today. She pushed up, the pull in her side flaring, and his gaze flicked away in the small courtesy of pretending not to see.
Nolan gathered the pages under one hand and nudged his chair back. "Come on," he said, heading for the door. "We'll hit the kitchen while Lawson's busy getting his ear chewed."
He set an easy pace down the corridor and into the elevator, thumb hitting the button without checking the panel. The drop and hum of the car pressed briefly through her knees before the doors slid open on the familiar hallway.
The cafeteria buzzed the way it always did, low conversation under the clatter of trays and the scrape of cutlery, but the room felt different without Brock beside her. Nolan led the way through the double doors, past the fry-stale air and the dull gray walls she already knew, straight to the service line.
She kept pace, tray in hand, head angled down while the weight of the room pressed in. Eyes cut her way and didn't cut back. Some were quick, almost reflexive; others lingered, gauging, like they couldn't decide whether to dismiss her or take her measure. A ripple of words rolled through one table, pitched low but aimed squarely in her direction. Nolan's presence at her shoulder helped, but it didn't change the way the room watched.
Nolan didn't say anything, just loaded a sandwich and coffee onto his tray. She picked a plate of eggs and toast—safe, plain, something she trusted under the heat lamps—and followed when he steered them to a two-top against the wall. His chair angled with the room in view, back covered, attention split between her and the space around them.
"You'll get used to it," he said once they sat, nodding toward the room.
She gave him a look. "Been stared at before."
"Not like this." His tone stayed flat, but his eyes flicked over the tables, lingering on the ones still watching. "Before, they were staring at Lawson's prisoner. Now they're staring at you."
The word settled different this time. Prisoner. For a second she blinked at him, the line catching somewhere she hadn't expected. It had felt like a chain around her neck the first time he said it; now it felt closer to a door cracked open. Her fork slipped into the eggs, movement for the sake of it, the taste secondary to the quiet shift still settling in her chest.
They ate in relative quiet, talk skimming over supplies and weather until his phone buzzed against the table. He glanced down, jaw set, then pushed back his chair.
"Garage." The word was for her as much as whoever was calling. He stood, tray abandoned, already angling toward the doorway. "Two minutes. Don't go anywhere."
He stopped just inside the entrance, half-turned, phone to his ear, his gaze tracking the room and then fixing back on her. A line of sight, deliberate.
Still, the space felt thinner without him at the table. She kept her eyes on her plate, fork scraping against eggs gone cool, the sound louder against the low churn of voices around her.
That was when a shadow cut across the table, long and deliberate.
"You're Voss, right?" A Syndicate enforcer, late twenties, nose set crooked like it had been broken more than once. His voice was casual, but there was an edge under it. "The one Lawson's been babysitting."
Her fork froze over the plate. The weight of the eyes around them pressed closer, thicker now that Nolan wasn't in reach. She let herself take a breath, steadied her shoulders, then lifted her gaze.
"That what they're calling it?"
"That's what it looks like." He hooked a chair from the next table with his boot and dropped into it backward, arms folded on the backrest. Two of his buddies angled their seats just enough to watch, grins flickering like they were waiting for the show. "Everyone knows you're a Viper. Everyone knows you were in a cage not too long ago, the whole compound heard about him dragging your sorry ass in here bleeding all over the floor. Now, suddenly you're sitting here like you earned a place at this table."
Her fork slipped down onto the plate, pulse thudding at her throat. She forced her chin up, tried to steady her voice. "Maybe I did."
His mouth ticked—not a smile, something colder. "Funny thing about this place. You don't get handed a seat—you earn it. And if you're sitting here after coming in in cuffs…"
Her eyes flicked, quick, toward the doorway. Nolan was still on the phone, head angled away, the line of his shoulders turned from her. The room pressed tighter when she looked back.
"…feels like the answer was between Lawson's sheets."
The fork hit her tray harder than she meant it to. "You want to say that again?"
He caught the bite and grinned. "Didn't think you'd need it repeated. Must be nice—other people bleed, you just open your legs and call it even."
Her chair scraped as she shoved back from the table, the sound cutting through the room. "Careful. You're starting to sound like you've been picturing it."
A ripple of laughter rolled from his table, low and ugly. He leaned in anyway, elbows on the chair back, grin widening. "Oh, I'm picturing it, sweetheart. Him bending you over and you moaning loud enough the whole floor knows why you're still breathing."
She was on her feet before she registered moving, heat spiking through her stitches. "Say that again and see what happens."
The man's grin widened at the way she was standing, stitches tugging under her shirt, fork clenched tight in her fist. "Touchy. What's the matter, sweetheart—you fuck your way upstairs and now you blush when the room knows it?"
Her jaw locked, a retort loading on her tongue—
Nolan cut his call short. He stepped away from the doorway, eyes already on them, reading the tilt of her shoulders and the smirk plastered across the other man's face. He crossed the space without breaking stride.
"Ryker." His voice carried flat, edged steel under it. "Fuck off."
Ryker's mouth twitched like he had more filth ready to spill. Nolan closed the gap, not fast, not loud, just close enough that the air shifted heavy between them. The grin faltered. Ryker tipped his chin in a mock salute, the scrape of his chair legs grating as he shoved back and drifted toward his table.
Nolan dropped into his seat across from her, gaze steady. "Don't bite when they're fishing. You give 'em a show, they'll circle back for more."
Harper eased down into her chair, pulse tight in her throat. Her hand found the fork again, grip not quite steady. "Yeah," she said, eyes on the plate.
He didn't push it—just picked up the half-eaten sandwich on his tray and took a slow bite, watching long enough to be sure she'd steadied before turning his attention back to his food.