"Let's go," she said. "We have work to do."
She hadn't handed over a key. She hadn't begged. She had done the one thing the fortress had always protected: she had made herself the only variable that mattered. sheena ryder blacked
The blackout was what she called a "controlled fall." No alarms, no police. She would go alone, drag him back into the light, and revoke his parole. Another name on the failure list. Another fortress wall reinforced. "Let's go," she said
The world narrowed to a pinprick. Sheena had no partner. No backup. The fortress she'd built had no doors—for anyone else. She had walked into a trap not of violence, but of leverage. And Marcus, the con man, the ghost, was the black ink they were using to sign her surrender. She had done the one thing the fortress
Marcus looked up. His face was bruised, one eye swollen shut. But his gaze was clear, and it pinned her with a strange, desperate urgency. "Sheena, listen to me. The blackout wasn't a violation. It was a beacon. They needed you to come alone."
She looked at him. Really looked. Past the bruises, past the file she'd memorized. He gave her the tiniest shake of his head. Don't.
Ice water flooded Sheena’s veins. He was right. She had been aggregating data, cross-referencing phone logs, visitation records, and financial patterns of her parolees. She thought she was just being thorough. She had stumbled, blindly, onto the periphery of something vast.