Total pages in book: 173
Estimated words: 169266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 846(@200wpm)___ 677(@250wpm)___ 564(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 169266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 846(@200wpm)___ 677(@250wpm)___ 564(@300wpm)
The sensation is hard to describe. It starts with a tingling across my skin, like static electricity, as the field activates and expands outward about an inch from my body—just far enough to usually encompass whatever I’m wearing. It’s not my skin doing the work, but something deeper, some kind of localized spacetime distortion that redirects photons around me like water flowing around a stone. For about two hours—give or take, depending on what else I’m doing—I’m a ghost. Cameras can’t see me. Only heat sensors can. I leave no shadow, cast no reflection. The only sign I exist is a faint shimmer in the air if someone knows exactly where to look, a slight distortion, like heat rising off summer pavement. And of course, if someone threw a bag of flour on me or something.
It’s a useful trick, and it lets me do things that would otherwise cause international incidents—like hovering outside hotel windows at midnight, looking for a woman I can’t stop thinking about.
Creepy, the rational part of my brain observes. This is creepy behavior.
I don’t care. I think I’ve earned my right to be a creep.
I circle her floor slowly, peering through each window in turn. Most of them have their curtains closed; most people are asleep, but there are some outliers. A businessman watching TV. An elderly couple reading in bed. A family with two kids sprawled across a pullout couch. Room after room after room, and none of them contain Mia.
She’s probably asleep, curtains closed, end of story.
But what if she’s not? If she’s not here, and she’s not at 30 Rock, then she’s somewhere in this city of eight million people, and I have no idea where.
The darkness pulses at the edges of my vision.
Find her. Take her. Keep her.
I shake my head, trying to clear it.
I force myself to turn away from her empty window and fly home.
The penthouse is dark when I land on the balcony, which is how I left it. What I didn’t leave is the woman sitting in my living room, silhouetted against the city lights like she belongs there.
Julia.
“You’re late,” she says without turning around.
Rage spikes through me, hot and immediate. “How did you get in here?”
“I have access to all Global Dynamix properties.” She swivels the chair to face me, her pale eyes catching the ambient light from outside. She’s still in the pastel-colored suit from the gala, her silver-blonde hair immaculate, her expression unreadable. “Including yours.”
“This is my home,” I say, my teeth grinding. “Not a Global Dynamix property. I own it.”
“Is there a difference?”
The question grates me. Because no, there isn’t. Not really. I couldn’t have this without them. I bought out the deed, but they still own the security systems, the surveillance, the infrastructure. They still own me, no matter how many papers I sign or how much money I throw at lawyers.
“You need to leave,” I say flatly.
“I need to talk to you.” She doesn’t move. “About the journalist.”
My jaw tightens. “What about her?”
“You took her off-grid tonight, flew her somewhere outside our surveillance coverage.” Julia’s voice is calm, measured, but I can hear the edge underneath. The accusation. “Care to explain why?”
“You’re not my mother. I don’t answer to you.”
She waves her hand at that dismissively, not slighted in the least. “You answer to Global Dynamix, and as CTO, that means you answer to me.” She rises from the chair, smooth and controlled, and crosses toward me. “Did you see where she went? After your little…excursion?”
“No.” I hold my ground as she approaches, wondering what exactly she knows. They can track me through my watch; they measure my vitals that way too, no different than any other citizen with such a device. Audio surveillance without my knowledge, though, would be a new one.
“You took her away from our surveillance.” Her eyes flash. “A deliberate choice, I assume.”
I let out a humorless laugh. “I wanted privacy.”
“For what?”
The question hangs between us, loaded with implication. I can smell her perfume, something expensive and cold, giving me a headache. There was a time when Julia’s presence felt comforting. Safe, even. She was the one who found me after Emma died. The one who offered me a chance to become something more than a broken soldier drowning in grief. A chance to make a difference in the world Emma believed in so much.
Now, she just feels like a zookeeper, and I’m the animal in the cage.
“That’s none of your business,” I tell her.
“Everything about you is my business.” She stops inches away, and I fight the urge to back up. “I made you, Nate. Every enhancement, every ability, every cell in your body exists because of my work. You don’t get to have secrets from me.”
“Why are you surveilling her?” I counter. “Mia’s just doing her job. You’re the one who thought this piece would be good for me and the company.”