Chapter 10

Because there, buried beneath layers of corporate encryption, was a direct payment from Grayson Analytics to an offshore account tied to The Morrígan Syndicate.

Her company wasn’t just being watched.

They were working with them.

Mika’s vision blurred for a second, her mind racing through every possibility. Was Elliot part of this? Had he known?

No. He couldn’t have. If he had, he never would have sounded so alarmed last night.

Which meant...

Mika swallowed hard.

That’s why he’s missing.

She had to get out.

Now.

Mika kept her head down for the rest of the day.

She forced herself to move like nothing was wrong, to go through the motions of normalcy even as the weight of what she had discovered sat heavy in her chest. Elliot was gone. The files were erased. Her company was tied to The Morrígan Syndicate.

She wanted to scream. She wanted to demand answers.

But she knew better. She had seen what happened to people who asked the wrong questions.

Instead, she buried herself in routine—answering emails, sitting through meetings where the voices around her blurred into background noise, forcing her fingers to type out reports that suddenly felt meaningless.

Every so often, her gaze flicked toward Elliot’s darkened office.

Empty. Like he had never existed at all.

Her stomach twisted.

She had never felt truly safe at Grayson Analytics, but at least she had understood the rules. Now? She had no idea what game she was even playing.

By the time the office clock hit six, Mika was already slipping out, her bag slung over her shoulder as she kept her steps brisk but not frantic. No one could suspect she knew something.

Her body hummed with tension as she stepped onto the city streets, her breath sharp against the cold air. Just get home. Just get home.

She took her usual route.

Or at least, that’s what she wanted them to think.

Halfway down the street, she veered right, ducking into a side alley, her fingers tightening around the strap of her bag. The pounding in her chest wasn’t just paranoia. She knew she was being watched.

But she didn’t know by who.

She turned another corner, slipping into the dim glow of a convenience store, her heartbeat in her throat as she moved past the aisles, pretending to browse.

The old man behind the counter barely looked up as she grabbed a water bottle and took her time walking toward the register. If someone was following her, they’d either keep moving or make themselves known.

She counted to sixty in her head, exhaling slowly before stepping outside. The streets had thinned out, the earlier rush hour traffic settling into something quieter.

Mika started walking again, her pace measured.

And then—

A presence.

She didn’t hear footsteps. Didn’t see anyone step out of the shadows.

But she felt it.

A slow prickle down her spine. A shift in the air that whispered you are not alone.

Mika kept moving, her fingers curled into a fist inside her coat pocket. Don’t run. Don’t look back.

She forced herself to focus on the path ahead, on the blocks that separated her from her apartment. If she could just make it inside—

But the feeling didn’t fade.

If anything, it grew stronger. Closer.

She turned onto her street, her breath catching in her throat as she finally glanced over her shoulder—

And saw nothing.

No lingering figures. No dark shapes in the alleyways. Just the city.

But she wasn’t convinced. Because she knew, somehow, that he was there.

Seamus.

Watching.

Waiting.

His patience was suffocating. He could have stopped her at any moment. Could have let her see him, let her know she wasn’t imagining things.

But he didn’t.

He wanted her to feel it first.

To let the fear settle into her bones. To make her wonder how long he had been watching.

Mika forced herself to keep walking. Forced herself to breathe evenly. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

She reached her apartment building, her fingers cold as she punched in the key code at the front entrance. The lock clicked open, and she stepped inside, her pulse still hammering as she closed the door behind her.

Silence.

She exhaled shakily, resting her back against the door for a moment before locking it.

Outside, across the street, hidden in the shadows between streetlights—

Seamus stood, his hands in his pockets, his gaze sharp and unblinking.

He had found her again.

Seamus watched from the shadows.

He had been following her for days, tracking her movements, learning her routine, watching for any signs of deviation. And tonight, something was off.

Mika wasn’t moving the way she usually did.

She walked with purpose, but her shoulders were tense, her pace just a fraction too quick. She kept her head down, her eyes flicking to shadows, to doorways, to places where no one stood—but where she expected someone to be.

She was scared.

That was new.

Seamus didn’t like things he couldn’t explain. Fear meant something had changed. Something had unsettled her. Something other than him.

He exhaled slowly, watching as she disappeared into her apartment building.

He should have walked away then. Should have let her go. She wasn’t his problem. Not yet.

But instead, he stayed, lingering across the street, his sharp green eyes locked on the closed door.

Something wasn’t right.

It wasn’t just her body language. It was the way she had moved through the city, shifting direction in ways that were deliberate, not random. She had ducked into a convenience store, lingered longer than necessary, taken a side street instead of her usual route.

She knew she was being followed.

That alone wasn’t enough to concern him. Most people had instincts—useless, half-baked survival instincts that twitched when they felt out of place. Most people ignored them.

But Mika hadn’t ignored hers. She had adjusted. Adapted. Tested the space around her.

And that?

That told him she wasn’t just afraid—she was aware.

Seamus’ brows pulled together. Why? What had changed?

A woman like Mika didn’t suddenly become a problem overnight. She wasn’t a liability. She was methodical, quiet, invisible to the world when she wanted to be.

Except now, she wasn’t.

Now, she had been seen.

His fingers twitched at his sides, his pulse steady but measured. Who else had noticed her? Who had made her this paranoid?

The possibility twisted inside him, coiling in the deepest part of his gut.

And then his phone rang.

He pulled it from his pocket, his jaw tightening when he saw the caller ID.

Unknown.

Only one type of call came through unlisted.

He answered.

A low voice, clipped and precise, filtered through the line. “New target. Details incoming.”

Seamus didn’t speak. He didn’t have to.

A second later, his phone vibrated again. A file.

He opened it, scrolling through the attached documents, the brief, the photos, the information detailing the next name on his list—

And then he stopped breathing.

Mika Oshima.