The burner phone sat between them on the coffee table, a black plastic rectangle that felt heavier than a gun.

Anya’s voice was flat, instructional. "Viktor’s secondary number. It routes through three relays. He’ll answer on the fourth ring. Always. You have thirty seconds to establish your grievance and your offer."

Wade stared at the phone. His knee bounced, a nervous tremor he couldn’t stop. The script was in his head, but the words felt like ash.

"Grievance: the department betrayed you. Reed used you. They threw you to the wolves for a witness who’s more trouble than she’s worth," Anya continued, pacing the narrow space. "Offer: the witness, alive, for two hundred thousand in untraceable crypto and a clean exit. You’re not a cop anymore. You’re a mercenary with a commodity."

"Commodity," Wade repeated, the word ugly in his mouth. His eyes found Truenai. She sat perfectly still on the worn sofa, her hands folded in her lap, the picture of a captive. But her gaze was on him, steady and unreadable.

"He’ll want proof of life," Anya said. "During the call. He’ll demand to hear her voice. She needs to sound afraid. Broken."

"I’m not a good actress," Truenai said softly.

"Then think of something that truly frightens you," Anya replied, her tone leaving no room for comfort. "Use it."

Wade reached for the phone. His fingers hovered over it. "Let’s run it."

Anya nodded, taking a position by the curtained window, a silent observer. "I’m Viktor. Fourth ring. Go."

Wade counted the phantom rings in his head. On the fourth, he brought the dead phone to his ear. His voice dropped, roughened by a snarl he didn’t have to fake. "Viktor. This is Deputy Wade Dunn. Former deputy."

A beat. He imagined the cold silence on the other end. "Your pet captain played me. Made me a liability. Now I’ve got your problem in my trunk, and I’m done being a pawn. I want out. I’m selling her."

He paused, listening to the empty line. "Two hundred thousand. Monero. And a path to Mexico. You get the nurse. I get a life."

Anya gave a sharp nod. "Now he asks for proof. He says, ‘Let me hear her. If she’s worth what’s left of your career.’"

Wade lowered the phone. This was the part. He stood, the movement deliberate, and crossed to the sofa. His shadow fell over Truenai. For the script, he had to touch her. To sell it.

He gripped her upper arm. His hand was large, his fingers spanning the soft cotton of her sleeve. He meant it to look forceful. A captor’s move.

But his thumb settled against the inner seam, right over the pulse point in her wrist. He felt her heartbeat, a frantic flutter against his skin.

"He’ll expect you to be afraid," Wade said, his voice low and threatening for the role. But his eyes, locked on hers, held a different promise. A plea. An apology.

He brought the phone closer to her face. His thumb stroked once, slowly, across her racing pulse. A secret caress in the guise of control.

Truenai leaned into his touch, just a fraction. Her nurse’s composure, the careful walls she’d built, gave way. Her lips parted. The sound that came out was a raw whisper, meant for the phone, but her eyes never left his. "Please. Don’t let him take me."

It was perfect. It was terrible.

Wade’s breath caught. His grip tightened, not to hurt, but to feel more of her. The line between performance and reality didn’t just blur—it shattered.

He pulled the phone back, his own voice gravel when he spoke into it. "Satisfied?" He paused, listening to the imaginary response. "Tomorrow. I’ll send the coordinates. No more games." He pretended to end the call, lowering the phone slowly.

The silence in the room was thick, charged. Anya hadn’t moved, but her observer’s gaze was sharp. "The touch was good. Authentic. But your eyes, Deputy. When you looked at her. That’s the part that gets you killed if he sees it in person."

Wade didn’t let go of Truenai’s arm. He couldn’t. "What part?"

"Like you’re the one who’s afraid," Anya said simply. She turned to the window, peering through the slit in the curtains. "Again. From the top."

They ran it again. And again. Each time, Wade’s hand found her. Her shoulder. The back of her neck. Pulling her close for the proof-of-life whisper. Each time, the threat in his voice felt more real, because the threat was real—the world waiting to tear her from him.

Each time, her performance melted into something true. Her "please" became breathier, closer to his ear. Her body, when he hauled her up against his chest for one take, went pliant, trusting. He could feel the heat of her through both their clothes, the gentle swell of her ass pressing against him as he held her from behind.

Wade finally lifted the real burner phone, its plastic shell cool and slick in his palm. He punched in the memorized number, the digits feeling like a death sentence. The line rang once, twice. He held Truenai’s gaze, a silent anchor in the static.

“Speak.” The voice on the other end was like gravel and ice.

“Viktor.” Wade’s deputy-voice was gone. What came out was lower, frayed, a man at the end of his rope. “It’s Dunn. Reed’s deputy.” He let a beat of heavy silence hang. “The one you tried to have buried.”

“A ghost calls.” Viktor’s tone held mild interest. “A problem.”

“The problem is your captain folded. He’s in federal custody, singing. The problem is I’m left holding the one thing you actually want, with nothing to show for it but a bullet scar.” Wade’s jaw worked. He didn’t have to fake the anger; it boiled just under his skin, hot and ready. “The nurse. Truenai Smith. She’s alive. I have her.”

Another pause, longer. Wade could hear the faint sound of music, a piano, in the background on Viktor’s end. The normalcy of it was chilling.

“And what does a ghost want with a living witness?”

“A new life.” Wade’s eyes never left Truenai’s. “You want her silenced? I’ll deliver her. Conscious, unconscious, your choice. In exchange for two hundred thousand and a clean exit. You get your loose end tied. I get to disappear.”

“A deputy selling his witness.” Viktor chuckled, a dry, unpleasant sound. “The corruption is… efficient. Proof of life.”

Wade’s hand shot out, grabbing Truenai’s bicep. He pulled her closer, the move rough, theatrical. He brought the phone to her mouth. His thumb pressed against her lips, a silent command. He felt her breath, hot and rapid, against his skin.

“Say your name,” Wade growled into the phone, his face inches from hers.

Truenai’s voice trembled, a perfect, terrified vibration. “Truenai Smith.”

“Again.”

“Truenai Smith!” Her cry was sharper, laced with genuine distress. His grip was tight, his proximity overwhelming. Wade pulled the phone back, his other hand sliding to the nape of her neck, fingers tangling in her hair. It wasn’t in the script. He just needed to touch her.

“Satisfied?” Wade barked into the receiver.

“Her fear sounds expensive,” Viktor mused. “Location.”

“Not over the line. You send a car. One man. Unarmed driver only. I’ll be watching. He gets the coordinates on a phone at a neutral location. He brings the money in a duffel. I verify it. He gets the woman. Any deviation, any extra heat, and I vanish with her. You lose your shot. Forever.”

The piano music stopped. The silence from Viktor’s end was absolute. “Tomorrow. Noon. You will receive a number for the driver. You have until then to reconsider your price, ghost.”

The call died. Wade lowered the phone. The silence in the safe house was a physical weight. His hand was still in Truenai’s hair, his other still vise-tight on her arm. He was breathing hard. So was she. The performance was over, but the adrenaline was real, screaming through his veins.

Anya exhaled slowly from her post by the window. “He bit. The anger was good. The personal grievance. He’ll believe that.”

Wade finally released Truenai, his hands falling to his sides. They felt empty, cold. She took a shaky step back, her arms wrapping around herself. The spot where he’d held her arm would likely bruise. The thought sent a ugly twist of pride through him—a mark, however small, that he’d been there.

“He’ll have snipers,” Anya continued, turning to face them. “Not at the exchange. On every rooftop overlooking it. The driver won’t be armed, but twenty rifles will have you in their crosshairs the moment you step into the open.”

“Then we don’t step into the open,” Wade said, his mind already racing past the fear, into the mechanics. “The coordinates I send will be for a parking garage. Low ceiling, limited sighlines. We choose the level.”

“He’ll expect a double-cross.”

“He’ll expect *my* double-cross,” Wade corrected, his gaze drifting back to Truenai. She was watching him, her nurse’s assessment gone, replaced by a raw, open apprehension. “Not ours.”

Anya nodded, a flicker of respect in her haunted eyes. “You have twelve hours to pick the battlefield. I’ll scout options. You two…” She looked between them. “Stay sharp. And for God’s sake, get some sleep. You look like hell.”

Anya gathered her coat, a dark silhouette against the blacked-out window. She paused at the door, her hand on the knob. “Twelve hours,” she said, without looking back. “Don’t waste them on each other.” The door clicked shut behind her, leaving a vacuum of silence.

The hiss of sleet against the glass was the only sound. Wade stood frozen in the center of the worn rug, the ghost of Viktor’s voice still in his ear, the feel of Truenai’s hair still on his fingers. His heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic drum from the call, but beneath it, a deeper, slower beat had taken root. A need.

Truenai hadn’t moved. She stared at the door, her arms still wrapped tight around her middle. The lamp light caught the tremor in her hands.

“He believed you,” she said, her voice thin.

“He believed the anger.” Wade’s own voice was rough, scraped raw. “It wasn’t a performance.”

She turned then. Her hazel eyes were wide, the teasing glint utterly gone. “When you said you’d vanish with me. Was that?”

He crossed the space between them in three strides. He didn’t plan it. His body moved. He stopped a foot from her, close enough to feel the heat coming off her skin, to see the rapid flutter of her pulse in her throat. “No.”

She released a shaky breath. Her gaze dropped to his left arm, to the dark bloom of fresh blood seeping through his gray t-shirt at the shoulder. “Your sutures. They’re torn.”

“I know.”

“You need to let me look at it.”

“Later.”

“Wade—”

He reached out, his fingers hovering just above the skin of her forearm, where he’d gripped her during the call. A faint redness was already blooming. The ugly twist of pride returned, hotter now. He touched the edge of the mark, the pad of his thumb tracing the line his fingers would make. Her breath hitched.

“I hurt you,” he said. It wasn’t an apology. It was a fact, heavy in the air.

“Yes.”

“Tell me to stop.”

She didn’t. She leaned into the touch, her arm turning until his thumb pressed into the center of the coming bruise. A silent offering. A confession.

The control he’d clung to—the deputy, the protector, the bait—snapped. He cupped the back of her neck, his other arm banding around her waist, and pulled her against him. He buried his face in the space between her neck and shoulder, inhaling the scent of antiseptic soap and her, just her. His whole body shuddered.

“I can’t do this,” he muttered into her skin, his voice breaking. “I can’t hand you over. Even as a trick. Even for a second.”

Her hands came up, one sliding into his hair, the other splaying flat against his back, over the pounding of his heart. “You won’t be.”

“You heard Anya. Twenty rifles.”