Page 44 of Controlled Drift
Luca leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling.“Huh.”
Marsh blinked.“That’s all you’ve got?”
Luca smiled faintly.“I always wondered who’d be stupid enough to try and steal my brain.”
Ethan didn’t smile.
Niko reached for his hand under the table, grounding himself in the contact.Ethan squeezed back without looking.
“So,” Marsh said, breaking the silence.“We’re officially on the side of preventing digital godhood.”
“Seems reasonable,” Dev muttered.
The conversation unraveled from there into tactics, contingencies, and risk matrices.Niko stayed mostly quiet, watching Ethan think in real time, watching how his questions sharpened the room, how people responded to him like gravity had shifted.
This was the man he’d loved.
This was the man he’d lost.
This was the man who had come back with fire in his eyes and a mind sharp enough to scare gods.
Eventually, the screens filled with farewells.
“Keep us updated,” Bateman said.“If this goes sideways, we’re in.”
Marsh lingered last, still looking at Ethan.“For the record,” he said, “I wasn’t flirting.But if I were, I’d be very bad at it.”
Ethan grinned back.“Thanks for clearing that up.I’m not sure I could handle that intense look on the daily.”
Dev smirked.“That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said about you.”
The feeds cut.
The room went quiet.
Chairs scraped.People stretched.Kael stood, already talking about next steps with Victor and Drew.Luca muttered something about needing coffee.
Niko didn’t wait.
He stood, grabbed Ethan’s hand, and pulled.
Ethan laughed as he stumbled after him.“What’s the hurry?”
Niko didn’t slow down.“Watching you think is hotter than hell.”
Ethan choked on his own laugh.“That is absolutely not a sentence I ever expected to hear.”
“Too late,” Niko said, already dragging him down the hall.“I’ve waited three years to watch your brain work like that.I am not wasting the adrenaline.”
Ethan let himself be pulled, still laughing, still stunned, heart racing for reasons that had nothing to do with danger.
As Niko shoved the bedroom door open and tugged him inside, Ethan thought—very clearly—that some missions were worth abandoning strategy for.
And this one felt like the best decision he’d made all day.
****
Gregory Payne did notthrow things.
