Page 14 of Make Them Pay

The words make my chest squeeze tight. I know what that means. They’re hurting my brother down there where no one can hear, trying to break him because Serafina wants the financial network he built and Poe’s refusing to give it to her.

My left hand starts trembling again. I tuck it into my lap. “Ross could be the one helping Orchid,” I whisper. “It makes sense. How else would Orchid be able to send these messages.”

“Quite possibly.”

“We need to move faster,” I say.

“We need to move smarter. Fast without smart gets people killed.”

“Smart without fast means Poe keeps suffering while we sit here drinking mint water.”

He looks at me then. Really looks. The careful mask he usually wears slips for a moment, and I see the raw worry underneath. He cares about my brother almost as much as I do. That shared urgency feels like the first real brick he’s taken out of the wall between us.

“I know,” he says. “I’ve been hearing that clock too. Since before I came for you.”

The admission means something. Render doesn’t share vulnerability easily. The fact that he’s telling me this feels important.

I nod. We get back to work.

The morning settles into the rhythm we’ve built over the past few days. He focuses on the physical plans, possible ways in and out, guard movements. I handle the hidden messages from Orchid, looking for more details, and work on ways to keep our communications invisible. We sit side by side.

At eleven forty-seven the proximity alarm goes off.

It’s a small sensor Render placed near the start of the driveway. When something bigger than a deer moves through, it sends an alert to the laptop. Three signals appear on the screen. Moving on foot. Spread out in a search pattern.

“Three signatures,” Render says, voice calm but his body already in motion. He grabs the go-bag and starts packing.

I check the feed. Three heat signatures coming down the driveway. Not random hikers. This is deliberate.

“How did they find us?” My voice stays steady. I’m proud of that because I feel anything but steady.

“Doesn’t matter right now.” He shoulders the main bag and reaches for the second one with extra supplies. Then he stops, and looks at the table. The laptop. The router. The drives holding everything we’ve built.

“We can’t carry all of it,” he says.

The simple sentence changes everything.

The laptop goes in the main bag. It has all our keys and setup. The router too. But the external drives don’t make the cut.

“Render, all our work is on those drives. The hidden channel to Orchid. The facility details. If we leave them…”

“We leave them.” He’s already at the window, scanning the trees. “Wipe them. Quick format. Then we move.”

I run the wipe command on all three drives while he checks his gun. My heart pounds as the progress bars fill. Those little black rectangles hold days of our best ideas, the only real advantage we’ve got.

“Done,” I say.

“Back window. Go.”

Render opens the rear window and slips through first. He reaches back for me. I take his hand and drop down beside him. His grip is warm and sure. For a second after I land, he doesn’t let go. Then he does, but the touch lingers in my mind.

“North. Stay low. Don’t run until I say.”

We move through the thick pines in a crouch. The ground is soft with needles, muffling our steps. I can hear the searchers behind us now. Branches cracking. Low voices.

The car is parked thirty yards away, but we’ll have to cross open ground to reach it.

Render stops behind a thick tree trunk. I crouch beside him, close enough to feel the heat from his body. He’s calculating angles and timing.