Page 23 of Make Them Pay

“Enley.”

“Play it again.”

I hit play. She watches it twice more, pausing and rewinding, studying every detail even though it’s clearly tearing her apart inside.

“The shadows are wrong,” she says finally. “The cell Orchid described would have different lighting. Either they moved him or the map is off.”

She caught it. The same thing I noticed. While watching her own brother bleeding on screen.

“I saw the same thing,” I tell her.

“So we check with Orchid. Update the map. Find out if there’s another holding area.” Her voice is fast but steady. She’s turned the pain into fuel. “And the hidden channel. Serafina shouldn’t have been able to send that. Either she broke through or someone helped her.”

“Yes.”

She takes a deep breath and taps out a message to Orchid, asking her. We wait.

After a few more minutes a message comes through: Ross has been pulling me for one-on-ones. Three sessions in the last five days. Takes me out through the east corridor, past the monitoring station, sometimes down to the sub-level two access point before circling back. Different route each time, like he wants me to see the layout without it looking deliberate.

Here's what's interesting. He doesn't ask about Maddox. Not once. No questions about the crew, the operations, who's connected to whom. Everything he asks is about Goldenbell. Financial structure. Where the money routes. How the corporate side connects to the operational side. He takes notes on a personal device, not the facility system.

He's building a file and the file isn't for Serafina. He knows I’m contracted with the FBI, and I think he thinks he can use this in his favor.

My read: Ross is a contractor who can smell a collapsing operation. He's positioning himself for the aftermath. Keeping me mobile and cooperative because a Goldenbell corporate insider who can testify about the financial layouts is worth more to him alive and talking than locked in a cell. He doesn't know my real affiliation. He thinks I'm his leverage. I'm letting him think that.

Side benefit: every corridor he walks me through is another piece of the map.

“So Ross is building a case against Serafina,” I say, stretching my arms over my head. “This can definitely help us. What now?”

Enley’s eyes meet mine. “We work,” she says. “Right now. Everything else waits.”

We work.

The next twelve hours are some of the most intense we’ve had. The storage unit turns into a command center. I talk with Knight through our backup connection while Enley works the secret channel to Orchid. We trade information in the short, efficient way we’ve developed. Half sentences that carry full meaning because we understand each other now.

Knight’s voice is steady as always, but when I describe the video and Poe’s condition, the line goes quiet for a long moment. I know he’s thinking about Lark.

We build a new plan. Surgical instead of direct. Three entry points. I’ll take the stairs. Knight will handle the outside. Enley will manage the digital side from a safe spot nearby.

I look across the room at her. She’s focused on the laptop, building a way to trick the security system using information Orchid sent. The screen lights her face in the dim space, highlighting the curve of her cheek and the determination in her eyes. The fading bruise on her jaw only makes her look stronger. More beautiful.

I’ve wanted her for years. That want has always been there. It’s been kept carefully locked away because she’s Poe’s sister. But watching her now, after everything she’s been through, after the way she keeps choosing to fight beside me instead of hiding, the lock is breaking.

She built a clever workaround in under two hours. Something I’ve never seen before. She’s brilliant. Resilient. And so damn beautiful it hurts to look at her sometimes.

She feels me watching and glances up. Our eyes lock. The air between us feels thick. Heavy with everything we’re not saying. I see the same pull in her eyes that I feel in my chest. The same awareness.

“Render,” she says softly. “What is it?”

I want to tell her everything. That I want her. That waking up with her in my arms changed something. That watching her fight for her brother while dealing with her own trauma makes me admire her more than I thought possible. That the careful distance I’ve kept is crumbling and I’m not sure I want to rebuild it.

Instead I say, “Nothing. Get some rest. Knight will meet us in sixteen hours and we need to be ready.” I nod toward the cot. “Take the cot,” I tell her.

“But your left side.”

“It’s all better now.” Lies. But her comfort means more to me than my own pain.

She holds my gaze a moment longer. Then she closes the laptop and lies down on the cot. I turn back to the screen, pretending to work while the pull between us grows stronger with every passing hour.