Page 25 of Make Them Pay

“I built it. I tested it against the details Orchid sent. It’s solid.”

He holds my gaze. I hold his. The moment stretches. Not the charged glances we’ve been sharing at the table. Something deeper. Two people looking at each other and seeing that the person across from them can carry their share of the weight when it matters most.

“I trust you,” he says.

Three simple words. Spoken in that steady voice of his. But they land like something important. Because Render doesn’t say things he doesn’t mean.

“I trust you too,” I reply.

He nods and looks back at the screen. The moment passes, but it leaves something new in the air between us. A piece of whatever we’re building together, day by day, in this small space.

The break comes at seven in the evening. We’ve been working for eleven straight hours. My eyes burn. My back aches. The protein bar from hours ago is long gone.

Render pushes back from the table and stands. He stretches, arms overhead, and his shirt rides up to show a strip of tan skin above his waistband. I look before I can stop myself. The muscle there is lean and strong from real use, not just the gym. Heat pools low in my stomach.

I look away quickly.

“We need real food,” he says. “There are meal packs on the shelf. Not great. But they’ll do.”

He tosses one to me. I catch it. We eat standing up because neither of us wants to sit in those metal chairs any longer.

“Can I ask you something?” I say between bites.

“Yeah.”

“The video. Serafina said she would start with the person who matters most to the one she sent it to. She was talking about me. Threatening me to get to you. She sent it to your channel, not Poe’s. She knows you’re the one who came for me. Why would she think hurting me would matter to you specifically?”

The storage unit goes very still.

Render stops eating. He swallows and looks at me. “I thought I hid it well.”

What is he talking about? “Huh?”

“Because she’s right,” he says.

The words settle between us. Simple. Honest. Delivered in that flat tone he uses for facts. But they change everything.

“Render,” I say. I don’t know what comes next. His name is all I can manage.

He sets the meal pack down and crosses the small space between us. Three steps. The same number it took him to reach me in the container.

His hand comes up to the side of my neck. His fingers press gently against my pulse. He must feel how fast it’s racing because mine is hammering against his touch.

“Tell me to stop,” he says. His voice is rough now. Raw. Nothing like the controlled tone he’s used for days. This voice carries years of held-back want.

I don’t tell him to stop.

He kisses me.

It’s not soft or careful. It’s the breaking of something long contained. His mouth meets mine with heat and hunger and the taste of shared meals and too many sleepless nights. My hands move on their own. One fists in the front of his shirt. The other slides to the back of his neck, fingers threading through his hair.

He pulls me closer. His palm presses against my lower back through the oversized hoodie, heat bleeding through the fabric. I’m against him completely. Chest to chest. I can feel his heart pounding in time with mine.

His fingers slide into my hair and tilt my head. The kiss deepens and everything else fades. The video. The plan. The clock. There’s only his mouth on mine, his hand in my hair, and the terrifying thrill of crossing a line we can’t uncross.

The laptop pings.

The sound cuts through the moment. A message on the hidden channel from Orchid. We both freeze.