Page 18 of Rogue Doll

Sienna's eyes flick to mine, a silent warning I can't quite decode. Her fingers tap a subtle rhythm against her thigh—one-two, pause, three—a nervous habit I've never seen from her before.

Something's off. The air in the room feels charged, molecules vibrating with unspoken tension.

Killion taps a tablet, and the wall screen flares to life with a soft electronic hum. Victor Reese's face appears—not the corpse version, but very much alive, smirking from what looks like a charity gala.

The high-definition display shows every pore, every silver hair, every smug line around his mouth. I can almost smell his cologne again, feel his hands on my skin. My body remembers what my brain wants to forget.

Beside Victor, another face materializes: Alexei Volkov, the gray-suit ghost who haunted the bar that night. The image is grainier, taken from distance with a telephoto lens. His features are Slavic, hard—cheekbones that could cut diamond, eyes like frozen mud, his hair dark and untamed, the kind of face that's seen too much and caused most of it.

"Victor Reese was moving more than money," Killion states, cutting straight to business. His voice bounces off the room's concrete walls, flat and precise. "He was brokering intelligence—specifically, the identities of deep-cover assets across three continents."

My stomach drops like an elevator with cut cables. The taste of copper floods my mouth as I bite the inside of my cheek. "Assets like... us?"

"Like you," Harlow confirms, studying me like I'm a particularly interesting lab specimen. His manicured fingernail taps against the polished table surface—once, twice, three times. "Your extraction was phase one of a larger operation. We needed confirmation that Reese was the source of the leak. You provided that. Now we move to phase two."

I lean forward, adrenaline already humming through my veins like electricity. The chair leather squeaks beneath me, suddenly too hot, too constraining. "Which is?"

"Volkov," Killion says, tapping the screen again. The display splits into multiple windows, each showing a different angle. New images appear—Volkov entering buildings, meeting contacts, always in that same nondescript gray suit.

In one, he checks his watch—the same Omega Seamaster I saw him wearing the night of Reese’s murder.

In another, he passes something to a man whose face has been pixelated. "He's the middle-man. Takes the intel, sells it to the highest bidder. Usually hostile state actors with a taste for bloody retribution."

"He saw me with Reese," I point out the obvious. The memory flashes hot and sharp—Volkov's calculated disinterest at the bar, the perfect angle of his body that kept his face partially obscured from security cameras. "He knows my face."

"Precisely," Harlow smiles, the expression never reaching his eyes. They remain flat and calculating behind those designer frames. "That makes you our perfect bait."

The word hangs in the air between us, ugly and exposed. Bait. Not asset. Not operative. Bait. The air conditioning kicks on with a mechanical wheeze, sending a chill across my damp hair.

"You want to dangle me like a worm on a hook," I say flatly, "to catch a shark that specializes in eating people like me."

"To put it crudely, yes," Harlow confirms, unperturbed. He adjusts his French cuffs—platinum links winking under the fluorescents—with the casual indifference of someone discussing the weather rather than my potential disembowelment.

My eyes find Killion's, searching for... what? Reassurance? Denial? But his face remains impassive, a mask of professional detachment. Only a muscle ticking in his jaw betrays any emotion at all.

"What's the plan?” I ask, because what choice do I have? This isn't a request. It's a briefing. The metallic taste in my mouth intensifies as I swallow my pride along with my fear.

Sienna pushes off the wall, stepping forward. The soft squeak of her tactical boots against the polished floor punctuates each word. "We engineer a leak. Word gets out that you have access to the same server information as Reese, butmore—the identities of the buyers. Make Volkov believe you're planning to sell to his competition."

"We'll plant digital breadcrumbs," Killion adds, calling up another screen that shows lines of code, IP addresses, server locations. "False communications through channels we know are compromised. Money transferred to offshore accounts in your new identity's name. Meeting arrangements at locations we control."

"He'll come for you," Killion continues, voice steady. His fingers dance across the tablet, bringing up building schematics—a high-rise apartment in what looks like downtown. "His contact will want confirmation before authorizing a hit."

"So I'm not just bait," I clarify, "I'm a fucking piñata they'll try to crack open before killing." My fingers curl around the armrests, knuckles white with tension I refuse to show on my face.

"That's the general idea," Harlow confirms, untroubled by the concept of my potential dismemberment. "You'll be positioned at this safehouse—nineteenth floor, corner unit. Enough security to look legitimate, but with deliberate vulnerabilities they can exploit."

My laugh comes out harsher than intended, scraping my throat raw. "And how exactly do I avoid the whole torture-and-death finale to this little screenplay?"

"We'll have eyes on you constantly," Killion says. The tablet flickers as he pulls up surveillance specs—thermal imaging, audio monitoring, motion sensors placed at strategic points throughout the building. "Full surveillance, extraction team ready to move the second they make contact."

"Alpha team will be stationed here," he continues, marking a building across the street with a red X. "Bravo team here, in the service corridor. Response time under ninety seconds from breach."

"And if they take me somewhere off-grid? Or if your surveillance fails? Or if the extraction team hits traffic?" The questions fire from my lips like bullets. Outside, a helicopter passes, its rotors creating a rhythmic thump-thump-thump that matches my accelerating heartbeat. "What then?"

Something shifts in Killion's eyes—a flicker of... what? Concern? Doubt? It's gone before I can name it, buried beneath layers of professional distance.

"You'll have emergency protocols," he says, voice dropping lower. The tablet lights his face from below, casting ghostly shadows across his features. "And you'll have this."

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