Page 110 of Over the Edge

Impossible.

“Something wrong, Dalton?” Ethan asked, his tone casual but his eyes razor-sharp as they studied my reaction. He knew me like nobody else. He knew I didn’t panic. He also knew I was panicking inside now.

I forced myself to breathe, to maintain the composure that had kept me alive through thirteen years of wetwork and black ops. But inside, alarm bells were screaming.

This couldn’t be happening.

“Trent?” Ethan’s voice sounded distant. “You recognize the buyer?”

I reached past Kate and froze the screen, enlarging the section. There was no mistake. Evelyn Phillips. The same Evelyn Phillips I’d extracted from a cult compound in California just over a month ago. The woman I’d personally escorted to a safe house in rural Montana, thirty miles from the nearest town, with a new identity so complete that even our own intelligence agencies couldn’t trace it.

The woman who should be completely off-grid, invisible, safe.

“Trent.” Ethan’s voice was sharper now. “Talk to me.”

“She didn’t buy this,” I said, my voice dangerously calm despite the adrenaline flooding my system. “Evelyn Phillips is a protected asset.”

“Fuck,” Decker muttered and sat up straighter in his chair. “That’s the cult woman, isn’t it? And now she has fucking mind control tech?”

“She’s not—” I bit off the words and rubbed a hand over my head. “She was a single mother in a bad situation, who ended up in a worse one.” I stared across the room at Ethan, waiting until he met my gaze. “She didn’t buy this.”

“Okay, are we sure it’s the same person?” Kate asked, already typing. “Could be a coincidence. Evelyn Phillips is a common enough name.”

Which was exactly why I’d chosen it for her new identity.

“It’s not a coincidence.” I was certain. She’d been completely off-grid since her extraction from the Hope’s Embrace cult. New identity, new location, no digital footprint. Invisible. I made damn sure of it because Evelyn had a young daughter to protect.

Emma. Five years old with her mother’s eyes and unshakable trust in me.

The memory of carrying that child through the chaos of the compound’s collapse was still vivid. Her tiny arms around my neck, her mother stumbling beside us, half-blinded by the cult leader’s final act of violence against her.

I’d promised them they’d be safe.

I’dpromised.

And I don’t break promises.

Ozzy finally looked up from his screen, his expression grave. “Then someone’s sending a message.”

Someone knew who Evelyn really was. And they knew I had hidden her.

“Or it’s a trap,” Ethan said, voicing what we were all thinking. “Someone’s trying to flush her out.”

I was already moving toward the door, grabbing my go-bag from where I’d stashed it beneath the conference table. My mind shifted into operational mode, cataloging what I’d need: weapons, cash, comms, medical supplies.

“Where is she, Trent?” Ethan asked.

“Classified,” I replied automatically. The fewer people who knew, the safer she would be. That had been the protocol from the beginning.

“Not anymore,” Ethan countered. “If someone’s compromised her location?—”

“Then I need to move her immediately.” I checked my sidearm, confirming a round in the chamber. “Alone.”

Ethan stepped in front of me, blocking my path to the door. “That’s not how we operate. If one of our protected assets is compromised, we move as a team.”

“With all due respect,” I kept my voice steady despite the urgency pounding through my veins, “this is my responsibility. My extraction, my protection detail.”

“Your emotions clouding your judgment,” Ethan said quietly, for my ears only.

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