Page 90 of The Sniper

I didn’t know where I was going—only that I couldn’t lie in that bed a second longer, not while the man I loved was out there, chasing ghosts in the dark.

The hallway was dim, low lights flickering every few feet. Somewhere down the corridor, I heard a door close. A laugh, muffled. Dominion Hall never really slept.

I wandered without direction, barefoot on the cool floors, passing empty rooms and closed doors. I didn’t know where I was going—only that I had to go somewhere.

Eventually, two flights of stairs lower, I saw the light.

Soft and blue, it spilled out from the edges of a cracked door, brighter than anything else in this part of the compound. Something buzzed faintly from inside—electronic and steady. Not the kind of buzz you got from lights or generators. This was information. Movement. A heartbeat made of code.

I hesitated.

Then knocked.

A voice—low and distracted—called out, “Yeah, come in.”

I pushed the door open slowly.

It was a large room—half bunker, half mission control. Monitors covered one wall, all glowing with maps, video feeds, and endless streams of numbers I couldn’t make sense of. A half-empty energy drink sat on the desk beside a row of keyboards and comm units. Andsitting in front of them, backlit by a half-dozen screens, was a man.

Blond.

Very tall.

Leaning back in a worn black chair like he’d been parked there for hours.

He glanced over his shoulder as I stepped inside, and something in his expression softened.

“You’re Noah’s girl.”

I froze. “You know who I am?”

He gave me a lopsided grin and swiveled his chair toward me. “Pretty sure everyone here does at this point.”

I crossed my arms, suddenly aware that I hadn’t bothered to put on a bra. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“It’s okay.” He stood, then paused like he was debating. After a second, he offered a hand. “Elias.”

I blinked. Elias. One of the Dane brothers. One that Noah hadn’t mentioned much—at least not yet.

I took his hand, surprised by how warm it was. “I’m?—”

“Hallie Mae,” he finished for me. “Yeah. I know. Sorry for your loss, by the way. Your dad … that was some messed up shit.”

The words caught me off guard—not just because of their bluntness, but because of the way he said them. Like he’d actually felt it. Like it wasn’t just something someone said to be polite.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

Elias sat back down, fingers already flying over the keys again. “I’d love to offer you coffee or some of Marcus’s whiskey, but I’ve got about ten differentwindows open and two satellites I’m trying to bounce between, so … raincheck?”

A breath of laughter escaped me. “You’re … not what I expected.”

He smirked. “Because I don’t have the mean mug required to bench press motorcycles?”

I tilted my head. “Exactly.”

He gestured toward his head, then his broad chest. “Nerd of the family. Atlas, too—though he hides it behind that whole ‘silent and terrifying’ vibe. I just lean in. Hacking, code, surveillance—I run ops from keyboards, not carbines. And yeah, Marcus and I got the recessive genes. Blond, sarcastic, prone to sunburn. Everyone else looks like they were engineered in a lab called ‘Project Hemsworth.’”

That made me laugh, which I hadn’t done in quite a while.

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