Page 67 of Faron
“You torched him,” Tag said flatly.
“Ihad to.I thought—there was an explosion, gas line. I couldn’t get him out.” My hands were shaking. “Since he was an informant, I didn’t tell anyone. Just closed the case. Let it burn.”
Caleb chuckled. “You should’ve checked the body, love.”
Tag looked furious—but not at me. He had Blue’s laptop open, and was scrowling
He stood slowly. “We need to call this in. He’s not some street thug. He’s a contractor. Hired muscle. Clean records under six aliases.”
“And he’s not working alone,” I whispered. “He never did.”
Caleb grinned, then looked at me again.
“You’re not as invisible as you think. But you’re about to wish you were.”
64
Faron
The mission was supposed to be clean—get in, get the hostages, get out. We’d just extracted the second target, a fourteen-year-old girl with a shattered arm and eyes too old for her face.
We were resting in a half-collapsed safe house near the southern ridge when the burner buzzed again.
I almost ignored it. We were low on water, low on patience, and Raven was trying to stitch a gash in Kash’s side using nothing but whiskey and dental floss.
But the alert code was different this time.
Code Red: Immediate Eyes Only.
I tapped in the passcode and opened the file.
It was a secure stream from Tag.
Video. Audio. Timestamped ten minutes ago.
I hit play.
Blue’s voicecame through first. Steady. Calm. But pissed.
“Aponi just ID’d the guy who attacked her. Name’s Caleb Knox, he was an informant.”
I froze,
Tag’s voice followed. “He’s alive, Faron. Aponi thought she killed this guy, she was wrong. And you’re not gonna like what you hear.”
There was silence for two beats. Then Aponi’s voice came in—tight, ashamed, broken in a way I’d never heard from her, but then we just got in touch with each other a few months ago.
“I thought I killed him. Five years ago. I left him in a burning building.”
The air left my lungs.
She kept talking—halting, fragmented—about the trafficking case, about the betrayal, about how she’d covered it up to protect herself. Her badge. Her sanity.
She thought it was over.
It wasn’t.
Not even close.
