Page 158 of Only the Wicked
“They don’t.”
“Where—”
“When I first started, I’d say that. No one looks for anyone in Alaska. When you asked, I suppose I preferred the lie to the truth.”
“Where are they?”
“My father died five years ago. Coast Guard. In line of duty. Boarded a vessel.” I close my eyes, remembering my mother’s tear-stricken voice, telling me on the phone, as I was on a different continent. “My mother died about a year later. Heart attack. In retrospect, she’d had symptoms but I thought she was suffering from depression. Side effects from meds to help her sleep. That wasn’t the case.”
His hold on me tightens.
“Anyway, I don’t tell anyone that. Ever.” The moment’s heavy, too heavy, so I lighten it with, “And everything else…about me…true.”
“Syd, I’m falling for you, you know that, right? This? Us? I’m all in.”
“Same.” Yes, I should say more, but I can’t right now. I’m exhausted and too emotional, but I’m so grateful he’s here with me now, that he followed me down here so we could hold each other tonight.
Outside, the night has deepened, the mountain silence broken only by distant owl calls and the soft whisper of wind through pine needles.
“One thing’s certain,” Rhodes murmurs, his voice carrying the edge of sleep, “I’m looking forward to discovering everything about you.” His lips brush my forehead. “No more covers. Just us.”
When I lift my head to look at him, something shifts in his eyes—a tenderness mixed with desire that sends warmth spreading through me. This time, when our lips meet, it’s different. No urgency, no desperation. Just us, finally free of every pretense. We move together slowly, making love with quiet intensity, coming together with nothing between us, like we have all the time in the world. Because we do.
As his breathing deepens into sleep, I remain awake a moment longer, watching moonlight filter through the window blinds, casting silver patterns across unfamiliar walls. The world of Washington—with its political machinations and competing ambitions—feels blissfully far away.
Tomorrow will bring debriefs and decisions, congressional investigations and career choices. But tonight, in this quiet room far from the world’s demands, we’ve found something neither of us expected when this began.
Not a mission. Not a project. Something real.
Something worth building a future around.
Epilogue
One year later
Rhodes
The moving truck blocks half our narrow mountain road, but I can’t stop grinning. The air carries that particular crispness that makes the Highlands special—clean mountain air mingled with the scent of pine and distant wood smoke.
Below us, the valley stretches out in a patchwork of forests and small clearings, the town barely visible through morning mist. This view—this exact vista—is what made both of us stop and look at each other wordlessly during the property tour.
The movers call to each other as they navigate a sectional sofa through the front door, their voices carrying in the mountain air. It’s a symphony of new beginnings—cardboard boxes being cut open, furniture being arranged, a house transforming into our home.
About two months after meeting Sydney on a hiking trail, I made an offer on this spec home when it was in the initial stages of construction. The fact it was unfinished allowed me to ensure the house was wired to meet our needs for working from home. It’s in the mountains, not too far from the KOAN offices off Church Street.
Over the last year, we’ve spent time all over. Sydney went back with me to San Francisco for a couple of months while I worked to handle the fallout from Miles and relocate ARGUS. We’ve spent time in D.C. on and off as needed for various business projects. When we’re in D.C., we stay at Sydney’s Maryland condo, which she owns. We’ve stayed there enough that her once spartan condo feels like a home now, and there are photos of us rock climbing in Colorado, swimming in the Pacific, and dining at a Napa vineyard. For our six-month anniversary, I surprised her with a trip to Paris, took a private tour of the catacombs as she’s fascinated by the history, and she introduced me to several friends she’d made from her time in France. For our nine-month anniversary, we went to Rio de Janeiro and visited the Amazon.
I’ve never taken more vacations in my life, which, given the transformative changes at ARGUS, is incredible. The congressional hearings last year were brutal, but they ultimately vindicated our position. The new ARGUS operates with an independent oversight board that includes both domestic and international experts in ethics, technology, and civil liberties—a structure Caroline Moore helped design based on KOAN’s model.
We’ve shifted our focus entirely away from government surveillance contracts toward tools that increase transparency in public institutions. The partnership with KOAN has been revolutionary—their intelligence expertise combined with our pattern-recognition technology has already exposed three major corruption networks that traditional investigations missed.
Daisy now leads her own division focused specifically on counter-surveillance tools for journalists and human rights workers in authoritarian regimes—turning the technology that almost destroyed us into a shield for those most vulnerable to surveillance abuse. The gleeful way she explains her work to potential clients reminds me why I started ARGUS in the first place.
The irony isn’t lost on me: a year ago, I was contemplating shutting ARGUS down entirely. Now it’s doing more important work than ever, but with greater balance that allows me to prioritize what truly matters.
Working with the KOAN team has been an unexpected gift—these people who once surveilled me have become extended family. Jake, Sydney, and I go rock climbing regularly when I’m on the East Coast. Jake’s southern drawl and straightforward perspective, a refreshing change from Silicon Valley’s tech bubble. Quinn’s technical brilliance rivals Daisy’s, though their styles couldn’t be more different; watching them debate encryption protocols is like witnessing an intense chess match.
Hudson maintains his professional distance, but I caught him smiling when Sydney and I announced our house plans during a team dinner. Even Caroline, initially skeptical of my intentions with both her friend and her organization, has become a trusted ally in navigating the complex world where technology meets intelligence work.
