The BLACK VEIL safehouse did not look like a safehouse.

That was the first thing Nyra noticed when Elias drove through a rusted warehouse gate and into a private underground parking level beneath what looked, from the outside, like a dead furniture factory.

No windows.

No sign.

No neighbors.

No witnesses.

Very welcoming.

Very serial-killer chic.

The SUV rolled to a stop beneath flickering fluorescent lights. Smoke still clung to the hood. One headlight was gone. The front bumper hung crooked from where Elias had introduced it to a Hollow Sun gunman.

Nyra stared at the dashboard.

"My repair held longer than your life choices deserved."

Elias glanced at her in the rearview mirror. "She did good."

"Thank you," Nyra said. "Finally. A man with taste."

Kane opened the rear door before anyone else could respond. "Out."

Nyra looked at him. "Wow. Hospitality."

"You bled in my vehicle."

"You kidnapped me into it."

"Extraction," Ghost said from the front passenger seat.

Nyra's eyes snapped to him.

He hadn't moved since they left the race meet. Not really. He sat too still, one gloved hand braced near the dash, skull mask turned slightly toward the windshield.

Like if he didn't look at her, she might stop being a problem.

Cute.

"You call carrying me like a sack of potatoes extraction?"

"You were under fire."

"I was getting answers."

"You were getting killed."

"I wasn't finished."

Ghost finally turned.

Grey eyes. Cold mask. The kind of patience that made her want to throw something expensive at his head.

"You are now."

Nyra laughed.

Nothing about it was funny.

Reed, pale but composed in the back corner, lifted one elegant finger. "Honestly, this is the most words I've heard him say to a non-target."

Lucas leaned against the open door, grinning. "Targets included."

Kane shot him a look. "Do not feed this."

"I'm emotionally invested."

"You're a security risk with jewelry."

Nyra climbed out of the SUV, every bruise announcing itself at once. Her ribs burned. Her knee ached. Blood had dried at the corner of her mouth. Somewhere behind her left shoulder, pain pulsed deep and ugly.

She ignored all of it.

Razor was dragged out next, wrists bound, face swollen from Kane's enthusiasm and Ghost's restraint.

His eyes found Nyra immediately.

Then Ghost.

Then he smiled.

Badly.

"You really don't know what Milo carried."

Nyra moved toward him.

Ghost caught her before she got two steps.

One hand closed around the back of her jacket.

Not hard.

Not cruel.

Still enough to stop her completely.

Nyra went rigid.

"Take your hand off me."

"No."

There it was again.

That single word like a locked door.

She turned slowly.

"You have about three seconds before I start charging you per unwanted grab."

Lucas made a soft choking sound.

Kane muttered, "Jesus Christ."

Ghost did not release her.

"You hurt," he said.

"So what?!"

"Medical room."

"No."

Ghost stared at her.

Nyra stared back.

The safehouse air seemed to thin around them.

Behind Ghost, BLACK VEIL did not move. Kane watched like he was preparing for either a murder or a workplace policy violation. Lucas looked delighted. Elias looked resigned. Nik stood near the elevator with his rifle held low, observing the entire exchange like a quiet autopsy. Reed, still bleeding through fresh bandage tape, looked amused in the way only deeply unstable people could.

Nyra pointed at Razor.

"He talks first."

Ghost said, "Mateo talks first."

A door opened somewhere beyond the concrete corridor.

A man with warm tan skin, dark curls, and tattooed arms stepped out carrying a medical kit.

Mateo.

Combat medic.

Currently looking between Nyra, Ghost, Razor, and the bullet-scarred SUV with a tired expression that suggested none of this surprised him and all of it disappointed him.

"Wow," Mateo said. "I leave you people alone for one operation and you bring home a hostage, a concussed woman, and emotional tension."

Lucas raised a hand. "I helped."

"I know. That's why I'm upset."

Nyra jabbed a finger toward Razor. "He knows something about my brother."

Mateo's expression softened slightly.

Ghost's did not.

"Medical room," Ghost repeated.

Nyra stepped closer to him.

Too close, probably.

She didn't care.

"You don't get to rescue me, hide information, and then order me into a room like I'm a misbehaving dog."

Ghost's shoulders went very still.

Not anger.

Defense.

She could see it now. The retreat before anyone else could call it retreat. The mask becoming less face and more wall.

"You were reckless," he said.

"You are a control freak."

"You drove straight into an ambush."

"You followed me into one."

"I was monitoring Hollow Sun."

"And yet somehow I'm the problem."

"You are a civilian."

That one hit wrong.

Nyra's smile vanished.

The garage girl. The street racer. The woman who had stitched Reed's side and kept Ghost's SUV running after a firefight. The girl who had spent two years chasing men like Razor through places where civilians did not survive.

Civilian.

Like her grief was amateur.

Like Milo was just a file she wasn't cleared to read.

She stepped into Ghost's space and tilted her chin up.

"Call me that again," she said softly, "and I'll make your mask a permanent part of your dental record."

Silence.

Absolute.

Lucas slowly lowered his hand.

Mateo whispered, "Oh, I like her."

Kane looked like something inside him had given up.

Ghost stared down at Nyra.

Any other person would have been on the floor by now.

Nyra knew that.

The team knew that.

Even Razor knew that, because his smile had disappeared.

But Ghost only stood there, huge and silent, letting her threaten him in front of his own people.

Letting her breathe too close.

Letting her anger touch something nobody else was allowed near.

His voice, when it came, was quieter.

"You have no idea what sits behind."

Nyra swallowed the sharp thing in her throat.

"Then tell me."

The refusal landed between them like a gun on a table.

Nyra laughed once.

"You are unbelievable."

"..."

Her eyes narrowed. "You need serious emotional repairs."

Nyra leaned closer. "Actually, no. Repairs imply there was a working system at some point. You are emotionally constipated on an architectural level."

Mateo coughed into his fist.

Elias looked at the ceiling.

Reed murmured, "Architectural is new."

Ghost said nothing.

But something moved behind his eyes.

Not amusement.

Not exactly.

A flicker.

Enough to prove she had hit something.

Nyra hated that she noticed.

Razor shifted against Kane's grip. "Touching as hell. Really. But Hollow Sun won't wait for your little romance problem to mature."

Ghost moved so fast Razor flinched before he even reached him.

Nyra caught Ghost's sleeve.

Again.

This time the safehouse changed.

Every single man noticed.

Ghost noticed most of all.

His body stopped like a machine receiving an impossible command.

Nyra's fingers tightened in the black fabric.

"Don't," she said.

Razor breathed hard.

Kane watched Ghost's hand. Lucas stopped smiling completely. Mateo's brows lifted like he had just diagnosed a terminal condition.

Ghost looked down at Nyra's hand.

Then at her face.

"He's steering you."

"I know."

"He will lie."

"I know."

"He will hurt you with whatever truth he has."

Nyra's grip loosened, but she didn't let go.

"He already has."

For a moment, Ghost said nothing.

Then, very carefully, he stepped back from Razor.

Kane's jaw actually dropped a fraction before he recovered.

Lucas mouthed something that looked a lot like we are so screwed.

Mateo watched Ghost like he had found a new symptom.

Nyra released his sleeve and hated the tiny absence of warmth through tactical fabric.

Ghost turned toward the corridor.

"Five minutes with Mateo," he said. "Then you can question him."

Nyra folded her arms. "Ten."

"Five."

"Eight, and you stop saying no like it's a personality."

"Six."

"Seven."

Ghost stared at her.

Nyra stared back.

Mateo pointed between them. "This is the weirdest flirting I have ever medically witnessed."

"It's not flirting," Nyra snapped.

Ghost said nothing.

Which, annoyingly, felt worse.

Kane dragged Razor toward a steel door at the far end of the hall. "I'm locking him in interrogation before all of us develop feelings."

Lucas followed. "Too late for G."

Ghost's head turned.

Lucas immediately sped up. "Kidding. Super legal team-building joke."

Nyra watched Razor disappear through the door.

Every cell in her body wanted to follow.

Instead, her knees decided to remind her they had survived a crash, a shootout, and being carried against her will by a six-foot-five tactical nightmare.

The floor tilted slightly.

Ghost moved.

Not toward her.

Not obviously.

Just one step closer.

Enough to catch her if she fell.

She didn't.

Barely.

"I'm fine," she said.

"No."

"You allergic to believing women?"

"You're swaying."

"I'm choosing a dramatic stance."

Mateo stepped in smoothly before Ghost could answer. "Medical room. Both of you. Before the unresolved trauma starts breeding."

Nyra pointed at Ghost. "He started it."

Ghost looked at her.

"You stole from me."

"You let me."

His silence confirmed it.

Nyra's eyes sharpened.

"You did let me."

Mateo paused.

Kane, from the corridor, turned his head slowly.

Lucas actually leaned back into view.

Ghost did not move.

Nyra's voice dropped. "Why?"

For the first time since she'd met him, Ghost looked away first.

It was small.

Almost nothing.

But to Nyra, it felt like a door cracking open in a locked room.

Then he said, "Medical room."

And walked away.

Nyra stared after him, furious and exhausted and more unsettled than she wanted to admit.

Mateo came up beside her.

"So," he said lightly, "on a scale from one to catastrophic, how attached are we to keeping our emotional distance?"

Nyra glared at him.

"I hate all of you."

Mateo smiled.

"Yeah. That's what Kane keeps saying too."

From behind the interrogation room door, Razor started laughing.

Nyra turned toward the sound.

Her anger cooled into something sharper.

Because beneath the laughter, Razor said one more thing.

Loud enough for the hallway to hear.

"Milo wasn't carrying cargo."

Ghost stopped walking.

Razor laughed again.

"He was carrying a person."