“Right. So?”

  "Most modern security systems record in high definition, they just compress everything to buggery for storage." He looked up at me, eyes bright with the kind of excitement I hadn't seen from him in weeks. "What if we could get access to the original files, yeah?"

  My heart started beating faster, hope and caffeine and something that might have been an actual possibility making my pulse race. "The uncompressed footage?"

  "Exactly. Full resolution, no compression artifacts, every detail the cameras actually captured." His grin was sharp as a blade and twice as dangerous. "You know, you properly insult me, Morgan. I might not be as good as your sister at the corporate espionage stuff, but there are parts of the hacker world that call me 'The Magician.'"

  I nearly choked on my hot chocolate. "Wait, seriously? That's your actual handle?"

  "Focus, Morgan. Do you want to see what actually happened in that alley or not?"

  More than I want my next breath.

  "How long would it take?"

  "Give me twenty minutes. Maybe thirty if their security's better than I reckon it is."

  I watched him work, the familiar rhythm of clicking keys and muttered curses—half in English, half in what sounded like creative profanity—filling the quiet library. His fingers moved across the keyboard like a pianist playing a particularly complex piece, all fluid motion and unconscious precision.

  "Right, we're in," he said after what felt like hours but was probably only fifteen minutes. "Bloody hell, their security was absolute pants. My nan could've hacked this system with her knitting needles."

  "Is that good or bad?"

  "Good for us, terrible for anyone who actually lives in that building." He was still typing, navigating through what looked like an incomprehensible maze of folders and files. "Right, here we go. Building security server, uncompressed footage from camera 7-B. The angle from across the street, full 4K resolution."

  He spun the laptop toward me with the kind of triumphant flourish that suggested he'd enjoyed the challenge immensely.

  The difference was shocking. Instead of grainy pixels and indistinct shadows, I could see everything—the texture of the brick walls, the details of the dumpster, the individual pieces of trash scattered across the alley floor. Even the pattern on my purse was visible as I chased the mugger into the darkness, my figure moving with the kind of desperate determination that only came from protecting something irreplaceable.

  And there, stepping back into the shadows...

  "Oh my God," I breathed.

  The figure was clearer now, though still partially obscured by the interplay of light and shadow. But I could make out the broad shoulders, the height, the way he moved with fluid precision that belonged in a different world entirely. Most importantly, I could see the moment he struck—a single, controlled movement that sent the mugger crashing to the ground with surgical efficiency.

  Professional. Precise. Familiar.

  "That's not random Good Samaritan work, is it?" Micah said quietly.

  "No, it's not."

  We stared at the screen in silence, both of us processing what we were seeing. The figure melted back into the shadows with the kind of practiced ease that spoke of training, of experience, of someone who knew exactly how to disappear when disappearing was necessary.

  Someone who'd had a lifetime of practice being invisible.

  "Morgan," Micah said carefully, his voice taking on the tone he used when he was about to say something I might not want to hear, "what exactly do you think you're looking at?"

  I thought about Lance. About the way he moved when he thought I wasn't watching, the deadly grace of his training sessions, the surgical precision with which he could end a threat without breaking a sweat.

  Exactly like what we just witnessed.

  "I think," I said slowly, tasting each word before I committed to it, "I'm looking at proof that I'm not losing my mind."

  And possibly proof that my husband isn't as dead as everyone thinks.

  I paused the video, studying the figure's stance. "It looks like someone with professional training. Someone who knows exactly how to incapacitate without killing."

  Someone who fights like a DuLac.

  "Morgan." His voice was gentle but serious. "What are you really thinking here?"

  I'm thinking the impossible might not be so impossible after all.

  "I'm thinking," I said, meeting his eyes, "that maybe it's time to consider some very unlikely possibilities."

  Like the possibility that my husband faked his death. Like the possibility that he's been watching over me all along.

  "Such as?"

  I took a deep breath, tasting hope and terror in equal measure.

  "Such as the possibility that Lance isn't dead."

  The words hung between us like a challenge, dangerous and electric with possibility. Micah stared at me for a long moment, then looked back at the screen.

  At the figure who moved exactly like the man I'd married.

  "You know how that sounds," he said finally.

  "I know exactly how it sounds." I leaned forward, urgency making my voice sharp. "But look at that footage, Micah. Really look at it. Does that look random to you?"

  He was quiet for a long moment, studying the frozen image on the screen.

  "No," he admitted. "It doesn't look random at all."

  Twelve

  Morgan

  The loft felt like a tomb.

  I'd been sitting in the dark for over an hour, waiting, wondering if I was about to discover my husband was alive or confirm that I was losing my mind. The silence pressed against my eardrums like cotton, broken only by the distant hum of city traffic twenty floors below and the occasional creak of the building settling into the night.

  This was either the stupidest thing I'd ever done, or the most important.

  Every shadow seemed to move with purpose, every small sound made my heart race like I'd been mainlining espresso. The familiar space—our space—felt foreign in the darkness, transformed into something alien and dangerous. I could make out the silhouettes of furniture we'd picked out together during those first months of married bliss, the artwork we'd argued about, the life we'd built before it all exploded.

  Literally exploded, in Lance's case.

  The couch where we'd spent lazy Sunday mornings reading the paper and pretending the outside world didn't exist. The kitchen island where he'd made me coffee every morning before work, always adding just the right amount of cream without asking. The dining table where we'd planned our future over takeout and wine...and where he'd bent me over more times than I could count when conversation had turned to something more primal.

  When was the last time you felt safe anywhere?

  I wasn't sure what was scarier—the idea that I might be right about Lance being alive, or knowing for sure I was wrong and having to accept that my grip on reality had finally snapped completely.

  Micah was set up in the vacant unit next door—the one Lance had been planning to buy before he died, back when our biggest concern was whether we wanted an open floor plan or more defined spaces. He was monitoring the surveillance equipment we'd installed earlier: motion sensors, infrared cameras, enough tech to catch a ghost if one decided to show up.

  If anyone shows up at all.

  My phone had been buzzing periodically with updates, each vibration making me jump like I'd been electrocuted.

  Micah: All quiet on the western front.

  Micah: Motion detectors are active. Heat signatures clear.

  Micah: You absolutely sure you want to do this alone? Because I'm having serious second thoughts about letting you play bait.

  I'd responded the same way each time, my thumbs moving across the screen with mechanical precision:

  Me: I'm sure.

  Me: If it's really him, I need to handle this myself.

  Micah: If it's really him, you might need backup when you kill him for putting you through weeks of psychological torture.

  Me: That's what the gun is for.

  Micah's gun—complete with what looked suspiciously like a professional-grade silencer—sat in my lap, its weight both comforting and terrifying. I'd have to ask him later what the hell he needed a silencer for, and why he had one just lying around like it was perfectly normal equipment for a computer programmer to own.

  But first, I had to survive whatever was coming.

  I didn't want to use it, but I'd killed before. The memory sat in my stomach like lead, heavy and poisonous. What if it wasn't Lance but someone else, someone dangerous enough to require putting a bullet through their chest? Could I do it again?

  You did what you had to do last time. You'll do what you have to do this time.

  The bile rose in my throat anyway. I'd taken a life once, and I never wanted to relive that moment—the weight of the trigger, the way the body had crumpled, the absolute finality of what I'd done. But I wasn't naive enough to think the world was a safe place, especially not when you were married to a DuLac.

  Lance's voice echoed in my memory, patient and professional: "Safety first. Finger off the trigger until you're ready to fire. Aim center mass, never shoot to wound. Don't hesitate—hesitation will get you killed."

  Don't hesitate. Right. Easy for him to say when he wasn't potentially in my crosshairs.

  I checked the magazine of the gun Micah had given me with hands that trembled only slightly, chambered a round with the mechanical precision he'd drilled into me during countless practice sessions. Fifteen bullets. More than enough for whatever was coming through that door.

  If someone was playing elaborate psychological games with the grieving widow—if this was some sick form of torture designed to push me over the edge—they were going to discover that I wasn't going down without a fight.

  And if it really was Lance... well, he might wish he'd stayed dead after I finished with him.

  The thought should have been reassuring. Instead, it made my chest ache with the familiar grief I'd been carrying for six weeks like a physical weight. Because even if my desperate theory was right, even if he was somehow alive, that didn't erase the damage. Didn't undo the nights I'd cried myself to sleep or the mornings I'd woken up wishing I hadn't bothered.

  Didn't undo the part of me that had died in that explosion along with him.

  I thought about Dr. Chen's office, about her rational explanations for everything I'd been experiencing. Hyper-vigilance after trauma. Grief-induced hallucinations. The mind's desperate attempt to create meaning from chaos.

  Maybe she was right. Maybe you're sitting in a dark apartment with a loaded gun, waiting for a dead man who exists only in your fractured psyche.

  Another buzz from my phone made me nearly jump out of my skin.

  Micah: Movement on the external cameras. Two figures approaching the building.

  Two figures. My heart rate spiked, adrenaline flooding my system like liquid fire. I'd been expecting one person—Lance, if my desperate theory held any water. Two people suggested something else entirely, something potentially very bad.

  Something like enemies who'd tracked down Lance's widow for their own purposes.

  I thought about all the people Lance had mentioned in passing, all the business associates with grudges and family members with their own twisted agendas. Criminals who wouldn't think twice about using me as leverage or simply eliminating loose ends.

  Or maybe it was exactly who I hoped it was, and he'd brought backup because he wasn't sure how I'd react to discovering he'd faked his death.

  Smart man, if that's the case.

  I moved to the kitchen island, taking cover behind the marble countertop with the gun raised and ready. The position gave me a clear line of sight to both the front door and the balcony entrance, plus solid cover if things went sideways fast.

  Please be Lance. Please don't be random criminals who picked the worst possible apartment to break into tonight.

  The minutes crawled by like hours, each second stretched elastic and thin like time itself was holding its breath. My phone stayed silent—no more updates from Micah, no alerts from the motion sensors. Either the figures had decided against breaking in, or they were being very careful about how they approached.

  Professional careful.

  I controlled my breathing the way Lance had taught me, kept my grip steady on the gun, and tried not to think about all the ways this could go catastrophically wrong. If I was right about Lance being alive, confronting him at gunpoint probably wasn't the healthiest way to start our reunion. If I was wrong...

  If you're wrong, you're about to have a complete psychotic break with a loaded weapon in your hands.

  But I couldn't shake the feeling that I was right, that all the little details—the dreams that felt too real, the sense of being watched, the way my body had been responding to phantom touches in the night—weren't signs of mental illness but signs of truth.

  Signs that the man you love has been lying to you for six weeks.

  Then I heard it—the soft whisper of metal against metal, the barely audible sound of the balcony door being manipulated. Not broken, not forced. Opened with the kind of skill that came from either extensive training or intimate familiarity with the mechanism.

  Or both.

  The door opened so quietly I almost missed it, sliding on its track like it was floating. Two shadows slipped inside, moving with the fluid coordination of people who'd worked together before, who trusted each other completely. They communicated through hand signals I recognized from movies, stayed low to avoid the windows, and avoided the areas where moonlight would reveal their silhouettes.

  Military precision. Professional precision.

  But more than that—familiar precision. I knew those movements, had watched them during training sessions Lance thought I wasn't paying attention to.

  One of them was the right height, the right build. Even in the darkness, even distorted by shadow and distance, his silhouette was burned into my memory from countless nights of lying beside him, of memorizing every line and angle of his body.

  The breadth of his shoulders. The way he held his head when he was concentrating. The careful, measured way he moved through space like a predator who owned every inch of territory he crossed.

  If that's you, Lance, you're about to wish you'd stayed dead.

  They moved through the living room like ghosts, avoiding our furniture with the kind of spatial awareness that came from knowing a place intimately. The taller figure—the one who moved like Lance, who had Lance's build and Lance's deadly grace—gestured to his companion, directing him toward the bedroom while he headed straight for the kitchen.

  Straight for me.

  My finger found the trigger, and I clicked off the safety with a sound that seemed obscenely loud in the silence. I drew in a deep breath, releasing it steadily the way he'd taught me, centering myself for what came next.

  I could hear my own heartbeat thundering in my ears, loud enough that I was surprised they couldn't hear it too. The weight of the gun in my hands felt both foreign and familiar—I'd practiced with it dozens of times, but I'd never pointed it at someone I loved before.

  Someone who let you think he was dead for six weeks.

  Someone who put you through hell because he was too much of a coward to trust you with the truth.

  They were almost to the kitchen island when the taller figure stepped into a patch of moonlight, and I saw his face clearly. My heart stumbled in my chest..

  Lance. Alive. Real. Moving toward me with the same predatory grace I'd fallen in love with.

  I didn't think. I just reacted, pulling the trigger.

  The gun bucked in my hands, the suppressed shot making a sound like a sharp cough rather than the explosive bang I'd expected. Lance dove to the side, but not quite fast enough—I caught him in the shoulder, spinning him around and sending him crashing into the dining table we'd made so many memories on.

  "Fuck!" His voice, sharp with pain but unmistakably real. Unmistakably alive.

  His companion was moving now, emerging from the shadows with weapon drawn, but I was already adjusting my aim, training the gun on Lance's chest as he struggled to his feet.

  Six weeks, you bastard. Six weeks of thinking you were dead.

  "Hello, husband," I said, my voice surprisingly steady despite the way my hands were shaking. "We need to talk."

  But I'd been so focused on Lance, so focused on my rage and the need to make someone pay for six weeks of psychological torture, that I didn't hear the whisper of movement behind me.

  A hand slammed over my mouth, gentle but firm, cutting off my breath. An arm wrapped around my waist, pulling me back against a solid chest that felt like home and betrayal all at once.

  How did he—when did he⁠—

  "Easy, spitfire," Lance murmured against my ear, his voice soft and achingly familiar despite the pain I could hear underneath it. "Let's not shoot anyone else tonight, yeah?"

  The door closed behind them with a soft click, leaving Lance and me alone in the moonlit wreckage of our apartment. A storm of emotion crashed through me—sharp, jagged, impossible to name. Shock. Fear. Relief. Each one clawed its way to the surface, tumbling over the next until I couldn't breathe, couldn’t think. They tore through me like a riptide, dragging me under, and all I could do was drown in the chaos of it. Lance opened his mouth to speak, but I was faster. My palm cracked across his cheek with a sound that echoed through the silence.

  He didn't even flinch. Just stood there, taking it like he deserved it.

  "Morgan—"

  I slapped him again, harder this time. Still nothing.

  "Forgive me," he said quietly.

  "Forgive you?" I shoved him with both hands, putting everything I had behind it. He didn't budge an inch. "You had me thinking I was going crazy! I thought you were dead! How could you do this?"

  I shoved him again, harder, using my whole body weight. It was like pushing against a brick wall. The man was six-foot-three of solid muscle, and I was five-foot-nothing on a good day.