Chapter 85. Echoes in the Command Suite

“So, we were filmed.” Harper’s voice cracked like a whip in the hush of Forge Tower’s command suite, the city lights blurred behind her as dawn tugged at the horizon. Knox stood next to her—his stance rigid, jaw clenched—scar tissue of their shared betrayal still fresh.

Lucien didn’t meet her eyes. The screens around them glowed with minuscule thumbnail clips from the Bastion auction. Harper’s face half-hidden in shadow, Knox’s presence beside her. A fragment of movement. A flicker of invitation. A shared heat now weaponized by the unknown.

Harper hammered her palm against the console: “How much was recorded?”

Lucien swallowed, voice low: “Everything. Every word. Every caress. Encrypted feed, mirrored across several nodes—one last evening, a hidden network I couldn’t trace.”

Harper inhaled sharply. “Someone was watching me at my most vulnerable. Sex and sincerity exposed in darkness.”

Knox’s hand found her back. “We owe her that much.”

Lucien shif