In the middle of the night, I woke up suddenly, not to an alarm, but to the cold certainty that I was alone.
I sat up in the master bed, the linen cool against my skin. The side where Bel had been was empty. The silence in the suite wasn't the peace I'd earned, it was the unnerving quiet that precedes a storm.
Where's my girl?
I swung my legs over the side of the bed, reaching for the comms I'd left charging. Before I could key the channel for Tyrone, I saw her text as I was checking the time.
Nunus,
I know you're going to wake up at some point when you realise I'm not next to you so I sent this text. I'm okay, I just needed some air on the deck. I know you're going to come join me so bring my green drink. It's in the fridge.
B.
Needed air. The phrasing was a subtle red flag. Bel didn't need air, she took it. This was an invitation, but it sounded like a command wrapped in a plea.
I retrieved the small glass with the thick, strange green concoction from the fridge. It looked like like throw up, not a stress reliever. I grabbed two mugs of the lukewarm coffee I'd brewed earlier and headed up.
The elevator hissed open onto the deck.
The night was cool and clear, the vast expanse of the False Bay a black mirror reflecting the faint, distant city lights. The armored SUV was gone—Rosline and Ronda had moved it—but the hundreds of sunflowers remained, their dark heads drooping slightly in the night air, silent witnesses to our strange life.
Bel wasn't looking at the Bay or the city. She was standing at the railing, admiring the sun flowers.
She had traded her silk pajamas for a pair of black leggings and my blue furry hoodie…the warm, soft one she always stole. Her hair was pulled back in a loose, functional knot. She looked small, but impossibly sturdy, framed against the massive sky.
I walked up quietly, setting the coffee and the green drink on the outdoor table.
"You should be sleeping," I said, my voice low. I slipped my arms around her from behind, resting my chin on the top of her head. The familiar, faint scent of her floral soap and gunpowder was a profound comfort.
"I can't," she whispered, leaning back into my embrace. Her voice was too calm. "It was too easy, Jackson."
"Easy is good," I countered, kissing her temple. "It means my defenses are better than the General's initial probing team. We sent a message. They know we're ready."
"No," she said, shaking her head. "They were eleven men. Well-trained, but a sacrificial lamb. If he was close with my father and he is anything like he was...Nunus then I wouldn't underestimate him. He wasn't trying to breach the vault he was using them to gather data on our reaction time.Did Tyrone even check if they had cameras on them?"
I loosened my grip, allowing her to turn in my arms. Her eyes, usually dark and focused, were wider tonight, filled with the vastness of the stars above us.
"And what did they learn?" I asked, my strategist's mind clicking into gear.
"That I took the forward defense," she said simply. "That I'm still on the front line. And that my coordination with Rosline and Ronda is immediate. They learned my value in this operation. You saw how your father looked at me when we left his house that day. He knows exactly who I am and I know this is personal for him knowing you're keeping me far from his grasp."
She reached out and took the glass of green liquid. I watched her take a slow, deliberate sip. She didn't flinch at the taste…she just seemed to absorb it.
"Jackson, your father," she began, the name a hard, flat stone in the silence. "He's not a chess player like mine. The General's move was a distraction."
"He's a problem, but we've adjusted. Tyrone's focus is on him now. We'll anticipate a move against my financial network, maybe my assets in the States."
"No," she interrupted, a strange, strained smile touching her lips. "That's what you would do. You see the tactical fight. But what is the one thing on this entire planet that would completely, utterly break you? What is your foundation, Nunus?"
She paused, taking another slow, even breath, her hands resting near her waist, clutching the fabric of the stolen hoodie.
"It's this," she said, gesturing vaguely at the deck, the sunflowers, the secure space, and then back at me. "It's the sanctuary. Your father being able hide his true lifestyle from you all for years and now discovering his own son was doing the same, with his ex partner's toy isn't something to take lightly. And right now, the most valuable thing in this sanctuary is me because he'd want to use me the way my father did to keep their dealings in tact."
Her eyes held mine, the unspoken danger hanging heavy in the air between us.
"He won't attack the vault, Jackson. He'll attack the life in it. He knows you'd clearly do anything to protect me. I need to be harder to break than any wall you can build."
I pulled her back against my chest, feeling the sharp, cold edge of panic. The threat was too abstract, too intimate. It was a strategy based on love, and I had no counter to that.
"We will increase the perimeter security on the South Wing, effective immediately," I said, my voice rough. "Rosline and Ronda will be on a rotation around the main suite. Nothing happens to you, Love. Nothing."
She nodded, closing her eyes, allowing herself to lean fully into my strength for a moment.
"I know," she murmured softly. "That's why we're winning."
She finished the last of the green drink and handed the glass back to me. Her hands were trembling slightly.
As we continued speaking about our plans, the scent of the lukewarm coffee I'd brought up…a smell that had been a simple fixture in her life for years, a smell she usually loved…seemed to hit her like a blast wave.
Her body seized, a strangled gasp escaping her lips. Her face, which moments ago had been sharp with strategic resolve, went instantly grey.
"The... the coffee," she choked out, her hand flying to her mouth. "Get it away. Nunus, I—"
She didn't finish. She broke away from me, stumbling into the elevator and hitting the button for the master suite with panicked speed. I followed instantly, scooping up the mugs and the green drink glass and tossing them onto the outdoor table, the clatter drowned out by the hiss of the closing doors.
The moment the elevator opened, she was running for the bathroom. I dropped to my knees behind her, my tactical brain completely useless. I gently swept her hair back and held it away, my other hand instinctively moving to the small of her back, rubbing slow, steady circles as she retched violently over the porcelain bowl.
The sound, the total physical surrender, was more unsettling than a dozen incoming armored vehicles. The strategist was gone, replaced by a woman consumed by sudden, inexplicable illness.
"It's okay, Love. I've got you," I whispered, the words sounding foreign and soft on my own lips. "Breathe. You're alright."
When the episode passed, she sagged against my chest, shaking. I took a fresh hand towel, dampened it, and gently wiped her mouth and forehead.
"I can't… I can't smell that," she mumbled, her voice raw.
I carried her to the sink to rinse her mouth. As I did, my mind raced. The sudden, extreme nausea from a simple smell…coffee, which she usually craves…the new green concoction, the constant exhaustion I'd dismissed as stress, the subtle increase in her emotional volatility. The pieces were starting to align, not into a tactical solution, but into an impossible, civilian reality.
No. It's the adrenaline crash, I commanded my own mind, setting her gently down on the edge of the bed. A reaction to the poison threat from the General's men, perhaps?
"Stress," I stated, pulling the blankets up to her chin, trying to sound certain. "The General's move—it finally caught up with you. Ronda's drink is likely just aggressive detox. I'm going to have Tyrone analyze that recipe, just in case."
She didn't argue. She just reached up, cupped my cheek, and then closed her eyes, the exhaustion winning the fight against her will.
"Sleep," I commanded, the word now a low, fierce plea.
I watched her for a long minute. The nausea, the constant fatigue, the way she clutched my stolen hoodie…it was a collection of bizarre data points that defied the simple conclusion of "stress." I filed the details away, assigning them the highest possible threat level in the 'Belinda Knight' database. I needed to monitor, to observe, to find the hidden threat before it took root.
I walked out of the bedroom, my footsteps silent, and pulled out my comms, the Iron Maiden protocol still running. I had no idea the fortress was already compromised, and that the only cure for this new, unsettling vulnerability was time, not firepower.