Sure, he was objectively attractive, if you liked the tall, brooding, homicidal type. Which she didn’t. Obviously.

This was the man who executed citizens for petty crimes. The man who stood on that platform day after day, ending lives with no emotion. The embodiment of everything she’d spent her life fighting against.

And yet, she couldn’t look away from his hands.

The smell that began filling the kitchen was nothing like her failed attempt. Rich and heavy, layers of flavor she couldn’t identify. Her stomach cramped.

“What are you making?” she asked, needing something to redirect her thoughts.

“Pasta,” he answered, scraping the chopped vegetables into a pan. “Simple but filling. And hard to burn,” he added, the ghost of mockery in his tone.

She should have been offended, should have snapped back with something caustic. Instead, she found herself watching as he added seasoning and adjusted the heat with a confidence she envied.

Her mind drifted to more questions, wondering about the life he lived that she didn’t know. He’d been gone all day. After threatening her this morning, after wrapping his hands around her throat, he’d disappeared.

Shadera lifted her fingers to her neck at the memory, the skin where he had touched tingling.

“Where were you today?” Another question fleeing her lips without permission.

He didn’t look up from the pan. “Does it matter?”

“You threatened to kill me this morning.” She took another sip from the crystal glass. “Then left me locked in here.”

“I needed space.” Simple, honest.

“From me?”

“From the temptation to follow through on the threat.”

The admission should have frightened her, knowing what he was capable of. Instead, she found herself appreciating the honesty. No pretense, no games. Just truth.

Silence fell between them again as she studied his profile. It was a shame, really. A shame that such a pretty face belonged to someone she had to kill. A shame that those beautiful, strong hands had so much blood on them. A shame that—

No. She pulled her thoughts back sharply. The vodka was trying to make him into something human. He was the Executioner. That was all he was.

An hour had passed in strange suspension, the only sounds the sizzle of the pan and the classical music playing softly over the speakers. Shadera had switched from vodka to water at some point—when, she couldn’t quite remember—but the alcohol still swam through her blood, making everything soft and dangerous.

Callum emerged from the study like he’d been born from shadows, quiet despite his size. “We’re invisible,” he announced, satisfaction threading through his voice.

A small smile crept onto Shadera’s lips. Something about him reminded her of Jameson, how he could sneak into any place with complete silence, his effortless charm and confidence.

Without hesitation, Greyson reached up and pulled off his mask.

The casualness of it stopped Shadera’s breath. The way he just removed it, like taking off a coat, setting it on the counter with no more thought than that. His dark hair was slightly mussed from the mask’s pressure, and he ran a hand through it absently, making it worse.

“You have a death wish,” she snapped, as Callum smirked in her direction.

Greyson ignored her, turning to Callum. “Completely clean?”

“Clean as we can make it.” Callum moved into the kitchen, helping himself to a glass from the cabinet like he lived here. “Left all the devices in place, of course—moving them would raise suspicion. But I’ve created a loop. As far as anyone monitoring knows, you’re both having a riveting evening of silence in separate rooms.”

“How?” Shadera asked, professional curiosity piquing. “Heart surveillance systems run interference recognition algorithms that detect synthetic loops.”

Both men turned to look at her, surprise evident in their straightening postures.

“Murderous and curious, I like that,” Callum quipped, and she could hear the smile in his voice. “I’ve got a signal interceptor in the study now. It catches their feed, splices it to be on a believable loop then feeds it back to them. So technically, nothing is synthetic. It’s all their footage, just—adjusted. They only see what I want them to see.”

“But the audio signatures would show the splice pattern.” She leaned forward. “Unless you’re using a randomizer to vary the ambient noise when you feed it back through their surveillance.”

Callum blinked at her as Greyson’s mouth dropped slightly open.

“Exactly.” Callum sounded delighted. “I’ve got it cycling through over twelve thousand different background variations. Enough that pattern recognition software won’t flag it.”

“What about thermal imaging? The new Heart surveillance systems usually have heat detection.”

“You know your shit,” Callum replied, moving closer with genuine interest. “Thermal spoofing projectors. Three of them now floating around in the ventilation system, calibrated to project heat signatures that match your normal patterns. Took me about thirty minutes to map your typical movement patterns from the last day’s footage.”

“Smart.” She found herself almost impressed. “But what about voice? They’re expecting conversation—”

“Ah, that’s the beautiful part.” Callum pulled out a small device from his pocket. “Voice synthesis. I pulled your voices from the recordings, fed it through an AI processor. Now I can make you say anything.”

He pressed a button, and Shadera heard her own voice say, “I’m going to bed. Stay away from me.”

Then Greyson’s, “Gladly.”

The accuracy was unsettling. Perfect pitch, perfect tone.

“How the hell,” Greyson interjected, looking between them, “do you know surveillance technology this well but can’t operate a stove?”

Shadera’s jaw tightened as she forced away the small smile forming from his bewildered tone. “Survival in the Boundary requires different skills than your pampered existence, little heir.”

“Learning to disrupt Heart security systems is survival?” His tone had shifted to genuinely curious.

If he understood what was truly happening in his city, he would realize what a stupid fucking question that was.

“When infiltrating Heart facilities for medical supplies, for food? Yes,” she snapped, annoyance flaring. “The people dying of infection don’t care how I get the antibiotics.”

Silence stretched between them. Callum looked back and forth, then clapped his hands once. “Well, this has been illuminating. But I have places to be, people to threaten, credits to collect, the usual evening activities.”

He moved toward Greyson, pulling him into one of those masculine embraces that involved more back slapping than actual hugging. “Try not to kill each other,” he said, loud enough for her to hear. Then he whispered something against his ear, something she couldn’t quite catch.

Greyson nodded once, his expression unreadable as Shadera’s suspicions piqued.

Callum turned to her, offering a slight bow that somehow managed to be both mocking and respectful. “Well, killer, welcome to the Heart.” He paused at the entryway, glancing back. “You know, Greyson is more than what you see on those screens. Much more.”

Before she could respond, he was gone, the door clicking shut behind him.

Greyson returned to the stove, plating whatever he’d been cooking with the same focus he probably used to clean his weapons. Two plates, arranged with an attention to detail that seemed excessive for food.

Shadera drifted to the window, drawn by the lights below. The Heart sprawled beneath them, glowing like circuitry that spilled over the rings. Beautiful and cold. From this direction, you couldn’t see the execution platform. Couldn’t see the blood that never quite washed clean from the stones.

“The city is almost beautiful from up here,” she said, not really talking to him. “When you can’t see the suffering.”