Mira hadn't said a word in twenty minutes.
She sat on the floor, knees tucked to her chest, staring at the surveillance photo. Kelsey's blurred face looked like it belonged to a stranger now, not the roommate she used to share midnight pizza with and vent to about Eli's controlling moods.
"She's part of it," Mira said finally.
Cal, arms crossed, stood like a statue by the window. "We don't know that yet."
"She wore my coat," Mira snapped, standing suddenly. "She printed that photo. She's not just involved—she's baiting me."
Jace moved beside her, gently steering her to sit. "Or she's being used. Eli could be pulling her strings the same way he tried to pull yours."
Cal nodded. "That's a very real possibility. Abusers don't always come at you with fists—they isolate you, turn others into their messengers. She might think she's helping him win you back."
"Or," Mira said, her voice colder now, "she might know exactly what she's doing."
---
Two hours later, Cal handed them a file.
"Public info I could scrape on Kelsey Nolan," he said. "She's living in a studio downtown. Left her corporate job four months ago—no new employer listed. Bank statements show large cash deposits. Consistent. Weekly."
Mira flipped through the file, her fingers trembling. "So he's paying her?"
"Looks like it."
"What for?" Jace asked. "To track Mira? Send messages?"
Cal hesitated. "Maybe more."
Jace's brows pulled together. "More?"
Cal leaned forward. "You said Kelsey moved out right after you broke it off with Eli?"
Mira nodded.
"And since then, he's had eyes on you. Knows your patterns. Your friends. Maybe even your passwords. That kind of intel doesn't come from sitting in a car with binoculars. That's inside access."
A beat of silence.
Jace exhaled. "She's his mole."
Mira turned the words over in her head. They tasted like bile.
"He never stopped controlling me," she whispered. "He just changed the method."
---
That night, Mira couldn't sleep.
The apartment felt too warm, too full of echoes. Every creak of the pipes, every gust of wind against the windows felt like a footstep, a whisper, a reminder that no door was ever fully shut.
She sat on the kitchen counter in one of Jace's oversized t-shirts, sipping cold water and staring at nothing.
Jace padded in a moment later, rubbing his eyes. "Couldn't sleep either?"
She nodded. "This whole thing… it's like peeling an onion. One layer of rot at a time."
He stepped between her knees, hands on her thighs. "You peeled it. You saw the center. That's the hard part."
"Is it?" she asked, voice thin. "Because I feel like it's just beginning."
Jace paused. Then: "Let's run."
Her brow furrowed. "Run?"
"Just for the weekend. Get out of the city. No tech. No surveillance. Just us. Somewhere quiet."
"And what—come back and pretend everything's okay?"
"No," he said. "Come back and be ready to fight smarter."
She stared at him, then slowly nodded. "Okay. Where?"
"I know a place," he said. "And you're gonna love it."
---
The cabin was two hours north, tucked deep into a forest of birch and maple, perched beside a glassy lake that caught the afternoon sun like a mirror.
No neighbors. No cell towers. Just trees, water, and silence.
Jace had stayed there once during a bad winter, fixing the solar panels for a reclusive client who'd offered him the keys for emergencies. This counted.
Mira stood on the dock, wind in her hair, a scarf wrapped tight around her neck, and exhaled.
For the first time in weeks, the air didn't feel heavy. It felt like hers.
That night, they lit a fire, cooked pasta from scratch, and shared a bottle of wine on the floor, tangled in a blanket.
"You know what I miss?" Mira said suddenly.
"What?"
"Music. I used to sing all the time. Before Eli made fun of my voice."
Jace's eyes darkened. "You ever want to punch someone just enough to break their nose, but not enough to end up in jail?"
Mira laughed—a real laugh—and leaned into him.
He kissed her temple. "Sing for me."
She shook her head.
"Mira."
"Jace—"
"You're safe here."
And something about the way he said it—firm, quiet, utterly certain—made her believe it.
So she sang.
Softly at first. Off-key and breathy.
But he didn't laugh. Didn't wince. Didn't mock her.
He just listened like it mattered.
When she finished, he whispered, "That was beautiful."
And just like that, another brick came off the wall she'd built around herself.
---
The next morning, Cal's satellite phone buzzed with a coded message.
Back in the city, something had happened.
A break-in.
Mira's old apartment.
Someone had forced the lock, ransacked the place, and stolen only one thing: a shoebox full of letters and photos she hadn't looked at in months.
A neighbor heard something and peeked into the hall just in time to catch a glimpse of a woman leaving.
Red hair. Tall. In a coat two sizes too big.
Kelsey.
Mira stared at the message for a long time.
"She's escalating," Cal wrote. "She's not just watching anymore. She's collecting pieces of your past."
Jace read over her shoulder. "Why? What could she want with old letters?"
Mira's face turned pale.
"My password resets. Most of them are based on dates—memories from that box."
Jace cursed.
"She's trying to breach your accounts."
"Worse," Mira said. "She's trying to erase me."
---
They drove back to the city that evening, hearts pounding with a mix of fear and rage.
Mira was done hiding.
The war wasn't just Eli anymore. It was whoever he'd recruited. And whatever game they were playing, she refused to be a pawn.
She was going to be the endgame.
And she was going to win.