Chapter 227: The Inside Team.
The CGI building wore its new military skin like a suit that didn’t quite fit. Soldiers in tactical gear stood where plainclothes agents used to lounge. A fresh checkpoint blocked the main entrance—metal detectors, scanners, and hard eyes where yesterday nobody had even glanced up.
I let them run their scanner over me, the machine beeping cold and official. Then I walked through into the wide concrete yard.
Mercury was already outside waiting. The second she spotted me, a sharp, knowing smile cut across her face. It had diagnosis written all over it.
"You look terrible," she said, falling into step beside me as we headed for the main doors. Her boots clicked against the pavement.
"Less sleep," I answered.
"Less sleep," she repeated, shooting me a sideways look. Her eyes dragged over me slowly. "You look exactly like a man who spent the whole night fucking the life out of Sherry. Poor girl probably can’t walk straight today."
I wasn’t biting. Mercury was Mercury. Fighting her usually just made it worse.
The reception room had been flipped overnight. A soldier now sat where Pauline used to sit, same desk but the whole vibe changed—papers stacked differently, a rifle leaning against the wall, the air thicker with tension.
"There’s no way I’m accepting it was just less sleep," Mercury kept going, relentless. "I cannot accept someone riding me all night like that. How?"
"Please."
"You’re him." She slung her arm across my shoulders, pulling herself close. "How do you physically keep going that long?"
"I said less sleep," I corrected as we reached the elevator. "Whatever your dirty mind does with that is your business."
She laughed loud and bright. The elevator doors slid open. A soldier already stood inside, back against the far wall, staring straight at the doors like a statue. We stepped in and took the opposite side. Mercury positioned herself right between us.
The doors closed with a soft ding.
"Doesn’t it bother you," Mercury said as the elevator started rising, "that we didn’t fuck outside the walls? I told you I had nothing under my skirt and all you did was use your fingers."
"Mercury," I said low, warning.
"You’re worried this gentleman is hearing everything." She turned her head toward the soldier. "Sir, is any of this new to you?"
The soldier didn’t even blink. "No," he answered, voice completely flat.
Damn.
The elevator stopped. The soldier walked out without a glance back. The doors closed again, leaving just the two of us. Mercury threw her head back and laughed—full, unashamed, shoulders shaking.
I looked at her and couldn’t help it. A laugh ripped out of me too.
The elevator opened onto the administrative floor, the same floor where I’d sat across from Bala just yesterday. The hallway felt colder now, stripped of its old rhythm.
We stepped out.
"Sinn’s going to be happy you decided to join," Mercury said as we walked toward the corner office. Her arm finally dropped from my shoulders.
I didn’t reply.
The door to what used to be Bala’s office stood wide open. Sinn sat behind the heavy oak desk, settled into the big chair that had belonged to someone else twenty-four hours ago. He wore the seat with visible discomfort—like a man who still wasn’t sure he’d earned it.
I knocked once on the open doorframe. Sinn looked up. Mercury and I walked in.
The office had been scrubbed clean overnight. The heavy oak desk sat exactly where it always had, the big leather chair behind it, the tall window behind that letting in sharp morning sunlight. No bloodstains on the floor. No sign of what had gone down here yesterday. Someone had worked fast and thorough, the kind of cleaning people do when they want a room to forget what it saw.
"Abram." Sinn couldn’t keep the relief out of his voice as we stepped inside.
Mercury dropped into the chair right beside me, close enough that her thigh pressed against mine. She leaned in like she was sharing the seat.
"General," I said, keeping my tone even.
"So you decided not to let a friend down," Sinn said, folding his hands on the desk.
I didn’t answer that.
"Should we go straight to it?" he asked, eyes locked on mine across the polished wood.
"Yes."
Sinn leaned forward, elbows on the desk. Sunlight from the window cut across his face, highlighting the new lines of stress. "I called you both because I need help. Lady Veyron has sent her sister to head the field department." He paused, jaw tight. "I don’t trust her."
"You think she’s watching you," Mercury said, tilting her head.
"I know she is." Sinn didn’t soften it. "If they could remove Bala, they can remove anyone. I need people around me I actually know. That’s why you’re here."
"What’s our role?" I asked. No reason to dance around it.
"I want an inside team," he said. "Personal operations. Off the record from the Veyron department."
"Two people isn’t a team," Mercury pointed out, shifting in her chair so her arm brushed mine again.
"Monica agreed to let us keep any former CGI agents who are willing," Sinn replied. "I’ve already spoken to most of them. The only ones who said yes were the outsiders. Selecting and building the team is your job."
I connected the dots fast. The field department now running under Monica’s sister. A primordial woman quietly pulling strings while Sinn thought he was in charge. And me, sitting right here, about to build an inside team from the ground up.
This is exactly the access I need.
"One more thing," Sinn said, looking straight at me.
I waited, holding his gaze.
"I need someone to represent the government at Bala’s burial. And Riya Belmonte’s." His eyes stayed locked on mine. "Will you do it?"
[Riya’s burial. That’s where Venna Belmonte will be.]
That’s a very good start.
"Yes," I said.
The word hung in the sunlit office for a second. Sinn gave a small nod, the tension in his shoulders easing just a fraction.