Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 77051 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77051 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
I’m sitting in my home rig, screens flickering across the room in a sea of binary light, piecing it together. Who fucking posted that picture? The log files don’t lie. Whoever did this knew exactly what they were doing. They didn’t just pull one file—they combed through dozens of archives before finding an image they could manipulate.
River told me once she’d taken some modeling photos back in college, nothing explicit, just portfolio stuff. She said she deleted them. Apparently, she didn’t purge her backup fully.
She never meant for anyone to see them.
And now they’re global.
A part of me wants to crash the whole internet in retaliation.
Instead, I turn on the tracker I embedded earlier and lock onto a partial IP signature. The path leads back to a machine that’s been spoofed half a dozen times, but I’m narrowing in. Every ping, every trace, gets me closer.
“Coward,” I mutter to the screen.
And then, softer—more dangerous, “You touched her.”
I slam my laptop shut and scrub both hands over my face.
This is too much.
I’m in over my head. I know it. Every instinct I’ve got to keep her safe is now screaming that I can’t keep her safe if I stay in the shadows.
But stepping into the light means losing everything.
I check the timestamp. It’s been four hours since I walked her back to work.
She looked so tired.
But there was a softness in her eyes when she said my name—Gage, not Mask—that undid me. She trusts me. Not just online. In person. Even when I don’t deserve it.
She trusts me with her secrets.
And now she’s carrying mine without even knowing it.
I scroll to the archived feed of her confession. Just audio. I could delete it. Should delete it.
But I don’t.
Because hearing her talk about me—about Mask—with wonder in her voice and heat in her words, it makes me feel human again.
Wanted.
And fuck if that isn’t the most dangerous part of all.
NINETEEN
RIVER
I find it by accident.
I’m digging through my desk drawer for a spare charger when my fingers hit something solid and metallic, wedged beneath a stack of sticky notes and half-dead pens.
A USB drive.
Black. Scuffed. Labeled in white marker: Psalm88.
My breath catches.
I haven’t seen this thing in months. Not since I moved desks, not since before… all of this.
For a second, I just stare at it, every instinct screaming don’t touch that.
Then the other part of me—the one that’s been living off adrenaline and curiosity for weeks—whispers, What if it’s a clue?
Psalm88.
The same tag from the Cathedral files. The one Mask traced.
The one linked to Mason.
My heart lurches into a nervous gallop.
I glance around the office. Everyone’s heads are down, buried in code or coffee or both. No one’s watching me. Not even Gage.
I slide the USB into my laptop.
The screen flickers once. Then again.
The file directory loads—one folder. No name, just a symbol. A tear drop.
When I click it open, there’s a dozen audio files.
Each one labeled with a date.
The first one: Therapy_09_12.mp3.
No.
I freeze, my stomach bottoming out.
No, no, no, no, no—
I double-click it anyway, because apparently I like pain.
My own voice fills my headphones.
“I don’t think I’m broken, but I feel like I should be. Sometimes I wish I was. It’d be easier to explain why I can’t sleep. Why every noise sounds like a warning.”
The air leaves my lungs.
It’s me. My voice. My real voice. My words. The ones I told Dr. Lin in confidence. Sessions that were encrypted, password-protected, backed up only on my personal drive—never shared.
How did they get these?
I click another file.
“I know it’s stupid, but sometimes I think the trolls are right. Maybe I am too much. Too loud. Too visible.”
The screen swims.
It’s all there. My doubts, my private thoughts, my rawest confessions.
The recordings I made for healing. The things I said when I thought I was safe.
And now they’re on a USB labeled with the same tag as the stalker forum.
I rip the drive out so fast the port sparks. My pulse is hammering.
My hands shake as I jam it into my pocket. I’m halfway out of my chair before I realize Gage is standing in the doorway.
He looks concerned. “River? You okay?”
I shake my head. “No. I—” My voice cracks. “Someone planted something in my drawer.”
He frowns, immediately stepping closer. “What do you mean planted?”
I swallow. My throat is raw. “A USB. With… recordings.”
“Recordings of what?”
“Of me.”
The color drains from his face. “What kind of recordings?”
I whisper it, because I can’t say it any louder. “Therapy sessions.”
Something in him snaps. His eyes darken, jaw flexing tight enough to crack.
For the first time since I’ve known him, he doesn’t look calm. He looks dangerous.
“Who has access to your desk?” he asks, voice low and sharp.
“I—I don’t know. Cleaning staff, probably. You. Maybe Tasha, if she borrowed something—”
He cuts me off. “River, nobody borrows a USB and hides it in your drawer.”