Olivia's POV
We were sitting outside the house, there was silence all over the place and Seb and me were lost in our dreams.
Seb exhaled slowly, the scent of tobacco still faint on his hoodie from his last cigarette. He looked at me with those eyes that always made my heart skip a beat. "You ever think about what comes after this?" he asked softly.
I turned to him, brushing my thumb over the scar on his knuckle. "After what?"
"After everything," he gestured vaguely at the world around us. "This moment, tomorrow, next year. All of it."
My heart skipped as our eyes met. Something unspoken passed between us—tender feelings we both carried but were too afraid to name. Life had taught us that joy was as temporary as morning dew, evaporating just as we noticed its beauty. So we moved around each other with careful steps, like two stars sharing the same sky, both waiting for permission to shine together.
"I think about it," I admitted. "What we could be."
He smiled, soft and almost shy. "What do you see?"
"I see myself finally finishing that novel," I whispered. "The one I keep starting and stopping. Maybe someone would actually want to publish it."
"They'd be idiots not to," Seb said with absolute certainty. "You've always had a way with words that makes people listen."
I felt the warmth of his belief in me spread through my chest. "What about you? What do you dream about?"
He hesitated, looking almost embarrassed. "Promise you won't laugh?"
"Cross my heart," I said, curious now.
"I want to be a lawyer," he said, his voice growing more confident as he continued. "Someone who stands up for people who can't stand up for themselves. Maybe even open my own practice someday."
I stared at him, surprised. "A lawyer? You never told me that before."
"It's been in the back of my mind for a while," he admitted. "Just never seemed like the right time to bring it up."
"You'd be amazing," I said sincerely. "You're certainly stubborn enough for it."
Sebastian laughed, low and warm. "It's called determination, Liv."
"It's called being a pain in the ass," I countered with a grin.
"Fair enough," he conceded with a smile. "Would you support me? If I actually tried?" The evening breeze picked up slightly, making me shiver. Sebastian noticed and shifted closer, his warmth immediately comforting.
We sat in comfortable silence for a moment, watching the sky change colors as sunset approached.
"You know what I was thinking about?" he asked suddenly.
"What?"
"A house," he said, his voice growing animated. "Not just any house, but one with character. Old wooden floors that creak in all the right places."
I smiled, caught up in his enthusiasm. "With big windows to let in the light."
"And a yard," he added. "Nothing too big, just enough for a garden maybe."
"What about a porch swing?" I asked, the image forming clearly in my mind.
"Definitely," I said. "And bookshelves everywhere. For my novels and your boring law books."
"My books probably would be boring to you," he said thoughtfully.
"Try me," I challenged. "I might surprise you."
He tilted his head, grinning. "You want to read about tort reform and constitutional precedents?"
"Well, when you put it that way..." I laughed. "Maybe I'll just stick to writing my novels."
"You'll be brilliant anyway," I said. "Fighting for justice in a perfectly tailored suit."
"Oh?" His eyebrow arched. "You've thought about me in a suit?"
I felt my cheeks flush hot. "Maybe once or twice."
"I'll make sure to get a good one then," he said, his voice dropping lower.
"And I'll be there in the front row of the courtroom," I promised, "taking notes for my next crime thriller."
"Using me for research?" he teased.
"Always."
He leaned closer, our shoulders touching. "If everything works out—if we can make it through all this—I want that future, Liv. All of it."
"Me too," I whispered, surprised by how much I meant it.
For a moment, we just sat there, the possibility of happiness feeling almost tangible between us. I could almost see it: me at my desk writing, him coming home from court, both of us building something real together.
"We'll have a cat," Sebastian said suddenly.
I laughed. "Where did that come from?"
"Every writer needs a cat," he said with mock seriousness. "It's practically a requirement."
"Fine, but I get to name it."
"No way," he said. "You'd name it something ridiculous like Mr. Whiskers."
"Mr. Whiskers is a perfectly respectable name!"
"It's literally the most generic cat name in existence."
I shoved his shoulder playfully. "You're such a jerk."
"But you like me anyway," he said, his voice suddenly vulnerable.
Our eyes met, and the teasing atmosphere shifted into something deeper. "Yeah," I admitted. "I really do."
He kissed me then—not rushed or desperate, but like we had time. Like maybe we could actually have that future we were dreaming about.
But reality found us quickly. A knock on the door. Three sharp raps that snapped the dream in half.
Vince's voice followed. "Olivia. Sebastian. We've got something."
Sebastian stood first, hand lingering on mine. "We'll get there," he said. "One step at a time."
I nodded, holding onto that promise like a lifeline.
"But seriously," he added as we headed for the door, "we're not naming the cat Mr. Whiskers."
Third POV
Jonathan Patterson stood in his office he was sitting on his table, chest rising and falling in shallow, erratic breaths with scotch on his hand. The room—once his sanctuary of power—felt suffocating now. Too many shadows. Too much silence.
"Where the hell is she?" he snarled to himself.
Anika Grey—gone. No contact. Her comms cut.
Chief Halden—noncompliant. Cold. Cowardly.
Olivia's parents—disappeared. No trace. Not a single ping off their trackers in over thirty-six hours.
And now Olivia herself, vanished with Sebastian and Evelyn.
Patterson slammed his fist into the edge of the desk. The impact sent a paperweight crashing to the floor. A crack spiderwebbed across the polished surface like the fractures crawling down his carefully controlled world.
He turned to his assistant, who flinched from the storm in his eyes.
"Get me Halden. Now. No voicemail. No bullshit excuses. I want him live."
The assistant rushed out. Patterson grabbed the edge of his desk and leaned forward, breathing through clenched teeth. Sweat dampened the collar of his tailored shirt. Rage rippled beneath his skin like a storm held too long in a cage.
Within minutes, the video monitor flickered to life. Halden appeared onscreen, hunched in his office chair, lips tight, eyes evasive.
"I'm here," Halden said carefully. "Still in the office. Everything's—"
"Don't say it," Patterson snapped, pointing a trembling finger at the screen. "If you tell me things are under control, I swear to God I'll rip your badge off myself and drag you in."
Halden stiffened. "With respect, I'm working on it. We've got patrols sweeping—"
"You have nothing!" Patterson's voice cracked into a roar. "Anika's gone dark. My top enforcer, gone. Olivia's parents—gone. My son, my blood—gone. And you're sitting there like this is a fucking budget meeting!"
The screen was silent. Halden blinked once, then twice. "It's possible... someone's working against us. Coordinated. From the inside."
Patterson's fury simmered into a terrifying calm. "I know exactly who's behind it."
He turned away from the monitor and stared at the map pinned to the far wall. Red lines. Dots of connection. Paths of movement, all meticulously tracked—until now. Now there were too many blanks.
"Vincent Hale," he muttered. The name fell like poison off his tongue. "Always one step ahead. I should've buried him when I had the chance."
Halden hesitated. "Sir... with all due respect, Hale's just one man—"
"He's a virus," Patterson growled. "And he's infecting everything I built. ECHO was supposed to be untouchable. A dream. Mine."
He walked to the liquor cabinet and poured two fingers of scotch, his hands trembling. He didn't drink it.
"They're pulling my foundation apart. Brick by brick. But they don't understand—I don't break. I erase."
He turned back to the screen, voice cold as steel. "Double the surveillance. Triple it. Tap every street camera from here to the border. I want their faces on every screen. Every agent, every informant—we don't sleep until they're in chains. Start kicking down doors if you have to."
"And if we find them?" Halden asked, quieter now.
Patterson's eyes burned.
"Bring them to me. Alive. Broken if necessary, but breathing."
He shut off the monitor and stood in the silence of his office, seething.
Olivia's POV
"Cole's our next target," Vince said, his voice steady, focused. "We have a window of seventy-two hours before his next meeting with ECHO board members. If we're going to take him down, it's now or never."
I turned, walking over. "What do we know so far?"
"Enough to make him sweat," Luke chimed in from the corner, tapping at his laptop. "Offshore accounts, masked transactions, hidden correspondence. He's funding Project ECHO directly, and he's using government money to do it."
Sebastian leaned over the table. "But where's the hard proof?"
Vince flipped open the file. "His personal office—main terminal. It's not connected to any network, totally isolated. But he backs everything up weekly on an external drive that stays docked during business hours."
I exchanged a glance with Sebastian. "So we get in, get the drive, and get out?"
"Not just that," Luke cut in. "We plant this—" he held up a disguised USB stick "—on his system. It auto-installs an app that mirrors every document he opens, every message he writes. I'll be able to watch him in real-time."
Sebastian gave a slow nod. "When?"
"Tomorrow night," Vince replied. "Security will be down for system maintenance for a three-hour window. You two are going in."
I felt my pulse spike. Infiltration wasn't new to us, but Cole's office was part of a government building with internal surveillance and guards on every floor. One wrong move and we wouldn't just be exposed—we'd disappear.
Sebastian walked over to me, voice softening. "You sure about this?"
I met his eyes. "If we don't take Cole down, more children suffer. More families get destroyed. We're doing this."
He exhaled slowly, then nodded. "Then we do it right."
The elevator ride was painfully slow. Sebastian and I stood side-by-side, dressed in custodial uniforms. Fake ID badges clung to our chests. My heart pounded with every floor that passed, but I kept my face blank, calm.
When the doors opened on the 23rd floor, we stepped out silently. Vince's voice crackled in my earpiece. "Camera rotation begins in ten seconds. You've got three minutes to cross the hall. Go."
Sebastian held my hand for just a beat longer than necessary before we moved—quick, quiet. At the senator's door, I pulled out the access card we'd cloned two nights ago and swiped it.
The light turned green.
We slipped inside.
His office was sleek and cold. No personal touches. Just power and precision. I moved toward the desk while Sebastian headed to the windows to make sure we weren't visible from the other buildings.
"Two minutes," Vince said.
I slid the drawer open, spotting the silver-plated external drive docked to the CPU. With careful hands, I removed it and plugged in Luke's USB device.
"Installing," Luke said. "Don't touch anything."
I held my breath as code flooded across the screen. For thirty seconds, we waited in dead silence, surrounded by the scent of too-polished leather and sharp cologne.
"Done. Copying his last backup now."
Sebastian approached quietly. "How much longer?"
"Twenty seconds."
We were almost in the clear—until the hallway outside filled with voices. Laughter. Heavy footsteps.
Sebastian tensed. "Security?"
I didn't answer. We had no time.
"Get down," he whispered.
We ducked behind the massive mahogany desk just as the door handle twitched.
A security guard's voice filtered in from outside. "Cole always forgets his damn coffee mug. Guy's a menace."
"I'll grab it for him," another replied.
Keys jangled. A click echoed through the room.
I felt Sebastian's fingers squeeze mine, and I stilled my breathing completely.
The guard stepped in, humming to himself, oblivious. He crossed the room, grabbed the mug, and paused for a beat—too long.
"Let's go!" the other called from the hall.
With a chuckle, he left, door closing behind him.
"Now!" Luke snapped. "Get out!"
Sebastian yanked the USB from the system. I secured the drive. We moved fast—out the door, down the hall, into the elevator—before either of us dared to breathe again.
Back in the underground safehouse, the relief hit me like a flood. We'd done it. The drive was in Luke's hands, and within hours, he had decrypted the senator's files.
"Multiple accounts," he murmured. "Funding chains, invoice trails, transaction logs—it's all here. Millions rerouted from government health programs. And this—" he pulled up a document, brows furrowing "—this is sick."
On the screen was a memo drafted by Senator Cole: a proposal to legally reclassify minors in Project ECHO as "emotionally unstable assets." It stripped them of protections. Made them disposable.
My hands clenched into fists.
"He knew exactly what he was doing," I whispered.
"We can't sit on this," Evelyn said, entering the room with fire in her eyes. "Let me write it. I can make it viral. I'll break this story so hard they'll be forced to choke on the fallout."
Sebastian hesitated. "It's risky. You are only sixteen I am not letting you in this plan at all eve"
"I don't care," she shot back. "You saw what they did to those kids. What they did to you or mom seb this is the only way I can take away everything dad has loved please let me do it please." There was a desperation behind her voice and I can feel that eve wanted to do it not for her but for her brother
I nodded. "Let her do it."
Seb looked at me with he was shocked. Glance back at him and assure him that eve can do it and he nooded
"yes" eve was exited knowing this and shouted and then hugged seb " I promise you seb I will write the good report and will get the revenge for all the scarry nights you have"
Seb "when did my sister become so mature" he smiled and cupped her face" I believe in you eve but I don't want to risk your life so promise me you will keep yourself safe don't go anywhere without me or luke okay"
"okay"eve nodded and hugged him again. And I was smilling like an idiot seeing this beautiful scene
But was interrupted with vince
"Then we do it smart. First, we release the financial documents. Build the case. Then the emails. And lastly—" he glanced at Evelyn "—the voice recording."
Over the next twenty-four hours, we watched as the story grew.
Evelyn was a machine—drafting, editing, and deploying. The exposé was structured like a bombshell: first the stolen funds, then the misclassified children, and finally, the leaked call between Cole and a senior Project ECHO director.
The nation exploded.
News anchors stammered through breaking headlines. Protesters swarmed the senator's estate. Hashtags trended. School districts launched investigations. Whistleblowers came forward.
Still, Cole tried to spin it.
"This is politically motivated," he declared at his press conference. "I have been targeted by radicals. These so-called 'leaks' are fabrications."
Evelyn, sitting with her laptop, raised an eyebrow. "Oh, is that so?"
She clicked play.
Cole's voice filled the room, unmistakable. "We reclassify them, we don't need parental consent. The ones that vanish—we cover it as a psych hold or juvenile rehabilitation. It's clean."
The media turned feral. Even his allies began to abandon ship. Evelyn leaned back, victorious.
"Welcome to the fire, Senator."
Sebastian placed his hand on my shoulder. "We're closer than we've ever been."
I looked at him, thinking of the fear, the silence, the darkness we'd fought through. "And we're not done yet."
His lips brushed mine. "No. But we're going to see the end of this, Liv. And when we do... I'm taking you away. Away from all this noise. Just us. Somewhere with no more ghosts."
My heart cracked a little, in a good way. "Promise me?"
He smiled. "With everything I have."