Chapter Text
The sun was already sinking low in the west when Rose stepped onto the back porch. The gentle breeze stirred the loose strands of her hair as she set a steaming mug of mint tea down beside her before sitting on the wooden steps. She pulled the wool cardigan tighter around her and sighed.
A small backyard stretched out before her, still humming with life even at this late hour. Herbs and flowers swayed and stretched lazily toward the last traces of sunlight. Rose had planted a patch of garden herself, like her therapist suggested. Turned the soil, tended the roots and watched them all blossom. She’d never imagined herself a gardener, but grew to enjoy the distraction that busy hands provided.
California hadn’t changed much in the three months since she came back from New York, though her life definitely had.
In the first few weeks, Rose buried herself in work with relentless focus. It was easier than thinking of what – who – she’d left behind. Someone who’s name she hadn’t spoken out loud.
He crowded her thoughts whenever there was a lull in the stream of tasks that filled her days. Because of that, she made sure there were no moments of idle time.
Even though her skills were sharper than ever, the grand ambitions of starting a new company sat wasted on the back of her mind. Starting over would take a mental clarity she seemed to lack these days, so she resigned to find purpose at AdVerse.
Being the newly appointed CTO wasn’t light work and she took on more responsibilities than the job required.
Her calendar was packed with back-to-back meetings, systems audits, code reviews and investor dinners. And when the workday ended, Rose would spend more hours building programs and security patches no one asked for, polishing lines of code and obsessing over perfection versus functionality.
Anything to avoid going back to an empty home before dark.
The house she bought on Willow Glen was modest – a two-story with white walls under a red-tiled roof. Ideal for a family she didn’t have. It was even equipped with a state-of-the-art security system she’d customized herself.
This was the only financially responsible decision she’d made in years. The kind of adult thing a woman in her thirties with real obligations was supposed to do and she was damn proud. It was also the first time she could call a place her own.
Growing up, Rose had never known the stability of a permanent roof over her head. Even her aunt’s house, the only place she’d ever felt at home, had been a temporary shelter.
The emotional scars hadn’t disappeared, but they resurfaced less frequently as time passed. Nightmares still came in plenty, yanking her from sleep with a pounding heart and cold sweat.
Therapy once a week helped relieve the symptoms of trauma. She’d also enrolled in self-defense classes as a way to reclaim the sense of safety she’d lost again.
She went out with friends that reminded her that there was life outside work, even when all she wanted was to sit in front of her laptop, headphones on and the outside world shut down.
And every night, the space beside her in bed remained empty in a way that no one else could fill.
Everyone thought she was thriving. Rose smiled when expected and nodded through conversations, all while her mind drifted to places she shouldn’t revisit if she wanted to remain sane.
Only her closest friends noticed the distant look of an emotionally disconnected woman held together by caffeine and a full schedule.
No one really knew she carried the pain of a goodbye that nearly broke her.
With time, her body began to forget the rush of adrenaline that had kept her alive in New York, and life settled into a routine meant to numb the longing in her heart.
This time around, Rose tried hard to still the flutter in her chest whenever she saw someone that resembled him and stopped expecting a call that would never come.
Rose was convinced she was finally happy. And that was true for a while. She’d mastered the art of being fine a long time ago. Too well, in fact. So well that even she couldn’t tell where the act ended and real happiness began.
A flash of orange under the rosemary bush startled her out of her thoughts. A familiar tail swayed into view.
"Rusty!" Rose called out, smiling. “Are you spying on me?”
The cat had showed up in her backyard one night when the air had been too cold even for Californian winter standards. Rose had heard rustling by the fence followed by a cry loud enough to reach her bedroom. With a stun gun in hand, she’d crept through the darkened house and out into the garden.
Crouched under the very same bush had been a skinny ginger cat with a torn ear and wide, hungry eyes. He’d hissed at her but she approached him anyway. It took her one can of tuna, a few scratches and a lot of patience to get him inside, clean and properly fed.
Rose supposed this was some kind of karmic payback for making lies about dead cats.
Despite his initial hostility, Rusty had proven endlessly affectionate, always seeking her attention in the most loving ways. He trailed after her around the house and purred loudly beside her every night – an oddly comforting sound that reminded her of a different kind of snoring she missed.
Rusty was the only living being welcoming her home, winding around her ankles as if reminding her she wasn’t completely alone. He listened to her talk about unit tests and board meetings, even without understanding. Her voice was enough for him.
Some nights, Rose just sat with him curled on her lap, eyes unfocused while the TV murmured in the background of her distant thoughts.
Peter would’ve loved him. Her chest tightened at the thought.
As if sensing her imminent distress, Rusty trotted over with his tail held high and amber eyes filled with nothing but love for her. Rose reached out and combed her fingers through the sleek fur. He arched gracefully into her touch with a soft purr.
This life — the house, the job, even the cat — was the kind of life Peter had wanted for her. And she was supposed to be grateful for that. After all, this was everything she’d wanted after surviving another round of life-threatening events.
But now, three months later, the freedom Peter had afforded her tasted strangely bitter.
The house was clean, obsessively so. Her inbox overflowed with invitations to panels and networking events, her calendar was organized down to the hour. Her normal life seemed perfect.
And still, Rose was losing her mind.
The early rush of building a stable life had worn off by now. Days stretched longer, her thoughts slowed down and as they did, Peter inevitably crept back in.
No matter the rigid schedule, the size of the garden, or how convincing her smiles were, none of it filled the hollow space he’d left behind.
It didn’t take long either for Rose to realize her therapist was categorically wrong. What she and Peter had was a connection that transcended any bond forged by shared trauma alone. Despite her best efforts to move on, her feelings for him endured beyond time and distance.
They were right for each other, just never at the right time.
And the longer she pretended to be fine without him, the more she understood that being safe didn’t necessarily meant being happy.
Rose took a sip of tea, lukewarm now, and told herself that maybe this was the price of normality – a life that was technically everything she wanted but would always feel incomplete without its most important part.
A weary sadness crept in as she fought against the lump in her throat. Rose scooped Rusty in her arms and held his warm body close. The longing ache residing in her chest had long passed the point of tears. She'd cried all of them in that shabby apartment they once shared, then vowed no more ever since.
Hours later, after making the usual security check around the house, Rose went looking for Rusty. She heard loud purring coming from the closet, peered inside and called him. Startled, he leapt down from the top shelf, knocking loose a pile of neatly folded clothes.
They weren’t meant to be found, but there they were scattered at her feet now. A small pile of Peter’s sweaters and t-shirts she’d hidden away in a futile attempt to forget him. As if she hadn’t desperately clung to them for weeks after coming back.
Some she had shamelessly stolen before his first mission. One she’d packed before leaving New York, too heartbroken to leave it behind.
Now they were proof that he was gone and would never wear them again.
Rose stared down at the rumpled pile. Her heart thumped in her chest, her eyes burned. She reached for the navy-blue sweater at the top – soft to the touch, lightly worn at the cuffs.
Peter’s favorite.
She pressed it to her face and inhaled deeply. His scent had faded, which only made his absence even more real to her.
“Don’t be stupid,” she muttered angrily.
Clutching the bundle of clothes in her arms, Rose crossed the room charged with the determination to throw them in the trash. She had to. Because as much as she loved him, she also hated him for making her care so deeply, then ordering her to live a normal life as if he didn’t mean everything to her too.
But at the door her legs refused to move any further. Tossing his clothes away meant erasing the last tangible pieces of him she still had along with the good memories attached to them. And she wasn’t quite ready for that yet.
So instead, Rose dropped the clothes onto the bed, much to Rusty’s delight. He promptly curled on top of the navy-blue one and closed his eyes with a satisfied sigh.
Rose let out a grumble and crawled under the covers. She closed her eyes, willing away the pain lodged in her chest, and hoped for a night without nightmares.
But sleep didn’t come. Her mind was in turmoil with memories of Peter that returned to her like an echo. His kind, hooded eyes. The adorable tooth-gap grin. His gentle touch.
The last time she saw him, Peter had been too calm for someone who had just broken federal law. Then he’d said goodbye with hopeless finality, fully convinced it was the only way to keep her safe.
To have been loved so deeply in a short amount of time and then losing it all, felt like a piece of her very soul had been ripped apart.
Rose hadn’t fought him then, but wished she had.
She sighed and rolled to the side, then back again facing the pile of clothes that were a reminder of everything she’d lost.
Sleep slipped further away as her mind derailed into questions that might never be answered.
Was he safe? Was he free?
Guilt had sharp teeth and they gnawed at her insides.
That day in New York, he’d cast aside his unwavering morals and crossed a line without hesitation.
It had taken her a long time to understand the impossible choice he’d made by pushing her away. More than choosing his duty as a night agent, Peter would always put her safety above anyone else’s, even his, regardless of the rules broken to accomplish that.
The man she wasn't able to forget no matter how hard she’d tried, was likely in prison because of her.
And she couldn’t even fully enjoy the life he bought her with his freedom. But how could she, knowing what it had cost him?
Not knowing his fate was a self-inflicted torture as she’d told herself firmly, repeatedly, that she wouldn’t look for him. He didn’t want to be found by her and that was the cruelest truth to swallow.
Rose recalled how he’d begged her to forget him with a desperate edge in his voice and made her promise that much – or at least tried to.
Except she never did. And now she was done not knowing and honoring a promise that should never have been forced upon her.
Finally, Rose threw off the covers and got up. She pulled the navy-blue sweater over her head – orange fur and all – and was immediately flooded by a comforting sensation that was a close substitute to Peter's touch.
Barefoot, she marched into the spare room that served as her home office and sank into the chair in front of her personal laptop. It was equipped with every security protocol and custom cracking tool she’d created over the years.
The glow of the screen lit her face in the surrounding darkness, making what she was about to do feel appropriately clandestine.
A shell window opened after she typed a short string of commands. Muscle memory kicked in as she started the search in a legitimate way first. Sort of. Rose combed through public arrest records, federal detainment logs and inmate registries.
Nothing. Not a single recent mention of Peter Sutherland. Not even a footnote.
It seemed like the government had scrubbed all traces of him since he became a fully-fledged night agent. Then again, Rose supposed that night action operations were the classified kind that didn’t leave paper trails or digital footprints.
Rose exhaled slowly then began breaking through restricted access points and encrypted firewalls of the Agency’s data vaults and servers. Every key stroke pushed her deeper into illegal territory, but her instincts were primed to avoid detection.
Rusty pawed at her foot, stretched, then leapt onto her lap. She barely registered his warm weight on her legs while her eyes shifted between lines of code.
The keys clacked beneath her fingertips as she pressed hard against them in an almost meditative state, single-mindedly focused on finding answers.
Two hours later, she’d exhausted every tool in her arsenal to spoof clearance levels and still came up empty.
Considering what Peter had done, it struck her as very odd that there were no records of his imprisonment.
“Come on, Peter,” she whispered to herself. “Where the hell are you?”
Rose leaned back in the chair rubbing her face with both hands out of frustration more than exhaustion. This was the point when she should stop, shut down the search, go back to bed and carry on with her life.
She tapped her fingers anxiously against the desk, torn between running another search and admitting defeat. But she was too stubborn to give up.
Start stupid, she had told Peter once. Build up to answers in a way that makes sense.
A few deep breaths slowed her heart rate down, allowing the rational side of her brain to kick in.
With some reluctance, Rose recalled all the intel they’d gathered to prevent the UN attack and drew a timeline of events from the moment Peter found her until he was carried away. Those memories came easily, though painfully vivid.
From then, a rabbit hole started opening one click at a time.
Over the weekend, Rose scoured the internet for news articles and forum threads from that week. The story dominated the news cycle for more than forty-eight hours before the conspiracy theories took root.
Early reports had suggested the weapon was a compound resembling digitalis. Possible domestic fabrication.
A wave of nausea twisted Rose’s stomach as she read the headlines. All these months later, the acidic scent of the chemicals she’d handled on that mobile lab were still fresh in her memory.
Foxglove. The toxin she’d been forced to produce and nearly wiped out half of Manhattan. The FBI had no idea where she had been. Only Peter had found her.
Rose widened the search parameters to everything connected to Foxglove. A couple of weeks later, one of the frontrunners in the presidential race, Senator Knox, had withdrawn abruptly.
Audio evidence exposes chemical weapons deal. Knox implicated in illegal sales to a foreign entity, The New York Times had reported.
She racked her brain trying to figure out what Peter had done and considered the overlapping timelines. Chemical weapon threat. Peter’s break into the UN. Knox’s link to Foxglove, which practically handed the election to Governor Hagan.
The theory that started forming in her mind pointed towards Peter being forced to steal the very evidence that destroyed Knox’s campaign. The favor he’d done for Solomon’s boss in exchange for her location.
And she needed to find out who he was.
The next search phase was familiar territory. She had delayed using AdVerse long enough, convinced Peter wouldn’t be found currently roaming the streets.
Rose weighed the implications of using the facial recognition software again, though only briefly.
As CTO and lead programmer, she had unlimited access and a backdoor entry that couldn’t be traced by any other employee or even Artoun. The ethics board she’d established as a safeguard against this type of power abuse would fire her on the spot if they found out what she was about to do.
But none of that mattered at this point. Not when she was the reason someone she cared about was probably locked away for the rest of his life.
Rose ran searches across CCTV footage in New York City for the day she was held captive with facial recognition filters from her photos with Peter. If the first version of the software was slow and rudimentary, its current iteration was a masterful tool to track people with frightening precision.
It took only two hours to generate a match. A security feed from East Midtown near Queensboro Bridge.
There he was, walking with a desperate stride towards a well-dressed man, older, with silver hair and a trimmed beard. The image was grainy, but the tension in Peter’s body was unmistakable. He looked like a man backed into a corner.
After isolating the man’s face, Rose fed it back for the software to chew through agency directories, press databases and any other publicly available records it could reach.
Jacob Monroe was spewed as a result not long after. A private intelligence consultant with ties to at least three billionaires and two retired senators.
Her stomach flipped again and she shifted uncomfortably in the chair.
Monroe had used her as leverage to force Peter to commit a crime.
To make matters worse, this had to be the same man who called her in the first place, counting on the relentless determination of a woman to find the man she loved when he didn’t want to be found.
And she had blindly led him straight to Peter.
Rose pressed a hand to her chest, her pulse hadn’t settled yet.
The magnitude of her findings was too hard to process, but one truth was undeniable – she loved Peter too much to let him suffer the consequences of this man’s schemes.
In addition to her skills, the tools and an unshakable resolve, she was now also armed with a name. And she couldn’t stand by without doing something about it.
Her goal became evident: bring Monroe to justice and clear Peter’s name.
The wheels in her mind started to form a plan. Surely the evidence she uncovered would stack the odds in Peter’s favor to set him free sooner rather than later or maybe even secure him some sort of deal.
For that, Rose had to find the only person who might know where he was.