Page 122 of Claimed by the Ghost Warrior

The third answered on the fourth encrypted pulse.

“Who is this?”

The voice had changed. Older. Rougher. Still suspicious.

Good.

I stood near the rear window of the rented dwelling, the portable communicator shielded in my palm. Across the room, Talia sat at the table with the reconstructed records spread across the terminal, sorting altered compatibility files by date.

She had been quiet for almost ten minutes. I did not trust it.

“Orun.”

Silence followed. Then the line disconnected. Expected.

I waited.

Eight seconds passed before a different channel opened, and the voice that came through was one I had not heard in eight years. “You have poor timing for a dead male.”

I looked toward Talia. She was still bent over the terminal, fingers moving, unaware.

“Your security protocols remain excessive,” I said.

“Your existence remains illegal.”

“Unofficial.”

“That is a distinction dead males enjoy making.”

Orun had once been a military intelligence analyst, before an injury removed him from active service. We had worked together twice—two missions, one name, no history beyond it. That was before my final assignment. Before Veyr died on the official record and stopped being anyone who could be contacted. He had never been Veil, and that was precisely why I had called him: no loyalty to them, no reason to report me.

“I need information,” I said.

A quiet exhale came through the communicator. “Of course you do. You never contacted me when you wanted to discuss the weather.”

“I have never contacted you.”

“Exactly.”