POV Owen
“Smile, angel,” I mutter, adjusting the microphone on Noelle’s collar. “You’re supposed to look like you believe the world’s still good.”
She swats my hand away. “I believe in you, not the world.”
“Same thing, when you’re on camera.”
The press lights are brutal—too bright, too exposing. Luna’s stroller waits just offstage, Rhea beside it like a sentinel in a black blazer. Behind us, the banner reads LUNA’S LIGHT FOUNDATION — Giving Shelter to Every Child.
The name was mine. So was the idea.
She’d resisted at first. “A charity? Now? Owen, they already call me delusional for standing by you.”
“That’s why,” I’d said. “You can’t fight gossip with silence. Give them something holy to point at. A cause. A story.”
Now here we are—another stage, another performance. The cameras flash. The moderator clears his throat. “Mrs. Tate, what inspired Luna’s Light?”
Noelle takes a breath and begins. “When our daughter was born into chaos, I realized not every child gets to be protected. So we’re building spaces for the forgotten ones—homes where they can sleep without fear.”
She sounds steady, sure. She’s perfect. I stand a few steps behind her, hands clasped, trying not to look like a convict on parole, even though the ankle monitor burns like a reminder under my cuff.
Every time someone claps, I picture crosshairs.
When the conference ends, the reporters swarm. One shouts, “Owen, is this your way of laundering your reputation?”
Noelle’s hand finds mine. She smiles for the cameras. “If love is laundering, then yes—we’re both guilty.”
I almost laugh. That’s my girl. But by nightfall, everything burns.
***
It starts with Rhea’s voice, low and clipped over the intercom. “Owen. You need to see this.”
I find her in the den, standing before the wall screen. A video plays on repeat. My stomach turns. It’s me—same jacket, same jawline, same voice—holding a gun. Gregory West kneels before me, begging. Then the shot. The blood. The smirk.
It looks real—too real.
Noelle appears behind me, her face pale. “That’s not—”
“It’s not,” I cut in. “It’s a splice.”
Rhea nods grimly. “Deepfake. Whoever did this used actual body cam footage from the warehouse mixed with synthetic overlays. It’s spreading fast. News outlets already picked it up.”
I stare at the image of myself killing a man I never met. “Who leaked the original files?”
“No clue yet. But whoever they are, they’re good.”
I clench my fists. “Find them.”
Rhea meets my eyes. “You’re on parole. You can’t hunt hackers.”
“I can do whatever the hell I need to.”
Noelle steps forward. “Owen—”
I hold up a hand. “They think they can use tech to rewrite truth? Then I’ll burn their servers to ash.”
Rhea sighs. “You try to leave this house, that ankle monitor will light up every precinct in the city.”
“I’ll take it off.”
“No,” Noelle says sharply. “You won’t.”
Her voice slices through the room like a whip. I turn, heart pounding. “They just turned me into a murderer in HD, Noelle. You think this will blow over?”
Her eyes glisten. “You’re not helping by playing the part they wrote for you!”
“I’m not playing. I’m fixing it.”
“You can’t fix lies by breaking laws!”
“That’s the only language liars understand!”
Luna stirs in the next room, her cry slicing through the argument. Noelle closes her eyes, pressing her palms against her forehead. “Please. Don’t make me raise her through glass walls and bulletproof windows.”
For a second, the air goes still.
Rhea’s phone buzzes. She glances down. “I traced the upload to a dark server—handle name Kite. Based in Montreal.”
“Send me the address,” I say instantly.
“No.”
“I’m not asking, Rhea.”
She crosses her arms. “You step outside, and Vale will have you back in a cell before you hit the airport.”
I stare at the blinking monitor on my ankle. It flashes red like it’s mocking me. “Then she can come find me.”
Noelle’s voice cracks. “Stop it!”
I turn, jaw tight. “He’s going to destroy everything we’ve built.”
“And you’ll destroy yourself trying to stop him.”
“I’d rather die than watch him use my face to kill a man I didn’t touch!”
She’s crying now, tears running unchecked down her cheeks. “You think I care what people believe? I care about you breathing in the same room as me when this is over.”
I move toward the door anyway. Every step feels heavier than the last. The monitor’s light blinks faster, warning me, mocking me, daring me.
Noelle runs after me, grabbing my arm. “Owen, please!” Her voice trembles. “You think being a monster for justice makes you noble? It doesn’t. It just means you’ve already let Silas win.”
That stops me cold. I turn to her slowly. “What did you just say?”
She meets my eyes, fearless even through tears. “He wanted to turn you into something that couldn’t be saved. Don’t hand him the victory.”
I swallow hard, the rage shaking beneath my ribs. “You think I can stand here while some ghost behind a keyboard ruins us?”
She steps closer, chest rising fast. “You think I can stand here watching the man I love walk back into hell because someone pressed ‘upload’?”
I don’t have an answer. Only heat and fury and guilt that’s older than both of us. Then she does the one thing I don’t expect—she reaches up and grabs my face between her hands.
“Stop fighting ghosts,” she whispers.
“Noelle—”
Her lips crash into mine before I can finish. It isn’t gentle. It’s fire and fear and command all at once. Every muscle in me locks, then softens. I taste salt—hers, mine, I don’t know.
When she pulls back, her voice is trembling but fierce. “You told me once the past doesn’t own us. Prove it. Stay here. With me.”
I stare at her, chest heaving, hands still shaking.
Behind us, Rhea mutters under her breath, “Well, damn. Guess the mission’s canceled.”
Noelle doesn’t look away from me. “You’re not the man in that video, Owen. You’re the man holding a baby at three a.m. You’re the man teaching me how to fight, not how to flee.”
The rage finally cracks, replaced by something heavier—shame, grief, love. I reach for her face, thumb tracing the tear down her cheek. “He’ll come for us again.”
“Then let him.” She presses her forehead to mine. “He’ll find us unbroken.”
The red light on my ankle monitor flashes once more—steady, then still. I take it as a warning, or maybe a heartbeat.
Noelle pulls back, searching my eyes. “Promise me you’ll stay.”
I nod, barely managing to speak. “You just made sure of it.”
Her lips curve into a trembling smile. “Good.”
Outside, the city still howls with the echo of the fake gunshot that isn’t mine. Inside, I bury my face in her neck, breathing her in like oxygen after drowning.
For tonight, I let her hold me in the dark, the fire in my veins cooling against her skin. And even as the hacker’s lies spread across the world, her kiss becomes the only truth that matters.