The days that followed, however, eroded that hope into a mou

g hell. He lay in bed, his jaw clenched, his pride warring with a ba

im, just placed it on the bedside table. "There's a urinal in the top drawer," she said,

ul she hadn't made a big deal of it, but furious that she could read him so easily.

truggled to hold the spoon, spilling more broth on the sheets than he managed to get in his

said, her expre

ok in her eyes was not one of pity; it was one of impatience, of a busy profe

of his autonomy. He was used to women trying to get close to him for his name, his money, his power. He had never, in his entire li

onto the end of his bed and read to him from their storybooks. Lily's soft voice, Miles's dramatic sound effects, Mason'

quiet intelligence, Miles's boundless energy, Lily's sweet s

ed something on the bedside table. Mi

an to form

oorboards upstairs, the hum of the refrigerator. With a grunt of effort, he stretched his ar

to type. It wasn't a message in words. It was a string of code, a sequence of numbers and symbols that would look l

y back against the pillows, breathing heavily, but a sense of control, ho

hloe found Mason in the living room, his

g beside him. "I need you to find everything you can online about 'A

s a prodigy, a natural with code and systems. But after se

e he's a ghost. All the good pictures, anything personal, it's all be

from magazine articles that she had already seen. Nothing clea

whose disappearance was being actively managed, whose digital footprint was be

. The man sleeping in her bed wasn't just