Compromised

CALLA'S POV

His office door was still lit under the frame.

I knocked twice — the way I'd learned was the right number, not tentative enough to be ignored, not urgent enough to alarm — and pushed it open.

He was at his desk. Jacket off, sleeves rolled, the late-night version of him that I'd started to recognize as the truest one: less performance architecture, more just the actual person who lived