AISLYNStaying close proves easier than I expected.

Elliot does not question my presence after that night. He does not assign meaning to it aloud, but he adjusts around it with the ease of a man who has already decided what utility looks like. I am included where I was once merely tolerated. Strategy meetings. Patrol briefings. Quiet, late-hour discussions that stretch long past necessity. He allows me access not because he trusts me, but because he believes proximity equals control.

He has ...