AIDEN'S POV
The fire had died down in the living room hours ago.
After our impromptu chess match—where Jasmine nearly beat me with sheer stubborn spite—we'd called it a night. She said she was tired and needed to sleep. I didn't argue. We were both drained.
We didn't even talk about the foundation site or what we might find. We were saving everything for tomorrow.
Or pretending we could.
Once I got to my room, I closed the door behind me and sank onto the bed, phone in hand. It rang twice before Kaiden answered. "I thought you'd be asleep."
"Too wired. Updates?"
"I finished combing through the site records," he said. "Nothing unusual flagged yet. No motion sensors, no personnel logs, no energy spikes. If there's something buried under the foundation, it's hidden deep."
"We're going at first light."
"Copy that." A pause. "You okay?"
I ran a hand through my hair. "Yeah."
