Six weeks later the city looked the same, but nothing else did.
Ryan’s penthouse no longer felt like a temporary fortress. The extra security cameras stayed, and a rotating team still handled external perimeter work, but the man who lived inside the space with him was no longer on anyone’s payroll for the privilege. Denver had taken a different contract with the firm—consulting, high-level threat assessment, remote enough that his days were his own. He still carried a weapon. He still checked locks out of habit. But when he walked through the front door at night it was because he chose to, not because a director had assigned him there.
They had negotiated the terms in careful pieces.
No more principal and bodyguard. No more power imbalance written into a contract. Denver kept his own pl
