Sara Ikari Rodriguez
The air smelled like cinnamon and soap.
The kind of scent that didn’t belong in the same space as Matio Rodriguez, billionaire steel-jawed menace with a sleep schedule
fueled by paranoia.
But it had become our new normal.
Me in the kitchen.
Him brooding near the living room window like he expected the wall to confess something.
I placed a plate of toast on the table and said, “If you check the cameras one more time, I swear I’m going to swap the memory card
with cat videos.”
He didn’t even look up.
“You’d have to get past the backup encryption first.”
I blinked. “You gave our security system a backup?”
Now he looked at me — very seriously.
“Two backups. Different locations. One offline.”
I dropped into the chair opposite him.
“And you say I overthink m
