“How?” she asked, still not quite believing. “How are you here in this uniform? The checkpoints, the security—”
“Long story,” Jameson said, his thumbs tracing circles on her lower back, as if he couldn’t stop touching her now that she was in his arms. “I’ll tell you once we’re out of here. We don’t have much time.”
Reality crashed back with his words. They were still in the Heart, still surrounded by enemies, still in imminent danger. The joy of seeing him was immediately tempered by fear for his safety.
“Are you hurt?” he asked, his voice tightening. “Did they—did he—”
“I’m fine,” she cut him off, though the word tasted like a lie. “You need to leave,” she said, letting her boots fall to the floor and pulling back further. Her hands remained on his shoulders, unwilling to break contact completely. “If they catch you, if Greyson sees you—”
“Greyson?” Jameson’s hands stilled on her waist, his fingers tightening. “You’re on a first name basis with the Executioner now?”
There was something in his tone she couldn’t quite place—jealousy, maybe, or betrayal. She didn’t have time to analyze it.
She ignored the question, stepping back from his touch. The loss of contact felt like stepping from the warmth of home into a winter morning. “You need to get out. They will catch you if—”
“They won’t.” His voice held absolute certainty. “We have a way out. A good one. But we need to move now.”
Shadera’s mind raced, cataloging possibilities, risks, variables. “There are at least thirty security personnel in the club. More outside. Veyra patrols in the streets. Checkpoints at every sector.”
“We have a plan,” Jameson insisted, reaching into a compartment in his bag to withdraw a small bundle of black fabric and a helmet. “But you need to change.Now.”
He unfolded it, revealing another Veyra uniform, sized for her. Shadera stared at it, understanding dawning with cold clarity. They were going to walk out as Veyra officers, hiding in plain sight, using the Heart’s own authority against it.
It was fucking brilliant.
“Jaeger’s here?” she asked, already knowing the answer. Only Jaeger would attempt something this audacious.
Jameson nodded. “And six others. But our window is closing. We need to go.”
Shadera glanced toward the door, thinking of Greyson somewhere upstairs, unaware that his prisoner was about to slip through his fingers. Something complicated twisted in her chest—not quite guilt, not quite relief, but some emotion that defied simple categorization.
“Shade.” Jameson’s voice softened, his hands coming up to frame her face, fingers gentle against the edges of her mask. “Come home. Please come home.”
The words undid her. Whatever confusion she felt about Greyson, whatever complex emotions had developed during her time with him, they paled beside the pleading she saw looking into Jameson’s eyes.
“Get me out of here,” she said, reaching for the uniform.
The smile that spread across Jameson’s face was one of relief, of a man looking into the eyes of a woman he feared he would never see again.
His smile disappeared.
The door behind them hissed open, and her eyes locked on to that bright blue gaze and widened. Shadera froze, her body turning to stone.
Greyson stood framed in the doorway, his broad shoulders filling the space. The mask stared back at her, black and expressionless. But she knew the face beneath it now, knew the look in those eyes that watched her through those hollow sockets.
He stepped into the room, the door sliding shut behind him with a soft hiss, sealing them in, the outside world once again muffled and distant. Greyson leaned against the frame casually, but Shadera could see the tension in his shoulders, the way his body coiled like a spring about to release.
Jameson’s hand slid to Shadera’s waist, pulling her behind him as he slowly turned to face Greyson, his hand dropping to the weapon at his side. The Veyra uniform he wore made the standoff even more surreal—two men in the garb of the Heart’s enforcers, facing each other across an invisible line with Shadera caught in the middle.
The room began to shrink around her, the walls creeping inward with each breath. The air felt thicker, heavier in her lungs as her heart rate doubled. The single holo-lamp cast their shadows against the wall—three dark silhouettes stretched and distorted, overlapping and separating as they moved. Predators circling each other in a cage too small to contain them all.
Shadera’s eyes darted around, cataloging the space with growing desperation. Soundproofed walls. No windows. One door. No escape route. The alcohol in her system, which had felt warm and comforting just minutes before, now churned in her stomach, making her lightheaded. The room was designed for privacy, for secret conversations and clandestine interactions. Now it felt like a tomb.
A deep, menacing chuckle left Greyson’s lungs and the sound crawled over Shadera’s skin like ice, raising goosebumps in its wake. She’d heard that laugh before—in his apartment after she’d tried to kill him, last night when his father had shot him. It was the sound he made when he was at his most unpredictable, when the careful control he maintained began to slip.
Greyson’s head tilted, the movement predatory, calculating, as his eyes traveled from Jameson’s face down to where his hands still gripped Shadera’s arms.
“Jameson fucking Vine. I believe your hands are on my wife.”
