I think about the moment I told her what I knew about Riot. The way the room tilted under our feet. I felt it. She wanted to believe me and wanted to break me for saying it at the same time. Either way, I was the one standing there while she bled.
I’ve picked up my phone more times than I can count. Scrolled to her name. Stared at the call button until the screen dimmed. Every time, I don’t do it. Every time, I tell myself I’m sparing her weight she already carries like a brand.
Truth is, I’m afraid. Not of her. Of how far I’ll go for her if she asks.
The apartment hums around me. I sit on the edge of the couch and lean forward like I could push down the ache in my chest.
“You think it hurts less to be alone, but it doesn’t,” Marc says quietly.
“I’m not alone.” It’s a lie. My voice knows it. The walls know it. Marc’s ghost knows it. “I have you. I have Briggs.” That part is not a lie.
My phone vibrates once. My hand is on it before sense catches up. Disappointment grabs me by the balls when I see it’s not Katana but a text from a number that changes every time it decides to find me.
Sable: Vale’s asset list is longer than we thought. Watch your back, Cross.
I almost laugh. Watch my back? Too late. Every part of me is already pointed toward the thing I’m not supposed to want, the person I don’t know how to keep safe.
I could call Katana. I could tell her what I’ve learned since I left her bed. I could ask her to meet me, but I don’t. I set the phone down and stare at it until my eyes go dry.
“You love her,” Marc says. It’s not a question.
“Yeah,” I say. It lands in my chest like a truth I’ve been dodging. “Yeah, I do.”
“Then stop pretending you’re doing her a favor by staying away.”
“What if I drag her into something she can’t fight?” My voice scrapes.
He huffs. If a ghost could roll his eyes, he would.
“You’re asking the wrong question. Ask what you turn into without her.” He nods at the laptop, at the maps and manifests. “Ask who you are when this is the only thing left.”
My mouth is dry. My hands too. I picture her again, the angle of her jaw, the scar I pressed my thumb to, the way she said myname when she wasn’t angry, when she wasn’t holding a blade of rage to keep us apart.
“I hurt her,” I say, the words small in a room that’s seen worse. “I might as well have shoved a knife in her back.”
“Maybe,” Marc says. “Or maybe you pulled one out before it could get her killed.” He tips his chin. “It’s okay to love her, Dante. It’s the one thing that might keep you human.”
I open my mouth and close it again because there isn’t anything to say after that. Marc’s words dig in deep, where I can’t claw them out. I pace. Two steps to the window, two steps back. My body knows the dimensions of this place the way a body knows a coffin.
I press my palm to the glass. The city leers back. Neon bleeds across bruised clouds. The street smells like wet metal and old promises. I don’t deserve her, that’s true. I want her anyway, that’s truer.
The clock crawls to 2:51. For a breath or two, I think about how the deal I made with Sable bent my life. How every step since has been toward or away from a man I swore I’d never be. I think about Katana standing in the doorway telling me to get out because if I stayed she’d break, and if I left she would too. And I walked away anyhow. Idiot.
A knock shatters the silence. I freeze. My pulse spikes. Nobody comes here this late. Not without reason. My hand slides automatically to the pistol tucked at my back. Another knock comes louder this time, more insistent.
Marc stares at me with that same calm he always had. “Time to decide. Let her in or keep rotting alone.”
I cross the room slow and silent, the gun heavy in my palm. Marc doesn’t say anything now. He’s there, though. At my shoulder like he used to be when a night went sideways and we were outnumbered and too proud to admit it. His presenceis a hand between my shoulder blades, even if it never makes contact.
I peer through the peephole. Everything in me stills. Then everything wakes up.
My fingers unhook the chain. The lock turns with a soft click. I pull the door open in a rush because if I don’t, the last decent thing in me dies right here in this hallway.
21
KATANA
The door swings open. Dante’s broad shoulders fill the frame, his tired eyes catching me in the low glow of his apartment light. His mouth opens to speak, maybe to ask what I’m doing here or to remind me it’s three in the damn morning, but I don’t let him. My lips crash against his, hot, demanding, shutting him up instantly. He stumbles back, caught off guard, but his surprise lasts only a second before he yields. His lips part, his hands find my hips, gripping hard, grounding himself on me and everything I’ve been holding back floods out.
