“Keep it with you,” I say, stepping back. “If anyone challenges you, they’ll think twice once they realize you’re armed.”
Her lips curve, but it isn’t a smile. “You think I need a gun to make them think twice?”
The words should irritate me. They do. They also pull at something else, something sharper. I meet her eyes again, searching for arrogance, for fear, for anything. Still nothing.
“You need the gun,” I reply, “to remind them you’re mine.”
That makes her pause. Just slightly.
Her expression smooths again almost instantly, but I catch it. A fracture in the mask, quick as lightning. She slips the pistol back into its holster, then straightens, standing tall in the fluorescent light.
“Noted,” she says softly.
It’s the illusion of choice, like everything else. I let her pick the weapon she likes, let her keep it on her if she wants; but she can only do this becauseI allow it.
We move down the aisle together, weapons gleaming under the harsh light. I point out a few options—an extra magazine here, a knife slim enough to hide in her bag. She listens without comment, slipping the knife into her clutch as if it belonged there all along.
I should feel satisfaction. I’ve armed her, branded her with steel and lead, tethered her closer to my circle. Instead, I feel something I don’t care for: curiosity. The kind that lingers.
She keeps pace with me easily, her presence calm against the hum of the fluorescent lights. Most women I’ve brought into this world falter when they see it laid bare. She doesn’t falter.She accepts it, absorbs it, carries it like another file to be tucked into her bag.
That calmness draws me in and repels me at the same time. She’s either fearless or hiding something.
I want to know which.
We reach the end of the aisle. I stop, watching her, trying to catch the twitch of a muscle, the slip of an expression, anything to tell me who she really is. She gives me nothing. Only that silence again, as if she knows how loud it sounds in this room.
“Don’t mistake calm for safety,” I tell her finally.
Her head tilts slightly. “I never do.”
I let the words hang between us. Then I turn, motioning toward the stairs.
When we leave the armory, the door shuts behind us with a heavy thud, sealing in the smell of oil and gunpowder.
Later, when the club empties and the night quiets, I find myself replaying the moment; not the weapon in her hand, not the holster against her thigh, but the way Maksim’s words bit earlier. His insult wasn’t about power. It wasn’t about territory. It was personal.
The fact that it felt personal to me tells me something I’m not ready to admit.
I light a cigarette on the balcony, the smoke curling upward into the cold air. The city sprawls beneath me, alive and restless, but all I can see is the way she looked at me when I put a gun in her palm and claimed her as mine.
I grind the cigarette out against the railing, but the taste lingers, bitter on my tongue. The city keeps moving beneath me: taxis, neon, the hum of strangers with no idea what shadowsstretch above them. I should be thinking about numbers, shipments, territory. Instead, I’m thinking about her.
Vivienne Wilder, walking steady through the armory like she belonged there, like I hadn’t just handed her a weapon and branded her with my protection.
Too calm. Too careful.
Either she’s fearless, or she’s hiding something so deep I haven’t glimpsed it yet.
Both possibilities make my pulse sharpen in a way I don’t like. I tell myself I’ll break through the mask soon enough, one way or another.
Still, when I close my eyes, I see her staring back at me, steady, unflinching.
Chapter Seven - Vivienne
The warehouse looms ahead like a shadow against the waterfront, its corrugated metal walls slick with fog drifting in from the river.
The night air bites sharp, the kind of damp cold that seeps into skin no matter how thick the coat. The lot is half lit by buzzing lamps, their glow stretching long across the cracked asphalt.
