What am I going to do now?
I straightened in the chair.
I could wait. Sit here like a good girl until Levi came back down, blood on his knuckles or not, and let him take the lead.
Or—
I could act like the person Meghan and Hazel and the others seemed to think I was. The woman they’d watched across a table and decided was capable of standing beside a Dane without losing herself.
Levi had gone to protect me, no questions asked.
Maybe it was my turn to protect him. And his family. In the one way I knew how.
By sharing what I knew.
Once that thought landed, it didn’t leave.
I stood, my legs a little shaky but functional, and headed for the elevators.
He’d told me to stay in the lobby.
Sorry, Levi.
The elevator ride up felt longer than the one down, even though I knew it wasn’t. My fingers brushed the faint ache on my arm again, a reminder of why I was doing this. When the doors opened onto my floor, the hallway looked exactly the same—beige wallpaper, patterned carpet, exit signs humming faintly.
I walked toward my room, half expecting to hear raised voices, a thud, something.
Nothing.
The door was still closed. For a second, irrational fear pricked: what if Derek was here, waiting?
He wasn’t. The hallway was empty.
I unlocked the door and stepped inside.
The room was … normal.
Too normal.
No editor bleeding on the carpet. No giant men in tactical gear. No boyfriend with bruised fists and a wild look in his eyes.
The bedspread was rumpled the way I’d left it. The paper bag from the soup sat on the dresser. My laptop rested where I’d abandoned it. The compass on the nightstand pointed north like it had never considered any other direction.
They were gone.
All of them.
I stood there in the doorway for a moment, a stupid, hollow disappointment mixing with relief. I’d wanted, against my better judgment, to see what Levi looked like in the aftermath. To trace the line of his jaw, check the set of his shoulders, ask how far he’d gone and whether he regretted any of it.
But, of course, he’d gone.
He had a half-dead editor as leverage and a father with enemies older than my career. There was only one place they’d take Derek Price.
Dominion Hall.
The thought came with the calm certainty of fact.
If Derek had been compromised—and I was increasingly sure he had—then keeping what I knew to myself wasn’t protecting him. Or me. Or Levi.
