For a heartbeat, we just stared at each other. It was the same locked stare we’d had across briefing tables and cots and, earlier, hotel sheets. A thousand arguments condensed into one look.
“Okay,” he said finally.
“Okay what?”
“Okay, we ask,” he said, pushing back his chair. The legs scraped quietly against the wood, the sound sharp against the soft restaurant noise. “We’re not going to get answers sitting here.”
He stood and held out his hand.
I looked at it. Big, callused, still faintly marked from where I’d dug my nails into his skin earlier. Then I slid my fingers into his and let him pull me up.
“Will they even see us?” I asked as we walked toward the exit, the card tucked between my fingers like a fuse.
“They will,” he said, jaw set. “They wanted me here. They don’t get to pick the timing.”
Outside, the night had settled thick over Charleston, humid and humming. Streetlights painted everything in a soft gold haze. Verandelle’s veranda glowed behind us as we stepped onto the sidewalk, Levi already reaching into his pocket for his phone.
“Calling the driver?” I guessed.
“Yeah.” He put the phone to his ear. “It’s Levi Dane. We need a ride back to Dominion Hall.”
Of course, they had a driver on standby like some kind of billionaire bat signal.
While he arranged it, I scanned the street.
A couple strolled past, hands intertwined, laughing at something private. The horse-drawn carriage we’d seen earlier rolled by again in the distance, the horse’s hooves ringing dully against the cobblestones. No mysterious woman lurking in doorways. No cameras obvious enough to spot.
But the back of my neck prickled, anyway.
A few minutes later, the Bentley slid up to the curb as if it had been waiting around the corner the entire time. The driver hopped out and opened the door with the same smooth efficiency.
“Ms. Emerson. Mr. Dane,” he said. “Back to Dominion Hall?”
“Yeah,” Levi said. “And step on it, please.”
The driver’s expression didn’t change, but the car definitely moved faster this time.
We sank into the leather seats, the door clicking shut with that expensive thump. The city lights streaked past the windows, reflected faintly in Levi’s profile.
He looked straight ahead, fists braced on his knees. I could almost see the ghosts crowding the car: a father’s face half-remembered, a surname that suddenly meant more than any of us knew, a mansion full of men who shared it.
“You okay?” I asked.
He huffed out a humorless breath. “Define okay.”
“Not hyperventilating. Minimal urge to throw up.”
“Then sure,” he said. “I’m fine.”
The lie was so naked it almost made me smile. Almost.
“You told me once your dad could make a fire with wet wood,” I said quietly.
He blinked, glancing over at me. “I did?”
“Yeah,” I said. “We were in the tent, night before an op that got canceled twice. You were trying to explain why you thought the cold in Afghanistan was worse than the cold in Montana, and you said—” I slipped into the cadence of his voice without really meaning to. “‘Back home, my old man used to get a fire going even when everything was soaked. Said real Danes don’t wait for things to dry out before they act.’”
The memory rolled back over me—canvas walls glowing under a single bulb, his hand tracing circles on my wrist as he’d talked, the half-smile that had come out only when he forgot to be careful.
