“Creeps-R-Us,” I mutter.
Knight ignores me. “We’re not going in for a full smash-and-grab. We’re in recon mode. We get proof, get out, send everything to the task force that’s already sniffing around.”
I wrinkle my nose. “No smashing? That seems off brand.”
“We are not escalating tonight,” he says pointedly. “We’re just getting eyes on.”
I kick my boots up on the edge of the table, watching him pace. He’s all coiled precision, black t-shirt clinging to his shoulders. His hair’s slightly messed from running his fingers through it, and he smells like soap and coffee and just the tiniest hint of gasoline.
Focus, Lark.
“This is a first-time target,” Knight continues. “We don’t know all the players, and we don’t know how deeply this ties into Cathedral yet. So we move careful. Controlled. Clean.”
“Like a colonic,” I say.
“Like a scalpel,” he counters.
“Boring.”
He pins me with a stare. “We’re not playing tonight, Lark.”
“Who says I’m playing?”
His silence saysyou, loud and clear.
Arrow is across the room at a secondary station, scanning through city cams and traffic feeds. Ozzy’s on the couch with a laptop and a bag of Skittles, monitoring the dark web chatter. Gage’s scanning his own laptop. Render’s looking through his camera footage. Everyone’s in mission mode.
Except my heart, which is inKnightmode.
He gestures toward me with his chin. “You get the rules?”
“Uh-huh,” I say.
“Say them.”
I sigh. “Stay in the car.”
“Good.”
“Don’t touch anything.”
“Also good.”
“Don’t wander off, don’t improvise, don’t swing my bat at anyone’s head, blah blah blah,” I sing-song. “You know micromanaging gives you wrinkles, right?”
He narrows his eyes. “If something goes sideways, there’s one exit point. One. We don’t improvise with people’s lives.”
The serious note in his voice snags me.
For a second, all the sarcasm drains out. I see it—the weight on his shoulders, the ghosts he doesn’t talk about.
I hold his gaze. “I got it, Knight.”
His jaw flexes. He nods once, like he believes me.
Which is cute.
And wrong.
