Because I’m absolutely going to improvise if I have to.
But I’m not going to tell him that.
Arrow swivels his chair toward us. “You two done couples-therapy-ing, or can we go stop some human trash?”
Knight gives him a look. “We’re not a couple.”
Arrow grins. “Sure you’re not.”
Gage rolls his chair away from his desk. “Can younotcall Knight andmy little sistera couple please?”
I laugh, grab my jacket and my bat, and head toward the door. “I’m not your little sister. I’m a grown ass woman.”
“Lark,” Knight says, eyes crashing into mine. “Lose the bat.”
I blink at him. “You lose your personality.”
“Bat stays in the trunk.”
“Knight, have you met me?”
We stare each other down for a solid five seconds.
He sighs. “Fine. Bat in the back seat. Under a blanket.”
“Compromise. I like this for us.”
He mutters something like, “Dear God,” and follows me out.
The warehouse districtis an ocean of corrugated metal and bad lighting.
Knight parks two blocks away in an alley that smells like old rain and motor oil. It’s technically a stakeout spot, but it looks more like somewhere people come to get stabbed or make poor romantic choices.
The warehouse we’re targeting squats at the end of the street like a rusting beast—big, boxy, fenced, with a roll-up dock and a smaller side entrance. A couple of semi-trailers are parked nearby. There’s a security camera on each corner, one above the side door, and a cheap motion floodlight.
Knight kills the engine and looks at me. “Remember the rules?”
I roll my eyes. “Yes, Dad.”
“Stay. In. The. Car.”
I salute lazily. “Woof.”
He glares, pulls his hoodie up, and adjusts the small, almost invisible camera at his collar.
Arrow’s voice crackles in my ear. “Knight, you’ve got three guards in rotation outside. Two at the dock, one smoking near the side door. No cops in a five-block radius. You’re clear.”
Knight gives me one last hard look that saysseriously, stay, then slips out of the car, closing the door quietly behind him.
I watch him move.
He’s so good. He’s so sexy.
Silent, precise, a shadow in a darker shadow. He skirts the line of parked vehicles, pauses near a stack of pallets, checks sightlines, then slides around toward the blind spot of the nearest camera. Arrow’s been looping the feed, but Knight never trusts tech alone.
He trusts his eyes.
He trusts his instincts.
