Lyric exhaled, his shoulders tight. “How did you kill them?”
I froze. Not because I wouldn’t—because I could. Because I would if he asked me. But I wasn’t sure what he needed to hear. The truth? The blood? The moments between choices?
“I’ll tell you,” I said. “Because it means something that they’re not breathing anymore.” I took a deep breath and exhaled. “Vinnie was first, he was just this wannabe who thought he was something, and who fucked me over back in the day when he was my manager, he was going to hand Robbie over to the assholes who’d kidnapped him for money,” I said, the words were ash in my mouth. “The gang he was involved with never wanted him, held him, and Enzo shot him. Clean. Quick. He didn’t hesitate.”
Lyric’s eyes didn’t move from mine.
“Mitchell… we hurt him bad,” I went on. “We wanted answers. We needed him tofeelit. I—” I swallowed, lifted a hand to my neck. “I half-strangled him. I wanted him gone. Jamie set him alight, but it was Enzo who ended it before the man burned.”
Lyric didn’t even flinch.
“And Lassiter…” My jaw clenched. “He was different. Calculated. Sadistic. We set him up, isolated him. Then we tortured him. Stripped him of every ounce of power he thought he had, and hurt him the worst. And when he was nothing but fear and blood and silence, Jamie set it so he burned alive.” I didn’t apologize. I wouldn’t. “They all got what they gave, only slower.”
Lyric stood, his gaze still locked on mine. “Good,” he said, voice steady, low, and fierce.
Then he crossed the space between us, no hesitation in his steps, just heat and something burning beneath his skin. He reached up—past the Carters’ sandwiches and drinks in my hands—and cradled my face. His palms were warm, firm, grounding.
“Good,” he said again, with more weight this time. As if he needed me to hear it, to believe it.
He was so fucking fierce I couldn’t breathe for a second. Whatever lines he’d drawn in the sand before, they were gone now. This—him standing in front of me, holding me—wasn’t forgiveness. It was alliance. It was war.
And he was on our side.
For Robbie.
We ended up sitting on the sofa, side by side, the untouched sandwiches and drinks on the table in frontof us. Neither of us had much of an appetite. The silence wasn’t uncomfortable, but it was heavy. We were both lost in our own heads.
After a while, Lyric spoke, his voice low. “I need to take that software down. Kessler’s system—LyricNight—it’s still evolving. I might need him alive to do it. At least for a little while.”
I turned my head to meet his gaze. “You’re asking us to hold off?”
He nodded. “Just until I’m done. Then you can do whatever the hell you want.”
I exhaled through my nose, dragged a hand down my face. “I can’t speak for Enzo, but we all want Kessler wiped off the face of the Earth. I’ll work with you to make sure you take LyricNight down first. But once that’s done…”
“I know,” Lyric said, eyes fixed forward. “I won’t stop you. I won’t stop any of you.”
There was ice in his voice, yes—but more than that; he’d made a choice and wouldn’t be moved from it. His hand brushed mine, and without thinking, I linked our fingers together.
Pressure built beneath my ribs, sharp and sudden.
I leaned in, my face tilting toward his. Just close enough to breathe him in, to feel the air shift between us. His eyes flicked to my mouth, and Ithought—maybe—we were going to kiss, and then he stood and stalked to the door, and my heart stopped, and my stomach swooped in disappointment. He grabbed the chair on the way past, then forced it up and under the handle, locking us in.
“I don’t want interruptions,” he said, and waited.
Was he waiting for me to argue? To push back? I didn’t. I went from disappointed to hard in an instant.
“I’ll kill anyone who steps inside that door,” I deadpanned.
“Even Obsessed and Pyro?” he asked me, and I smirked at the nicknames. Pyro, I’d heard before when it came to Jamie, butobsessedhit close with Enzo.
“Yep.”
“What about sweet Robbie?”
“Clearly not,” I said, and chuckled as he stopped in front of me. He grabbed the hem of his T-shirt and dragged it over his head in one smooth motion, baring lean muscle and pale skin. The line of his abs was cut, theVof his hips arrowing into loose grey sweats that didn’t hide a damn thing. He was hard, and he didn’t give a shit that I saw it.
My eyes caught on a scar low on his hip—one I’d noticed before but hadn’t let myself think about. Now,it pulled at my attention. I didn’t know what had left it, but I wanted to trace it with my fingers, my mouth.
