I stared at it. Last I spoke to Mason, he was on recon. Watching the apartment. Watching her building.He touched her.Find him.
I hadn’t needed to say more. Now this. If Mason said move?—
I moved. I strapped the last piece across my chest. Barron caught the look in my eyes.
“What is it?”
“Mason says to meet at the tower.”
Royal looked up. “Why?”
“I don’t know.”
Still, he’d never failed me before.
Loyal closed the laptop. “Then we go.”
“All of us,” Barron said.
“He’s waiting,” I muttered. “She’s close.”
34
WOLFE
The city never sleeps.But tonight, it held its breath. We parked two blocks from the tower. Didn’t say a word. Didn’t need to.
Barron walked like the weight of his father’s name had settled across his spine again. Royal’s hands never left the crowbar. Loyal didn’t blink—his pulse a straight line, his jaw locked around unspoken math.
And me? I walked like I’d already buried myself. I wasn’t here to talk. I was here to take her back.
The Lawlor Tower rose like a mausoleum—steel and glass stacked over secrets. The front doors glinted under the streetlights. Too quiet. Too clean. A corpse dressed in chrome. Something was off.
Even the city seemed to know. The hum of traffic a few blocks away, muffled. Lights on nearby towers flickered—not out, not blinking. Just... uncertain.
No security in the foyer. No desk staff. No lights on the lower floors.
The reflection in the front glass looked more like a funeral procession than a team of men. Barron noticed it first. He stopped halfway across the street, eyes narrowing.
“Where the fuck are the guards?”
I didn’t answer. Didn’t slow. Just kept walking.
The front doors opened before I touched them. Not with the usual buzz. Not with the usual click. Just silence. Like breath held in a lung that was never meant to release.
The air inside was wrong. Cold without source. Clean without scent.
The kind of sterile that didn’t belong in buildings—it belonged in graves. This building raised me. I bled into its walls. I mapped out revenge in these rooms. Now it smelled like strangers.
Loyal’s hand went to his sidearm. “We’re exposed here.”
Royal didn’t speak. Just nodded once and tapped his heel against the marble floor.
“Too quiet,” he muttered.
Barron’s gaze swept the corners. “They want us upstairs.”
“I’m not playing fetch,” he added. But he still moved.
