“I know. It’s a burden.”
We make it outside. The January air hits my face like a slap. Clean. Cold. Real.
“Dylan,” she says quietly, still staring at her phone. The glow illuminates her face in the darkness. “What if the club owner is?—”
“Don’t.” I cut her off, looking around at the people in line, the smokers huddled by the door, anyone who might be listening. “Not here. Not now. We find the name first. Then we figure out what it means.”
But we both know. We both feel it.
Whatever we’re about to find, it’s going to change everything.
We start walking toward the street to catch a ride home. Alex links her arm through mine. Her grip is tight. Clinging.
“I’m sorry,” she says quietly.
“For what?”
“Leaving you alone up there. I said five minutes and it was?—”
“Alex, you got us the access we needed.”
“Yeah, by making out with a stranger while you were—” Her voice cracks. “While security was coming for you. While you were in actual danger.”
I stop walking. Turn to face her under a streetlight. “Hey. Look at me.”
She does. Her eyes are too bright.
“We’re okay,” I say firmly. “We got out. We got information. That’s what matters.”
“Is it?” She’s not letting this go. “Because I keep watching you trade pieces of yourself for this investigation. And now I’m doing it too. And I don’t—” She swallows hard. “Christé mou, Dylan. What are we becoming?”
The question hangs between us. A car passes. Someone laughs down the block.
“Dandelions,” I say finally. “We’re becoming dandelions. Growing through concrete. Doing what we have to do.”
“That’s not comforting.”
“It’s not supposed to be.” I squeeze her hand. “For the record, that was way more than five minutes.”
“For the record, you were being threatened by security guards while I was distracted by a bartender with good hands.”
“Multitasking.”
“Terrible multitasking.” But she’s almost smiling now. Then it fades. “Next time, I stay with you.”
“Deal.”
We both know it’s a lie. We’ll split up again if we have to. We’ll keep trading pieces of ourselves. We’ll keep growing through the concrete until it kills us or we break through.
But for now, we walk. Together.
My heels click against the pavement. And somewhere behind us, in that VIP lounge with its fluttering curtains and its bartender bound by NDAs, secrets are being kept that we’re about to uncover.
Alex’s hand finds mine. Squeezes once.
Because we both know what comes next. Following the money means going after institutional power. The kind that owns clubs and politicians and probably judges. The kind that makes bodies disappear so thoroughly even I can’t find missing person reports.
The kind that will absolutely kill us if we get too close.
