We clink our wine glasses together. Both of us getting misty-eyed in a figure drawing class while a naked man poses fifteen feet away.
This is our life now.
I pick up my brush. Look at my abstract disaster of a canvas.
“Fuck it,” I mutter. Add more color. More chaos. More whatever the hell this is becoming.
Alex is laughing beside me. Actually laughing while she now paints.
A sound I’d do anything to protect. To keep in this world.
We’re tipsy. We’re terrible at this. We’re exactly where we need to be.
For this moment, at least. For this Sunday afternoon where we get to pretend the world isn’t hunting us. Where Marcus isn’t stalking me and Dom isn’t controlling my career and Dahlia isn’t waiting for us to hear her.
Tomorrow we’ll go back to it. Back to the investigation and the fear and the danger.
But today—right now—we’re just two idiots painting badly and drinking wine and choosing joy despite everything trying to take it from us.
And maybe that’s the most important thing we can do.
Twelve
The call comesWednesday morning while I’m getting ready for City Hall.
Alex left an hour ago—early meeting with Dom about quarterly reports or some other accounting thing I tuned out while she explained it over coffee. She didn’t even mind despite the fact that today is her birthday.
The loft feels too quiet without her. Just me and the murder board hidden behind the tapestry.
I’m pulling on my coat when my phone rings.
Dom.
My stomach drops before I even answer.
“Sir.”
“Dylan.” His voice is clipped. Efficient. The tone that means he’s already decided something and I’m just going to have to deal with it. “I need you at the office.”
“I thought I was working from City Hall this week?—”
“Now, Dylan.”
He hangs up.
I stare at my phone. At the black screen. At my own reflection in the glass looking pale and worried.
That’s not a good sign.
Nothing about this is a good sign.
I grab my bag. Lock up. Head downstairs to call an Uber because whatever Dom wants, it’s not optional. It’s never optional.
And I don’t have time for public transportation.
The Uber drops me at the corner of the building fifteen minutes later.
I haven’t been here in over a week. Not since Dom assigned me to work from Marcus’s office at City Hall. Not since I’ve been able to avoid this building and all its memories.
