Heat detonates in my chest. “If you touch her, you will need a set of prosthetic hands to sign your blood money checks.”
Ares’s smirk deepens. “Let’s not threaten each other. I’m not here to hurt her. But I need to look her in the eye before I decide she’s safe.”
He struts toward the entrance to my building, and I follow, jaw locked so tight my teeth ache.
We ride the elevator in silence. I can hear my pulse hammering by the time we reach Fallon’s door. Ares doesn’t hesitate or give me the chance to prep her. He knocks once, sharp and commanding.
The door opens, and Fallon’s eyes widen when she sees him. All the color drains from her face. She looks small and fragile in an oversized orange sweater, fun leaf-patterned leggings, and her bare feet curling against the cold floor.
“Ares…” she whispers. “Ares, Ares, Ares.”
I glance past her and see the calendar, a riot of colors, doodles, arrows, and glitter stickers. Holiday events storyboarded like a Hollywood action movie.
I imagine Fallon through Ares’s eyes. Where he’ll see troubled, I see quirky.
Maybe quirky isn’t the right word.
Before I intervened with that bloke who harassed her in the garden, she had casually threatened to take a shovel to his head if he got too close to her. No hesitation. No remorse.
There’s violence buried deep inside her. I admit, I like that. Butisshe a danger to herself or others? Can she be loyal?
I need someone who won’t freeze when the world starts burning.
I step aside to let Ares into the flat. His presence fills the room like toxic fumes. His gaze sweeps the small space, eyes snagging on her hanging plants, the others along the windowsills, and the ivy draped down from her bookshelf.
Staring at those plants, I personally don’t care if she talks to them or if she hears them talk back.
Wrapping an arm around Fallon’s shoulders and pulling her into my chest, I say, “It’s okay, love. He’s just here to talk.”
Her head shakes, a dull hum vibrating from her throat. “Why?”
“Because this is how it works,” Ares tells her, his voice steady. “You were a witness. You get questioned. It’s standard.”
Ares goes still when he notices the whiteboard. Then he looks at me.
I meet his stare head-on. “She’sharmless.”
God help me, I want to wrap her in my arms and snarl at the world to fuck off. I don’t care if everything outside this flat is a complete fucking delusion for her. She’s the most genuine, decent person I’ve met.
“That depends.” Ares turns to Fallon and waves a hand toward the whiteboard. “You’ve obviously spent a lot of time and energy on this, Miss Nova. What does it all mean?”
Because it looks like she loves to document evidence in excruciating detail.Shite.
If something slips and she mentions I’m an assassin to any of these people at her events, just marrying her won’t be enough. I worry about what else Griffin will ask me to do to her.
Fallon’s fingers twist around my sleeve. “It’s...just how I plan. Writing it all out like this helps me make sense of things. I can’t afford to miss details. Those leadto…spirals.” Her smile doesn’t falter, but she lets go of me and grabs Basil’s pot.
I flinch at the wordspirals. Ares is watching her, but his expression hasn’t changed.
“Do you spiral a lot, Fallon?” I ask.
“Not a lot,” she says, biting a fingernail.
Something cracks in my chest. She’s fighting inner battles no one can see. All they see is how she copes.
I’m about to tell Ares to back off when he glances at me again. This time, something shifts in his expression. He nods slowly, the faintest hint of understanding in his eyes.
“The man Rhys killed,” he says quietly, hands in his pockets, “was a terrible man. He was hurting someone I care about.”
