A fucking warehouse rave.
Of course.
The girl we’ve been chasing?
Yeah. She bolts straight through the open doors like she’s diving into salvation.
I stare up at the massive red-neon sign buzzing above the entrance.
CUPID’S KILLHOUSE, and snort.
“Kade, you seeing this shit? The bitch just ran into a place literally named after us.”
Kade groans like he’s two seconds from strangling me.
“She’s making this complicated.”
“No.” I grin behind the heart-eyes mask, sweat and ocean salt on my tongue. “She just made it fucking interesting.”
Because now we can’t just drop her.
Not without half this rave watching.
But wecango inside.
Wecanblend in.
And wecanfind her before she realizes running into a crowd didn’t save her ass it just gave us a playground to hunt her in.
Kade mutters, “Fine, but we end her quick. In and out. No bullshit.”
“Sure,” I lie without even blinking, already locked onto some wasted asshole wobbling around in white feather Cupid wings with a cheap plastic bow hanging off his shoulder. The dude looks like a fucking discount Valentine’s decoration.
Perfect.
He freezes the second he notices the knife in my hand and the glowing heart-eyes on my mask aimed right at his face.
“Hey, man,” I say, all friendly and sunshine. “I need your wings.”
He hesitates—bad choice—so I tap the blade against his throat. Light. Gentle. Encouraging.
“Now.”
Yeah, that works.
He damn near tears the wings off himself trying to get them to me.
I grab them, swing them over my shoulders, feathers dragging over the tattoos covering my chest and arms.
No shirt. Just ink, sweat, and the kind of adrenaline that makes everything funny.
Then I point at the bow slung across his back.
“That too.”
He hands it over with hands shaking like he’s trying to vibrate into the ground.
I grin at him like we’re best fucking friends.
