My jaw flexes, and I lean against the brick, watching the entrance to the rowhouse across the street, hood pulled up, hands in the pockets of an old bomber. I’m casual, or I at least look it. Unbothered posture, one boot braced against the wall behind me, eyes half-lidded.
Inside, I’mvibrating.
He’s in there, and the bastard thinks he’s safe. He thinks his new little bolt-hole and his quiet under-the-table contract work and his “nobody knows I’m off-book” routine means he’s crawled away from the consequences of touching what belongs to us.
The others want him alive. I don’t. I want him dead, blood pouring over my hands, while I watch the last bit of his life force leave his useless body.
Ember hasn’t said it out loud, but I watched her eyes. She wants him alive long enough to hear him confess. She wants to stand there while he says it. She wants to decide.
So I keep him breathing. Forher.
That’s the only reason. I’m replaying her voice in my head like a rosary to keep my hands off the knife.
Start with Marcus… Start with Marcus… Start with Marcus.
No one has ever told me “start” and “don’t finish” in the same breath before. I don’t like it.
The flat he’s using is shit. Too clean on the letting papers, too anonymous on the outside, too temporary. One of those fake-renovated places landlords dress up with gray paint and cheap filament bulbs and call “executive studio” while they still haven’t fixed the warped floorboards. Curtains drawn. Lights low. He thinks closed blinds make him invisible.
He doesn’t know I’ve been watching him two days straight. Doesn’t know I made the guy who set up his utilities cry and then talk. He doesn’t know I’ve already cloned his door code from heat patterns on the keypad. He doesn’t know I’ve watched him leave twice: once for cigarettes, once to get takeout, shoulders hunched, head down, hood up, like no one would clock him.
The worst type. The ones who think touching power makesthempowerful.
He’s not power. He’s meat.
Movement, catches my attention on the top floor window. A shadow moving past.
I smile. Got you, bastard.
“Vale,” Ash’s voice slips into my ear. Calm. Taut. Too awake. He hasn’t slept more than an hour at a time since we took Damien. “Visual?”
“Eyes on him,” I murmur.
“Alone?” He asks.
“He’s alone,” I say. “No movement inside except him. No second shadow. Boy’s lonely.”
Ash exhales slowly. “Good. Wraith is two blocks out in the van. Saint’s with him, but don’t let him engage, that wrist is a liability and he knows it. Rook’s staying with Ember.”
“Of course he is,” I say, amused under my breath.
Ash doesn’t rise. He’s been quiet about that. About Ember. Aboutallof us and Ember. Quiet doesn’t mean blind.
“Reminder,” he says instead. “Alive.”
It comes out like he’s repeating a safety protocol to a toddler holding a grenade.
I roll my eyes. “Sí, mamá.”
“I mean it,Mateo.”
“I heard you the first six times,” I counter with an eye roll.
“Alive, coherent, able to speak,” Ash clarifies, like I’m dense. “Not ‘alive technically if you plug him into a machine.’ Not ‘alive if you define alive loosely and squint.’ Alive.”
I grin slow, eyes still on the door. “You’re no fun.”
“I’msomuch fun,” Ash deadpans. “You’re just asociopath.”
