I turn to him, finally giving him my eyes. “You think I’m anidiot? You think I broke into your vault alone and just… wandered out with something you clearly don’t want the world to see, and that I didn’t prepare at all in case I was snatched off the street for it?”
He grins, slow and delighted. “Oh, she’sfun.”
I lean forward, forearms braced on the table. “I’m not handing you anything unless I have a guarantee —signed, dated— that I walk out of this alive. That I don’t disappear. That I don’t get dropped in a river. That I don’t get carved up and scattered in bins off the M25. I want it in black and white, and I want all of you bound to it.Allfive.”
Saint’s lips part. The sound he lets out is soft, reverent. “Clever little lamb.”
Ash exhales through his nose. “Jesus Christ.”
Wraith chuckles. Low. Approving.
Caelum doesn’t move. His face doesn’t shift. But the air around him changes.
Power isn’t volume. It’s focus. And right now, all of his is on me.
“You think,” he says quietly, “that you are in a position to make demands.”
“Yes,” I say.
“Why?”
“Because,” I say, “you can hurt me anytime you want. You can take anything off me, break anything in me, cut anything out of me. But there’s one thing you can’t get without my consent.”
He tilts his head slightly. “The drive.”
“Theleverage,” I correct softly.
It lands.
And for the first time since I walked into this house, Caelum Voss looks at me like I’m not an inconvenience, not a loose end, not blood under his nails.
He looks at me like a problem worth solving.
He looks at me like athreat.
Good.
“I want it in writing,” I repeat. “And I want you to sign it in front of me. All of you. You can word it however you want — I’m not asking you to admit anything. I just want one promise. You will not kill Ember Calloway, nor will you allow her to be killed. You will not hand Ember Calloway to any foreign or domestic power, syndicate, contractor, or government entity. You will return her to London alive when this is done.”
Ash lets out a low, impressed, “Goddamn.”
Vale whistles under his breath. “She said ‘domestic and foreign.’ Listen to her. Like she’s seen the playbook.”
Saint is smiling now. Not soft. Proud.
Wraith is still as stone, but his hand is fisted on the table, and I can see the tendons in his forearm. I don’t know if that’s anger at the idea of someone else taking me, or anger at me talking about it out loud.
Caelum is silent again. Still studying my face, like it will give him all my tells. I let him.
Let him see the stubborn. Let him see the fear under it. Let him see the fact that I am running on fumes and adrenaline and spite. Let him see that I am not bluffing.
Because I am not bluffing. If he thinks I’m bluffing, I die.
Finally, he speaks. “What happens,” he says softly, “if I say no?”
My heart is pounding so hard I can feel it in my gums. My mouth is dry. My palms are damp. I don’t let them see any of that.
“I send a message,” I say.
