Not raining. Just… wet. The kind of cold that clings to the air and pavement like something alive. The kind that crawls under leather and into bone. The kind that smells like exhaust, old stone, metal, and threat.
I should’ve had blood by now.
Answers, at the very least.
Instead I have nothing but a dead lead, a room full of men in the East End who suddenly couldn’t remember ever meeting Owen Calloway, and a tidy reminder from a Syndicate lieutenant that I am not the only monster in this city who knows how to play polite when we’re indoors.
When I left this morning, I wassure. Walk into Poplar, put a hand on a throat, shake something loose. I expected names, cash routes, confirmation. I expected something I could turn into a blade.
Instead, I got lies delivered clean. Blank eyes. Shrugs. Casual indifference. “Never heard of him.” “We don’t do business with kids.” “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Which is funny, because three years ago those same men were practically tripping over themselves to buy from us. Men like that don’t just forget a contact at our level. They’re pretending. Pretending, or someone higher than them told them to shut the fuck up.
Either answer is a problem. Either answer means Owen was neverjustOwen.
And that means Ember Calloway isn’t just a mouthy inconvenience I signed paper for.
That’s what makes my jaw tight by the time I unlock the front door of the townhouse and step inside. Not the cold trail. Or the fucking insult.
Her.
I can feel her here.
It’s ridiculous, but there it is. The house has her in it now. She’s soaked into it already — in the way the air smells, in the way the silence sits. The place doesn’t feel like it used to. It doesn’t hum like men sitting on control. It thrums now. Awake in a different way.
The door closes behind me with a clean, solid click. I slide the lock back into place out of reflex. No outside threat is getting in without our say-so. I am, inconveniently, no longer convinced that’s the problem I should be paying attention to.
“Boss.”
Wraith’s voice drifts from the sitting room off the hall. He’s in the doorway, leaning against the frame, arms folded over his chest. His shirt’s changed. Showered. Fresh ink peeking from his collar. He looks like a wall that decided to grow a heartbeat.
“Report,” I say.
“Nothing moving on the perimeter. Ash is still running backdoor ping sweeps on that warehouse camera you pulled. Saint’s in his head about it. Mateo fed her breakfast and attitude.”
My eyes flick up at that. “And she?”
“Back in her room.” Wraith’s mouth kicks a fraction. Humor, buried deep. “Pissed.”
Good. If she were quiet, I’d be worried. Quiet means planning. Or… It meanscracking.
Pissed means she’s still burning. Fire is easier to read than silence. And I can’t afford for her to be anything other than readable.
“She behave?” I ask.
He huffs softly. “Define behave.”
I almost smile. Almost. “Any problems?”
“No,” he says. “Contract’s signed. She ate. She’s upright. And—” He pauses, watching my face in that way that says he’s choosing what to give me, what to keep. “She didn’t fold.”
I shouldn’t like that. It’s a problem that I like that. Ignoring the way pride unfurls in my chest, I nod. “Understood,” I say. “Get some rest.”
He snorts quiet. “You first.”
I don’t answer that. We both know I won’t.
I leave him in the doorway and take the stairs up.
