Idon’t.
Ican’t.
And still. When he asked — “What did he tell you?” — I didn’t lie. I should have lied.
Instead I told Caelum Voss,leaderof the Masked Riders, wanted and worshipped and feared, that Owen called me the night he died and told me to run.
Run.Don’t tell anyone. Don’t trust anyone in a mask. Pack a bag. Disappear. Go to ground.
That’s not language you use when you’re just in trouble. That’s not “I did a bad run and pissed off the wrong men, cover for me.” That’s not “I owe someone money and I’ll fix it, don’t answer the door.”
That’s protocol. I dig my nails in harder. This is the part that won’t stop rattling around in my skull…
Islipped.
Not just with the running. Not just with Owen. With me. “I’ve been alive without you just fine,” I’d told him, and he’d said, “Is that what you call what you were doing?”
He’s not wrong and I hate it. I know what I’ve been doing the last three years. It wasn’t living. It wasn’t surviving, either, not really. It was holding position. It was keeping one foot in the door and one foot out, waiting for a clean exit signal that never came.
Like agoodoperative.
My stomach twists, nausea churning in my gut.
I push the pillow away and sit up straight, elbows on my knees, hands in my hair. My heart’s still pounding way too hard. I try to steady my breathing. In. Out. In. Out. It’s hard. There’s this tightness in my chest that won’t release. The kind that makes you feel like you’re not getting enough air even when you are.
“You’re shaking,” Mateo had said in the kitchen. “Does that happen when you’re scared or when you’re turned on?”
I press my palms into my eyes and groan into the dark at the memory. Because it’sboth. And admitting that to myself is almost worse than admitting I cracked to Caelum.
Caelum.
Caelum Voss, who looked at me like I belonged in his house and then told me he watches me on video. Over and over. Like I’m a study. A puzzle. A file. Not like I’m prey.
That’s the other thing that has me rattled. The way he looked at me when I told him what Owen said. When I said, “He told me to run,” the whole line of his mouth changed. It wasn’t victory. It wasn’t satisfaction. It wasn’t even smugness.
It was something almost like…anger.
Not at me. At the situation. At the memory, maybe. Or was it at the fact that he can’t control this piece of the story the way he can control everything else?
He said he has nightmares. He said my nightmares aren’t weakness. He said he sees me in his.
That must have been a manipulation. A psychological play. Maybe even a controlled confession to soften me up.
Except I know when someone’s trying to work me on purpose. I wastrainedto know. You clock tone, breath cadence, blink rate, micro-adjustment in posture, eye-contact timing. Lies are patterns.
What he gave me wasn’t polished. It was too direct. Too fast.
He said it like a man answering a question already asked. That shouldn’t make my throat tight. It does anyway. “Stop it,” I whisper to myself. “Stop.”
I rub the heel of my hand hard against my sternum like I can grind the feeling out of my chest. It doesn’t move. Because here’s the ugly truth I don’t want to name…
He isdangerous, and I am drawn to him. Not for the reason they all think. Not because he’s pretty.He is. It’s offensive. Not because he’s power-drunk. Not because he could tear London in half with one order.
Because he listens.
That’s the part that scares me.
I’ve been around men who talked big my whole life. Foster homes. Corners. Owen’s circles before things went deep. Dealers who thought they were kings because they ran a block. Cops with too much swagger and not enough patience. Men like to talk. Like to fill a room so you forget you exist inside it.
