The words hang there, heavy and unwanted. I don’t answer. When he finally turns to leave, I say, “Bring her back in one piece.”
He pauses at the door. “That part’s not negotiable.” And then he’s gone, leaving the room colder, quieter.
I look back at the map, tracing the red lines, the pieces already moving on the board. The city feels alive outside—breathing, waiting, promising ruin.
The Syndicate’s bait. The Russians’ hand. Owen’s ghost. And now—Ember.
The wild card I can’t control.
If this works, we’ll get what we need.
If it doesn’t… well, queens and pawns burn the same in the end.
Chapter 30
Ember
The city is different at night. It’s quieter, but it isn’t peaceful. It breathes, and watches. Waits.
Streetlights smear gold across slick pavement as engines growl through Whitechapel’s narrow lanes, the sound low and predatory, vibrating up through the soles of my boots and straight into my bones. The rain turns the road into a mirror, reflections shattering beneath spinning wheels as we cut through the city like something feral.
Wraith rides point. His bike is a monster—custom-built, blacked out, brutal in every line. The frame is widened, reinforced, the handlebars set higher to match his size. It looks less like a motorcycle and more like a weapon with wheels. The engine snarls every time he touches the throttle, a deep, aggressive sound that matches the man riding it. He’s built for control—broad shoulders, heavy presence, every movement economical and lethal even in motion.
Saint rides just behind him, sleek and composed on a black Ducati that gleams even under rain and grime, the lines elegant and dangerous in equal measure. He looks like he belongs on something fast and expensive, coat flaring behind him like a fallen angel in motion.
And me?
I’m tucked in behind Wraith, arms around his waist, pressed to a body that feels solid and unyielding. The bike is too big. The seat too high. My boots barely reach the pegs, and every bump in the road reminds me exactly how small I am compared to the machines they command so easily.
Five-foot-nothing on the back of a European death wish.
The air smells like rain, gasoline, leather, and Saint’s cologne—clean, sharp, threaded with smoke. I catch myself breathing it in before I can stop.
“You’re quiet,” Saint says through the helmet comms, his voice low and melodic, ruined in that way that feels intentional.
“I’m thinking,” I reply, tightening my grip when Wraith leans into a turn.
“Dangerous habit,” he murmurs. “For someone in your position.”
Wraith’s voice cuts in, rough and unmistakably displeased. “Enough.”
Saint ignores him. Of course he does. “Rook shouldn’t have made us bring you. You’re a variable we don’t need.”
“Then maybe you should’ve stayed home,” I snap.
I feel the shift in Saint’s voice, and see the slight turn of his head. “Careful, little lamb. Wolves aren’t the only ones with teeth.”
I look away, watching the city blur past—the shuttered shops, broken streetlamps, figures slipping into alleys when the bikes snarl too close. The rain slicks my lashes, cool and sharp, mixing with the heat of Wraith’s body in a way that makes my skin hum.
“You don’t trust me,” I say. “I get it. But I’m not the one hiding secrets.”
His grip tightens fractionally on the handlebars in Wraith’s rearview. “You think I’m hiding something?”
“I think you all are.”
Wraith takes a corner hard, his massive bike leaning like it shouldn’t be possible, the motion pulling Saint and me with him. My shoulder presses into Wraith’s back, heat blooming where we touch.
He doesn’t move away. Neither do I.
