He bent down until his mouth hovered by my ear, low enough that only I could hear. “Careful, sweetheart. We bothknow how to play this game. That smart mouth might earn you a set of cuffs again. Maybe even your own cell this time. I’d love to see how well you hold up under questioning with all your new knowledge.”
The words were slick with threat, coiled with promise. My chest burned, but I refused to let him see the fear. I raised my chin, spitting fire back at him instead. “You don’t scare me.”
And that was when Kaius moved. The shift was subtle—just a step—but it carried the weight of an earthquake. The officers around him stiffened, hands hovering closer to their guns. But he didn’t look at them. His eyes were fixed on Parsons.
“That’s enough,” he said, and the words rumbled low, lethal, like a warning before the kill. Even from across the room, the warmth of it washed over me. It made my heart thump against my chest. I turned my gaze on him, heat pooling in my core at his intense stare. God, even when I was furious at him for what he made me do tonight, I still wanted him to show me just how unhinged he could be with me. The thought had my cheeks flushing slightly.
“You don’t threaten what’s mine,” Kaius continued, voice still low, but sharper now, honed with years of practice. “You don’t touch her. You don’t even breathe her name unless I say so. Do you understand me, Parsons?”
The air in the room constricted. For the first time, Parsons’s grin faltered. He straightened slowly, eyes flicking between me and Kaius, measuring, calculating. “We’ll see how clear things are once we finish the search.”
Just as I thought the entire room was going to combust into flames, officers stormed in from the back door, and the chaos truly began. Their boots pounded against the hardwood floor as they tore through the hall.
“There is nothing there,” Watson’s voice called out over the grumbles of the other officers.
Parsons’s eyes flashed with anger before he tore off in the direction of the basement. I followed after him, not caring that I was being screamed at to stop. When my feet finally landed on the final step, I came upon an entirely different space than what I had seen just a day earlier. The basement was empty, scrubbed to sterility, just rows of liquor bottles, bags of ice, and cleaning solution. The table was bare, no trace of anything illegal left behind. No Muze. No vials. Nothing but a stage that smelled of alcohol and smoke. Even the filing cabinet, which had sat in the corner, was now gone.
I watched Parsons’s face as the reports trickled back—empty, negative, cleared. His jaw tightened, his smirk stretched thinner, like a mask starting to crack under the weight of its own lie. Watson took the papers from one officer who was reporting the scene around us, scanning them quietly. His expression barely shifted, but when his eyes lifted to meet mine across the room, something flickered. Relief. Regret. A warning. I couldn’t tell.
Watson handed the report to his partner. The silence dragged as Parsons processed defeat, eyes scanning over each and every word on the white sheet of paper. Finally, with a sound like a growl, he shoved the report back into Watson’s chest and turned on me.
“This isn’t over,” he snarled, jabbing a finger into my chest. His eyes found mine last, sharp and venomous. “One of these times, they are going to slip. And when they do, I’ll be there to watch them burn.”
The venom in his voice should’ve rattled me. Instead, something wild rose up in me, sharp and reckless. I smiled, slow and sweet. “Looks like tonight isn’t that night.”
The words hit him like a slap. His eyes narrowed to slits, but before he could strike back, Kaius strode down the stairs and stepped in front of me, a wall of steel and shadow.
His voice was quiet, absolute. “Get out of my bar.”
And for once, Parsons obeyed.
The officers filed out, leaving wreckage in their wake—shattered glass, overturned tables, and the stench of smoke and tension still clinging to the air. Only when the last badge had disappeared through the door did I let my shoulders sag, breath trembling out of me. Kaius turned slowly, his eyes landing on me, and for a moment, the room felt too small to contain him. But I knew I wasn’t free to go, not when I still had to prove that the Muze was securely obtained. Proved that I was on the right side of the Knights.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
acelynn
The bar felt hollowafter the raid, like the life had been sucked out of it and only shadows remained. Broken chairs lay scattered like bodies on the frontline. Shards of glass glittered across the hardwood, catching the dim bar light in sharp flashes. The air reeked of spilled liquor and sweat. A haze of dust still drifted down from where shelves had been knocked askew. Even though Parsons and his team were gone, their presence lingered like a bad taste.
I moved carefully across the wreckage, my heart still pounding from the confrontation. Astoria was pacing near the pool tables, her face pale with fury, lips pressed into a thin line. Josie leaned against the bar as Vince examined the bruises already darkening her wrist from Parsons’s rough grip. Nolan’s absence was a raw, gaping wound. They’d hauled him out in cuffs, his rage echoing even as the flashing lights swallowed him whole. I’d wanted to tear after him, to scream, to claw Parsons’sface open with my nails. But I’d stood rooted to the floor, knowing that one wrong move could bring it all crashing down.
Kaius hadn’t said a word since the police had cleared out. He stood at the bar like a statue, shoulders squared, the weight of responsibility hanging off him as if it had been carved into his bones. His silence pressed heavier than any threat Parsons could’ve made.
I thought about leaving him to his brooding, but something in the tension of his jaw told me he wasn’t finished—not with me, not with tonight. So when he finally moved, I followed.
The night air outside was damp and heavy. Sirens still echoed faintly in the distance, their wails bleeding into the dark city streets. My pulse quickened when Kaius strode straight to the car I’d left behind earlier, his long strides eating up the pavement. Without a word, he ducked down, slid his hand under the driver’s seat, and pulled out a small black tracker.
My blood froze.
He turned it in his hand, the faintest smirk tugging at his lips before his eyes cut to me.
“Next time you think about running off with something that dangerous,” he said, voice low and sharp, “remember that I’ll always know exactly where you are.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” I asked.
The sting of humiliation and anger hit me square in the chest. Heat burned up my neck, and for a second, I could barely breathe. He’d been watching me. Every move. Every turn. Every mistake. But it didn’t make any sense that he thought I was running. I hadn’t strayed from the directions given. It had been a straight shot.
“There was a moment on the drive back.” Kaius flipped the device up in the air, letting it fall back into his hand once before continuing, “You hesitated, sat at that four-way stop for too long. I assumed you were debating on running for it. It wouldhave been so easy to just leave, even though I’ll always find you, kitten.”
