Only then did he rise. Breathing controlled. Hands steady. Not shaking.
Lena stared at him. This wasn’t the man who fidgeted with tablets and hid behind dry humor. This was the part Zach had carved into him. It was terrifying. And seriously hot.
The crowd exhaled as one when Logan dragged Chester away. Music faltered, unsure, until Walter stepped forward, whispered to the DJ, and it burst back into life. People turned back to each other, gossiping about what had happened, but still giving Lena the illusion of privacy.
She knelt down by the shell fragments. The chain had broken into two strands. The pendant, cheap plastic with a thin silver coating, had shattered, the fragments scattered across the deck.
Chester had called it trashy. He’d laughed when she wore it to work. Said it didn’t belong in “his” establishment. Now it lay broken because of him. Again.
Her lungs compressed—and then filled with something new. Not grief. Not panic. Release.
She picked up the chain, closing her fingers around it. “It was never trash,” she said softly. She wasn’t speaking to Chester, butto herself. She stood and gulped a mouthful of the champagne—sharp, sweet, alive.
David’s touch was light on her elbow. “You okay?”
She didn’t tremble.
She didn’t flinch.
She felt free.
Not the hollow freedom of before, when she’d escaped the Cape. Not the anxious relief of escaping the storm still raging behind her. This was different—earned, final.
Watching Chester dragged away in cuffs, yelling nonsense no one believed, his voice fading into the background like an old radio cut off mid-song—a tether snapped. And she wasn’t the one left flailing.
Her laugh broke, quiet but sure. “Yeah. I think I am.” She looked over her shoulder at the staff, the faces smiling again. Her voice softened. “You really think I would’ve let him win?”
“Not for a second, Sparky.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Don’t push it.”
He grinned. “Spark.”
She handed him the empty flute. He took it without comment and set it on the tray behind him. She looked at him fully now. Looked past the worry in his eyes to the core of steadiness underneath. Solid ground.
She took a breath and let it sink in. Chester was finished.
David laughed and reached for her hand. His fingers were warm—warmer than her own—and his grip was grounding. “You were incredible.”
“Took me long enough.” She curled her hand into his. Not trembling now. Not resisting. Just there. Present. “You think it’s over?” The question was pitched to ride under the party’s new tide of laughter and resumed chatter.
His smile faltered a little, and his gaze moved past her to the horizon where moonlight stroked the surface of the ocean.“With Chester, yeah. With our saboteur?” He shook his head, jaw tightening. “That storm’s still coming.”
The band struck a sweeter chord, something smokier, more forgiving. She let herself lean into him now, heart still galloping in her but running toward now, not from. Around them, glasses lifted again. Logan returned, weapon holstered, and stood near the perimeter next to Zach, arms folded like a sentry, eyes watchful.
Lena tightened her fingers on David’s and nodded once. “Then let’s make sure we’re ready.”
Before she thought too much, before analysis overrode instinct, she stepped into him. Her free hand landed on his chest, and his rested on her back, low and possessive. The sound of the music swelled around them, and the subtle rhythm gave her something else to concentrate on. Sandalwood cologne. The slow inhale and exhale of someone she trusted.
They moved, swaying more than dancing, while the lights above flickered like stars drawn closer, condensed and golden. Lena let her eyes slip closed for a breath, just one, and allowed herself this peace. However temporary.
She was ready.
Chapter 47
Thunderhead
David satmotionless in his office chair, tilted back at an angle that made his lower spine ache, barely breathing. The soothing hum from his systems was a gentle tremor under his fingertips—constant, rhythmic, almost hypnotic. It was the only sound that kept him grounded, the only thing preventing him from spiraling into the static-filled void of exhaustion that had been clawing at him for days.
