Ever!
Mr. Peregrine gave a small chuckle, inclining his head. “Of course. I didn’t mean to upturn your morning.” He collected his purchase and, with a final tip of his head, strode out the door.
Her landlord, however, waited a fraction of a moment before following suit. She lifted her gaze. He stopped in the doorway andglanced over his shoulder, their eyes locking. “Remember what I said. Be careful who you trust. And call me Maxen, Calliope.”
Then he vanished, leaving her to blink after him.
Calliope pressed her palm to her heart.
The sense of unease didn’t leave with him but sprouted into a nagging feeling that her life was no longer as safe and predictable as she’d dreamed. She’d come to Brighton for peace, to escape the shadows of her past and start fresh. But there seemed to be beasts of a different nature lurking here.
Could she escape them, too?
*
Maxen’s eyes narrowedon the back of Deveraux Peregrine’s head. The name scraped against his teeth every time he heard it. Pomp without merit. A man who had never built a damn thing in his life. Only took. And took. And took.
He stepped up to Peregrine so that they were out of sight of his tenant’s shop. What had possessed him to make that last statement, he couldn’t say. Only that hearing “Mr. Fury” from her lips made him sound like an old man.
“I shouldn’t have to remind you to stay off my land,” Maxen growled in annoyance.
Peregrine turned, that insufferable smirk already in place. “Brighton doesn’t belong to you, Fury.”
“Not to me alone, no.”
“Ah.” Peregrine’s gaze swept over him. “Your brothers.”
There was something about that look. The way he saidbrothers. He didn’t like it. Didn’t like the whisper of threat beneath it. What was this fool up to now?
“I admit,” Peregrine continued, “your property expansion is impressive, but it’s hardlythatimpressive.”
“It’s far greater than you can imagine.”
Much greater.
Over the years, he and his brothers had built a tightly knit network in Brighton, their influence extending beyond the shadows and into every crevice of the town’s economy. But he had no intention of sharing that detail with this arse.
Peregrine cocked his head. “I see you finally rented that shop of yours.”
A flare of warning raced through Maxen’s gut.
He’d known the moment he learned Dagger had leased the shop that trouble would follow. But he hadn’t expected trouble to arrive so soon or in this particular form. Of course, this puffed-up nob had heard the local speculations—rumors that he never rented the place because the property concealed buried treasure or some long-lost fortune. Nothing could be further from the truth. Yet those misguided tales had a way of attracting exactly the wrong sort, and Peregrine was no exception.
“I have,” Maxen replied, his voice cold, uninterested. “What about it? Don’t tell me you were interested?”
“On the contrary,” Peregrine said, his gaze flicking to the scent shop and back. “I merely wondered what finally made the place worth leasing. Quite the tenant you have there.”
Maxen cursed in his heart. Men like Peregrine were vultures. So long as they could get what they wanted, little else mattered. “I don’t care to decipher the nonsense rattling around in that goat head of yours, but she lives on my land. Under my roof. If you cause her any trouble, I’ll make damn sure you regret ever learning to walk upright. Stay away from me and mine.”
“How arrogant of you to presume that pretty little thing is yours. What if I take a fancy to her?”
Maxen’s fists clenched.
The thought of Peregrine’s hands anywhere near his new tenantstirred a bone-deep urge to throttle the man. Something primitive snarled inside him. It was madness. She was nothing to him. A tenant. A nuisance. A loose thread.
Yet Peregrine’s words left a bitter taste in his mouth.
Only because she is living on my turf.
