He swallows. “Godfather Kel wants you. Now.”
I lean my head a fraction to the side. “He wants me, or he wants something from me?”
Renn’s throat works. “He wants… the human.”
Heat crawls up my spine, slow and controlled. “No.”
Renn flinches like I slapped him. “Lonari?—”
“Don’t ‘Lonari’ me,” I murmur. “You’re not my mother.”
His mouth tightens. “Kel says she’s a liability. He says the Nine are watching. He says?—”
“I know what he says,” I cut in. “What does he want?”
Renn’s voice drops. “He ordered you to surrender her.”
My tongue presses against the roof of my mouth until I taste that bitter edge of rage. I stare at Renn and imagine snapping the hallway cameras off the wall one by one.
“Tell him no,” I say.
Renn’s eyes widen. “Boss?—”
“Tell him,” I repeat, still calm, “that if he wants Jordan, he can come get her himself.”
Renn’s jaw flexes. “He’s not going to take that well.”
“That’s his problem,” I say.
Renn hesitates, then glances past my shoulder, toward the suite interior. “She’s in there?”
“Yes.”
“And she’s… okay?”
The question lands strange—like he cares, like he’s checking because he’s human under the suit and gun and syndicate tattoos.
“She’s okay,” I say, and my voice goes quieter without me meaning it to. “She stays that way.”
Renn nods once, stiff. “I’ll tell Kel.”
He starts to turn, then pauses like he can’t help himself.
“Lonari,” he says carefully, “Fyr’s been moving.”
That name is a blade in my ear.
I look at him. “How?”
“He’s been whispering,” Renn says. “Security rotations. Private corridors. The kind of whispering that ends with bodies in laundry carts.”
My hands curl into fists at my sides, not because I want to hit Renn, but because I want to hit the walls.
“Where is he?” I ask.
Renn shakes his head. “Not sure. But he knows Kel wants her. That’s… incentive.”
“Incentive,” I repeat, voice flat.
