“Not negotiable, Troy. Someone just tried to put a bullet in your head. You're going to the safe house and you're staying there until I arrive.” His voice went harder, the tone he used when he wasn't accepting arguments. “I'm eight hours out. Dmitri will keep you alive until then. Do what he says.”
The call ended.
I sat there on the floor, back against the couch, trying to process what had just happened. Someone had tried to kill us. In broad daylight. In Declan's house. While we were eating fucking breakfast and trying to figure out what we were to each other.
This wasn't a warning anymore. This was war.
“Troy.” Declan's voice cut through my thoughts.
I looked over at him. He was sitting against the cabinets with blood on his feet from the broken glass. His expression was hard and controlled, but I could see the questions building behind his eyes.
“So you want to tell me what the fuck is really going on? Because 'someone you work with' doesn't cover any of that conversation I just heard.”
I dragged a hand through my hair. I tried to figure out how much to tell him. How much he could handle. How much would keep him safe versus how much would put him in more danger.
“Luka is my handler. He coordinates operations. Assigns targets. Manages logistics. He's the one who keeps track of who's trying to kill me and why.”
“Your handler.” Declan repeated the words like they were in a foreign language. “Like you're some kind of spy?”
“Close enough to that.”
“That's not a fucking answer, Troy.” His jaw tightened. “You told me you kill people for the Sentinels. You told me it's your job. But you didn't tell me you have a handler. You didn't tell me there's an organizational structure around this. You didn't tell me any of the actual details.”
“Luka runs part of the operations for the Sentinels. He's good at what he does. He keeps people alive. And right now, he's trying to keep us alive by sending someone he trusts to get us to safety.”
“Who's he sending?”
“Guy named Dmitri.”
“And who is this Dmitri person exactly?”
“Security specialist. Ex-military. Russian. Good at his job.” I met Declan's eyes. “And before you ask, I trust him. Luka wouldn't send him if he wasn't the best option.”
Declan was quiet for a long moment. I could see him processing, working through the implications, trying to reconcile the life I had described with the reality that was unfolding in his kitchen.
“He should be here in five minutes. Luka wants us to go to a safe house. Says we're staying there until he gets here.”
Declan's expression went flat. “A safe house.”
“Apparently he bought one last month.” I crawled over to him and sat beside him with our backs against the cabinets. “Look, I know it's not ideal, but?—”
“I'm not going.”
My brain stuttered trying to process the words. “What?”
“I said I'm not going.” He looked at me, and there was a stubborn immovable quality in his eyes that I recognized. “I have a life here, Troy. I have a business to run. Clients who depend on me. Fights scheduled. I'm not letting some asshole with a rifle intimidate me out of my own house.”
He couldn't be serious. He couldn't actually be sitting here with glass in his feet and bullet holes in his wall and telling me he wasn't going to leave.
“Someone just tried to kill us.”
“I'm aware.” His jaw was set with that same fucking stubbornness that had kept him in my life for years even when I had given him every reason to leave. “But running and hiding isn't going to solve that. It's just going to drag this out.”
“It'll keep you alive.”
“Maybe. Or maybe it'll just make me a sitting target somewhere else.” He grabbed my hand. “I'm not going, Troy. You can go if you want. But I'm staying here.”
This was insane. He was being insane. A sniper had just taken shots at us through his fucking window and he was talking about clients and fights like this was a normal goddamn day.
