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The cold that rushed in wasn’t new, it was ancient. It had been waiting inside me all along, just needed the right catalyst to wake it up.

They say Virelli’s and Romanov’s are the same in the end—a waste of a bloodline.

28

TWENTY-EIGHT

ARROW

Ileft her to dream, to rest in the sheets I’d ruined. We all needed our hours of peace, however temporary, and I’d used up enough of hers already.

The city buzzed—cop radios and police scanners alive with talk of a Union Square shooting, social media lighting up with rumors, TikTok videos spliced from street-level footage and hacked feeds. Everyone scrambling to pin fault, to draw borders in even bloodier ink.

But the only war that mattered was the one hammering under my ribs.

Dressed in clean black, I was trimmed enough to pass for a lawyer, but brutal in the weight class required. Holstered and loaded, I caught my reflection on the penthouse’s slick steel panel. An American psycho with prettier hands, or maybe a grown-up altar boy who’d switched to sacramental liquor and cheap murder just to spite the God he used to serve.

The elevator hissed open. Orion waited there with his perfect posture, suit immaculate even after his role in tonight’s choreographed violence. He looked me up and down, then passed over a manila envelope.

“Atlas says it’s urgent,” he said. “You want backup?”

“I’m not becoming my father yet. But keep a car ready.”

“Always.”

We rode in silence. Fresh stitches marked his temple, but I didn’t ask where they came from. He watched me, our shared language of violence needing only the occasional noun and verb.

“She likes you,” Orion noted.

“She isn’t supposed to.”

He grinned. “Then you’re already fucked.”

At street level, the city pulsed with a different kind of fear. Not the usual flavor, but the kind only bred in times of power transitions or failed assassinations.

A cold hand fell on my shoulder the second I hit the sidewalk.

My father.

“Interesting night.”

I turned. His face in profile was sharp, every feature honed for murder. The suit he wore was dark enough to erase him into the shadows, but his hands caught the city’s blue light, pale against the darkness.

The kind of hands that ended people.

“You need something?” I asked.

Orion started to intervene, but I shook my head. “Tell Atlas I’ll be late.”

My father’s grip tightened on my shoulder, a silent command as I slid into the back seat of his armored Benz. My father joined me, leaving Orion on the sidewalk with a dismissive flick of his fingers. We sat in silence as the car idled before pulling off the curb.

“You’ve handled the Virelli situation well.” He adjusted the lapel of his suit, and that was the closest he ever came to a compliment. “But her father’s not dead, so your win is temporary.”

“I’m not interested in killing him yet.”

“Clearly.” He laced his fingers together, watching me the way a spider watches another spider decide if it will eat the web or become part of it. “She’s becoming a liability to you.”

Liabilities, in his mouth, always tasted like a threat.