Page 38 of Arrow

Halfway to the door, Harlowe lifted her head from my shoulder and shot Zephyr a look, mingled gratitude and violence, then let her eyes roll closed, trusting me not to drop her.

We exited into the alley behind La Lune Noire, the noise of the club fading to nothing against the cold concrete. I set her down against the wall, keeping one arm under her until I was sure her knees would hold. She pressed her head back, staring up at the halo of streetlight, hair matted to her jaw, mouth split and wet, and pulled my jacket tighter around her tiny frame.

She didn’t speak. She didn’t have to.

We stood like that for a long minute. The only sound was the slow trickle of rain falling from the drainage pipe above us, peppering the crown of her head with cold. I watched her pulse flicker, watched the unsteady clutch of her hands on my jacket, and tried to decide whether this was victory or rescue or just the cleanest defeat of my life.

For the first time in my life, I felt something akin to awe, the sacred kind that seeps in when you realize you could touch a God and still lose to her every time.

Harlowe said nothing, not for a full minute, as she inventoried her aftermath. She blinked rain from her eyelids, mouth open, then drew a shuddering breath through her teeth. When she finally looked at me, her laugh slid out in a single breath.

“Fuck you, Romanov,” she whispered.

“Not yet,” I replied. “But soon.”

“Did you come to reclaim me, or just to watch me eviscerate myself?” she asked, voice raw, edged with hysteria.

“Both,” I said honestly, for once.

She gripped the brick behind her, and I saw the mirror of my own childhood etched in her posture—stripped to the bone, nowhere left to run, so you brace and make your stand in whatever gutter the city gives you.

“Are you proud of yourself?”

I smiled. “Yes. You made the city hold its breath.”

Harlowe didn’t smile, not exactly. But her chin ticked up, the smallest flex of arrogance. No matter how shot her body was, her will refused to stand down.

There was this residual hunger in my hands; the urge to shake her until the cockiness fell away and she was pliant or, better yet, desperate enough to let me see what waited beneath her skin. I wanted to drag her home at once, but I remembered Atlas and Orion, warning me I’d catch a mouthful of fangs if I tried to domesticate a Virelli.

Except, it wasn’t domestication, not anymore.

I only wanted to see what kind of creature she’d become after enough miles and enough damage had stripped away the pretense.

* My little viper

* My little viper

11

ELEVEN

HARLOWE

The day had come to walk through the reception hall. Frank was waiting outside, leaning against the car. His weathered face betrayed nothing as he opened the door. “You’re late.”

“I’m aware.” I slid into the back seat.

I’d chosen a backless white dress that showed just enough of the bruises on my skin to make a statement. The wedding planner would hate it. Arrow would understand it for exactly what it was—a big fucking middle finger.

Frank glanced at me in the rearview mirror as he pulled into traffic. “He’s already there.”

“Let him wait.” I turned to the window. “How bad is it going to be?”

His eyes met mine in the mirror again. “Bad enough that I insisted on bringing you myself instead of him sending Ivan or Yuri.”

I nodded, appreciating his honesty. Frank had been with my family since before I was born. He’d seen the rise and fall of the Virelli empire. From watching my life fall apart when my brother was slaughtered, before my mother ended her life, to my father making desperate alliances to save what little power he had left.

And now he was protecting me as I was sacrificed to the very family that had destroyed ours. He was more of a father to me than my own flesh and blood.