Page 84 of Arrow

“Take your hand off me.”

I let her go, watching for the crumple.

Harlowe didn’t give me the satisfaction.

She stood, gathering her ruined dignity around her like a queen rearranging a slip dress, then stumbled toward the exit.

I remained two paces behind her—that was enough distance. She knew the city outside was colder than the church and less forgiving. Escape was a fantasy. I could have caught her and carried her home, but there was a kind of grace in letting her imagine the next move was hers.

Harlowe paused at the curb, then turned, the mist haloing her head like a punishing saint. “Why all this—the theatrics? The chasing me?” she asked, so quietly I nearly missed it. “Why not just finish it?”

I remembered the night my father broke my nose for the first and only time, how the blood had tasted like joy, like justice.

“Because then it’s over,” I said, matching her quiet. “We’d both be just another line in a book that no one wants to finish.” The laugh came out ugly, unfiltered. “But when you run, you leave a trail that outlasts the bodies. I want that. I want a thousand years of men cursing the night they ever heard the name Harlowe Virelli.”

She spat at my feet, hocking deep from her chest. “You’re fucking insane. I hope you choke on my name.”

“I will,” I promised. “But it’ll be on my terms.”

Harlowe turned away then, half dragging her leg, the brief flicker of resolve in its exhaustion the only light in the night. I could almost see the exact moment she realized what I suspected all along—the city would never let her leave.

Not even in pieces.

Her form shrank as she limped down 44th, silhouetted hard against the glowing arc of the lamps. I trailed her, not so close as to herd, but close enough to collect the crumbs she’d dropped along the way—a streak of blood on an iron railing, and the cold breath of her as she wrapped her arms around herself.

She never looked back.

Little fucking viper.

“Get in the car, Harlowe,” I said, nodding at the car hemming the alley.

My watchman had the back seat ready.

She slid in with a loud sigh, but she didn’t argue. Not from fatigue, but from calculation.

The wind had shifted, and she knew it.

20

TWENTY

HARLOWE

Arrow didn’t crowd me in the car, for once. He hung at the door, eyes hooded, letting me press myself flat against the opposite window. The hush was charged, the only sound was the pat-pat-pat of rain on the roof. He rolled up his shirtsleeves, showing his tattooed forearms, then scrubbed his face with both hands.

I wanted to open my mouth—spit out a joke, a threat, or maybe just the taste of defeat. Nothing would come but a sharp, breathy laugh.

Without looking up, he said, “I never pegged you as a pain slut.”

Gritting my teeth, I was grateful for the insult—better than pity.

“Not your brand of pain. Some of us have selective palates.” My eyes burned from exhaustion. “There’s no high like a Romanov setting the bar.”

Sweat and blood filled the car, humid and suffocating. I didn’t want to be alone with Arrow—not here, not in this state—but his silence cratered the urge to run away. I caught my reflection in the rain-blurred window, my mascara and eyeliner bleeding black down my cheeks.

Every inch of me glowed with the embarrassment of being displayed—triumph, disaster, and some third thing I’d never be able to translate into English.

The car was silent, except for the rain battering the windows. Finally, he spoke, not turning to face me but pitching his voice so it arced along the car’s roof like a wire under tension.