Page 27 of Rogue’s Mark

The way she says it, the smile, the thank you, makes the back of my neck prickle. That's not a man who got nothing. That's a man who got what he came for.

I turn to the guys.

Armen is already looking at Rogue. Something passes between them, one of those silent conversations they have that grates on my last nerve because it leaves me out.

"He knows she's connected to us," Rogue says. "Which means he wasn't just watching Fischer. He's been mapping the whole operation. Who talks to who. Who matters."

I look at Mara and realize that she was chosen specifically for this guy’s question, that his approaching her wasn't random. He picked her because he'd already watched long enough to know she was someone worth picking.

"Which means he's been here longer than we thought," Sting says.

Armen looks at Mara. "Did he threaten you?"

"No. Not at all."

Armen nods and I watch him work through Mara’s information. "We move. We're not waiting on anything else."

Nobody argues.

Kade steps forward then, just slightly. "I can sit on him," he says to Armen. "If he's still inside, I'll find him."

Armen looks at him for a moment. "Do it," he says. "But don't approach him, okay? Just watch him."

Kade nods and heads back through the gate without another word. Mara watches him go with an expression I plan to ask about later.

"You did the right thing," I tell her. "Waiting for us. Telling us first."

She nods but she doesn't look convinced, and I understand that. She walked through the Rot today carrying something heavy without anyone to help her carry it, and no amount of telling her she handled it right is going to make that unease vanish right off the bat.

I know something about that.

Armen touches my arm, just above the elbow, just for a moment. He's already looking past me at the gate, thinking ahead, and while the touch might be absent-minded, it sends chills down my spine anyway. He may not know it, but it means everything to me.

"Inside," he says. Not just to me. To all of us.

The metal gate clangs shut behind us, like it’s welcoming us back, and then the Rot closes around us the way it does, sucking us into its void immediately and completely, like a warm blanket.

I never thought I’d compare the Rot to a warm blanket.

But out there, where Merchant Street and my father's former office and a coffee cart used to make me feel safe, it’s no longer much more than a scary wasteland, the shell of a city I grew up in, all imploded and ugly.

The guys talk quietly in the corridor behind me, already planning, already moving to the next thing, and Mara falls into step beside me, her shoulder touching mine, not saying anything, not needing to.

Just a few months ago, I walked in here with nothing. New boots, a dead father, and a plan that was mostly desperation with a touch of silly arrogance.

Now, I have a law firm with a question mark beside it, a name nobody was looking for, and three men who will walk into a city that's been falling apart for years without blinking because I'm with them.

I also have a dead father who might not be dead.

17

ROGUE

Here's the thing about people who destroy a city and walk away clean.

They don't look back.

Why would they? Rothwell collapsed, the money was gone, the people who caused the problems were discredited or disappeared or just too broken to bother to do anything about it. The developers who ran the corruption didn't flee in a panic—they left because they were done. Finished. They took what they came for and went somewhere better and left behind a city full of people who couldn't afford to do the same.