Page 24

We climb the steps. The stairwell smells like mildew and someone else’s cooking, grease and desperation soaked into the walls. I count the cracks in the plaster on the way up, the way I always count things when my hands want to be doing something else. Something violent. Someone thought they could put hands on her last night. Moore’s men, wearing their ink like a warning label. They know where she lives. They know she’s alone.

That ends now.

Noah opens the door before we knock. He’s been here all night, camped out on her couch like a guard dog, and it shows in the bags under his eyes and the tension in his shoulders that hasn’t eased since he texted us the address. He doesn’t say anything, only steps aside and lets us in.

The apartment is exactly what I expected. Smaller. Poorer. There’s a couch with a faded quilt and a kitchenette that looks like it was last updated when I was in diapers. Fawn’s whole life fits into a space the size of our foyer, and the rage that comes with that thought is familiar now, a constant low burn I don’t bother fighting anymore.

“She’s still sleeping,” Noah murmurs, nodding toward one of the beds in the corner of the large room. “Didn’t get much rest. Kept waking up and checking the windows.”

Of course she did. She’s not stupid. She knows what almost happened in that parking lot. She knows what Noah did to the men who tried to touch her, and she knows the kind of world that sends men like that after a nineteen-year-old server.

“Bailey?” I ask.

“Already at her classes. Malcom’s watching the building, will pick her up after.”

I nod. Malcom is reliable. Malcom has done worse things than babysit a college student and never complained once.

We move toward her bed.

“She’s scared,” Noah says. “Not of us, but everything else. Don’t…” He breaks off, searching for words he doesn’t usually need. “Don’t make it worse.”

Kipton’s jaw tightens, but he nods. We go in.

Fawn is on her bed, curled on her side under a thin blanket, her blond hair tangled against the pillow, her face softer in sleep than she ever lets it be awake. For a moment, I just watch her breathe, the rise and fall of her shoulders, the slight furrow in her brow that says even now she’s not fully at rest. She’s twenty-one. She should sleep like the dead, like nothing in the world could touch her. Instead, she sleeps like someone waiting for the next blow.

She stirs before we say anything. Her eyes flutter open, brown and unfocused, and for a second, she doesn’t recognize us. I see the fear flash across her face—the quick intake of breath, the way her hand tightens on the blanket—and I hate that we put it there.

Then recognition settles in, and the fear shifts into something more complicated. Not relief, exactly. Something wary and exhausted and still calculating, still doing the math of what we want and what it will cost her.

“Hey, Princess,” I say, keeping my voice low. “Time to wake up.”

She pushes herself up on her elbows, blinking against the dim light from the window. She slept in her clothes. Because a strange man was on her couch, and she didn’t feel safe enough to change.

The guilt hits, same as always, but I push it down.

“Where’s Bailey?” she asks, her voice rough with sleep.

“Safe,” Kipton says. “Malcom’s watching her. She’ll be at our place when you get there.”

Fawn’s brow furrows. “Your place?”

“We’re moving you,” I say. “Today. You and Bailey both.”

She stares at me, and I watch her process—the words, the meaning, the reality of what we’re asking. Or, rather, telling.

“I can’t just…” She gestures at the room, at the apartment, at whatever life she’s built here. “I have a job. I have rent. I can’t just leave.”

“Rent’s paid through the end of the lease,” Noah says. “Diner job’s covered. You don’t need to worry about any of it.”

“I wasn’t worrying about it until you three showed up,” she snaps, and there’s fire there, the same stubbornness that made her bargain with us on Halloween instead of just collapsing. “You don’t get to just decide I’m moving in with you. I don’t even know you.”

“You know enough,” I say. “You know what we did for you last night, and what those men in the parking lot wanted. This place isn’t safe anymore, Fawn. Not for you and not for Bailey.”

She opens her mouth to argue, but I see the moment the fight leaves her. It’s not surrender…it’s pragmatism, the same cold math she always does. She looks around the room, at the water stain on the ceiling, at the window that probably doesn’t lock, at the door that any man with a steel-toed boot could kick in.

“Bailey,” she says again. “I need to talk to her first. She needs to know what’s happening. She needs to⁠—”

“Bailey’s fine.” Kipton interrupts in a gentler tone than usual. “Malcom will explain. She’ll be there when you arrive. You don’t need to worry about her.”