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“I’m not getting a tattoo.”

Hunter laughs, and DK shakes his head like he expected nothing else from me.

“What?” I ask, irritated.

“He’s not wrong,” Hunter says. “You’re the only Baron without one.”

“I’m aware.”

“See?” Remy rolls his eyes. “He didn't even think about it.”

See? Have they already been talking about me?

“I don’t need to think about something I’ve already decided against.” This is an argument Remy and I have had a million times over, ever since he came home with his first shitty stick-and-poke. “I’ve accepted that this is your lifestyle, but I’m a businessman. I don’t think tattoos are my style.”

DK laughs, and I turn toward him. “You think this is funny?”

“Absolutely.”

Arianette is trying not to smile, which is somehow worse. I point at her. “Don’t encourage them.”

“I’m not,” she promises.

“You are.”

Her smile finally breaks free. “Maybe you should do it.”

I stare at her, waiting for the punchline that never comes.

I thrust my hand in my hair. “You too?”

She steps closer, her expression softening as she looks at me. “It’s not like you’re just a businessman. You were the Baron King, and now you’re part of something bigger. You’re no longer hiding your face–maybe this is a way you can show the world who you are and who you belong to.”

“I don't need a tattoo to do that.”

“I know, but you used to be over everyone else. Now you’re part of them. This is one way they show it. For the record,” she says, reaching for my hand, “I don't think you need a tattoo to prove you're a Baron.”

I look down at our joined hands before meeting her brown eyes again. Fuck, this woman, I’ll do anything for her, and she damn well knows it. I sigh, eyes darting over to Remy. “What did you have in mind?”

“Actually, I have something I’ve been working on, if you want to see it.”

The way he says it is almost tentative, and that catches my attention more than anything else has. For years, I didn’t support his work or his lifestyle. Despite the permanent nature, I treated tattooing like something temporary, something beneath him, something he would eventually grow out of once he decided to do something more respectable with his life. I was wrong about that, and I’ve had to swallow enough pride over the past few months to finally admit it.

Remy isn’t wasting his time–he’s building something of his own.

A business. A reputation. A place where people come because they trust his work and know he’s good at what he does. There’s nothing more Maddox than that.

“Sure,” I say, feeling the resistance in my chest loosening. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”

He reaches beneath the counter and pulls out a sketchbook before flipping through several pages. He stops on one and turns it toward me.

At first glance, it’s a pentagram, but the longer I look at it, the more I see what he’s done with it. The lines are heavier than the traditional symbol, giving it an almost forged quality, as though the shape has been hammered out of black iron. At the center, where the lines normally converge, Remy has worked in a four-pointed star that looks almost like a compass rose, each point extending cleanly toward one of the cardinal directions.

There are small flourishes woven into the outer lines, subtle enough that they don’t overwhelm the design, but deliberate enough to make it feel like something that belongs to us. The points of the star aren't decorative; they give the entire piece a sense of movement, as though the symbol is meant to point somewhere rather than simply represent something.

I study it for several seconds before looking at Remy. “A compass?”

“Sort of.” He taps the center of the drawing. “The pentagram is the Barons. That part stays. But the star is direction. Where you came from, where you are, and where you're going.” His finger traces one of the four points. “And I figured you could use something that isn't about the past.”