Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 60921 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 305(@200wpm)___ 244(@250wpm)___ 203(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 60921 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 305(@200wpm)___ 244(@250wpm)___ 203(@300wpm)
“Don’t ‘yeah’ me,” I snap. “He left me a four-line poem and a trauma response. What the hell is he doing?”
“Working,” Arrow says carefully. “With a plan.”
“Knight doesn’t do plans without self-sacrifice seasoning.”
“That’s… not entirely false.”
I drag a hand through my hair. “Arrow.”
“Lark, breathe.”
“I am breathing. I’m breathing like a furious dragon.”
A pause. Then Arrow says, “He checked in at midnight. He’s heading to Viktor Luka’s club.”
My blood goes cold.
“The Monarch?”
“Yes.”
The name lands like a punch.
Everyone in Halo City’s underbelly knows The Monarch.
Not as a place, exactly. More like a rumor with velvet rope.
A slick, high-end predator pit where seedy money goes to pretend it’s respectable. Where you don’t order drinks so much as you purchase silence.
I stare out the window at the daylight city, like I might see the club from here if I squint hard enough.
“He can’t go there alone,” I say flatly.
“Correct.”
“Then why are you letting him?”
“We’re not letting him. We’re managing him.”
“That’s nicer phrasing for ‘he’s doing what he wants.’”
Arrow doesn’t deny it. “He thinks he can get in close enough to confirm whether Luka is aligned with Serafina’s people or if he’s just renting out his guns,” Arrow says. “He also thinks if he rocks the club quietly, he might flush out whoever is running local operations.”
“Quietly?” I echo. “Knight Hayes cannot even exist quietly when he’s angry.”
“Also correct.”
I close my eyes. My chest is tight in that awful mix of fear and rage and the kind of love that makes you want to hold someone and throttle them simultaneously. “I’m going after him.”
“Negative.” The word is crisp. It’s Arrow’s command voice.
I open my eyes. “Arrow—”
“Stay put, Lark.”
“He’s my partner.”
“He’s our man on the inside right now. And you are the thing he will burn the world down to protect. If you walk into The Monarch, you give Luka leverage.”
I hate that he’s right. I hate it more that Knight would agree with him. “I’m not a liability,” I say.
“I know you’re not.”
“Then stop treating me like one.” I pace the living room floor.
“We’re treating this situation like it’s lethal,” Arrow replies. “Because it is.”
I press my fingertips to my forehead. “Put Gage on,” I say.
A beat.
“Lark,” Gage says instantly. “Don’t do anything unhinged.”
“Good morning to you too.”
“Knight told you to stay—”
“Knight told me a lot of things,” I cut in. “Including that we were doing this together.”
“He’s trying to keep you safe.”
“I don’t need a babysitter. I need a partner who doesn’t disappear at dawn like a morally tortured boyfriend in a CW finale.”
Arrow makes a sound that might be a laugh.
Gage sighs like a man holding back a headache. “Lark—”
“Don’t ‘Lark’ me.”
“I’m on your side.”
“You’re on ‘control the situation’ side.”
“That’s literally my job.”
I rub a hand over my face. “Do you know what else is my job? Not letting my boyfriend walk into sharks with blood on his suit.”
Gage goes quiet. Then he says, carefully, “You think he’s your boyfriend, huh?”
I freeze.
The stupidest part is the sudden warmth in my chest.
The second stupidest part is the fact that I have no patience for tenderness right now.
“Not the time,” I warn.
“Fair.”
Arrow clears his throat. “Lark, listen.”
“I’m listening.”
“Knight has been in contact. Dean’s got eyes near the perimeter. He should check in again at 0900. If he doesn’t—”
“If he doesn’t, what?”
Arrow hesitates.
My stomach drops. “Arrow.”
“He missed the last check-in window.”
The world goes razor-thin.
“Excuse me?”
“He was due twenty minutes ago.”
Gage adds, softer, “We’re probably fine. Signal interference inside the club is heavy. He might be stuck in a back corridor. Could be nothing.”
Could be everything.
My pulse roars in my ears.
“So you didn’t tell me to ‘stay put’ because you’re confident,” I say slowly.
“You told me to stay put because if something goes sideways, you want me locked in a box where I can’t help.”
Arrow doesn’t answer.
That is an answer.
“Send me everything you have,” I say.
“Lark—”
“I’m not asking.”
Gage says my name, warning-quiet.
I ignore him. “Arrow. If Knight is compromised, I am not sitting on a couch waiting to be informed.”
A long pause. Then Arrow says, low and rough, “You do not go in daylight. Do you hear me?”
I close my eyes.
Because I can work with that.
“I hear you.”
“And you do not go alone.”
I sigh. “We’ll see.”
“Lark.”
“I said I hear you.”
He exhales. “There’s a service entrance on the east end. Two blocks off the main strip. The cameras are old. The back alley is monitored intermittently. If you’re going to be reckless, be smart-reckless.”
I open my eyes.
Arrow Maddox-trained is a terrifying blessing.
“Copy,” I say.
Gage mutters, “I hate this.”
“Me too,” I say honestly.
The call ends.
I stare at the phone in my hand like it might burst into flames. Then I set it down carefully. Like calm is possible if I handle objects gently.
I don’t go right away.
I do something worse.
I wait.
I pace the safehouse until my legs ache. I check the time so many times it becomes a ritual. I drink water. I don’t taste it. I stare out the window at Halo City in daylight, at people who have no idea a man I love might be bleeding on a nightclub floor two miles away.