Chapter 41 #2
Her expression shifts. Not softened — she doesn’t soften. But something in it goes warmer. Sharper. A little feral, like a promise.
“I know,” she says.
“You don’t,” I correct. “Not how I mean it.”
Her brows pull in.
I step in again. Close enough that there’s only a span of air between us.
Close enough to make sure she can’t mistake me.
“I will burn every file I’ve ever kept,” I say quietly.
“I will erase every ledger. I will black out every CCTV feed within a kilometer and make the Thames run with static. I will turn off this city for you. Do you understand?”
Her throat works. Her breath stutters, eyes going glassy with unshed tears.
“Nikolai,” I continue calmly, “will put men in the ground and then pray over them like it absolves him. Ronan will tear through Syndicate lines and leave nothing salvageable. Mateo will make Damien beg. Caelum will end careers, governments, contracts, entire fucking networks. There will be nothing left that remembers Damien existed. Nothing. I am not being poetic. I am telling you the scope of response.”
She’s staring at me.
“And if something happens to you,” I finish, low, clinical, honest, “I will do worse.”
The silence that follows is not quiet. It’s vibrating with everything I’ve said.
Her voice, when it comes, is barely above a whisper. “You’ve thought this through.”
“I think about everything,” I say.
Her eyes flick down to my mouth, then up. The air shifts. Slows. Gains gravity.
“Lysander,” she says, and there’s something in the way she says my name that almost knocks me back a step. “Come here.”
I shouldn’t. Not now. Not with adrenaline pulsing in her veins, heat sitting under her skin and the mission only hours away.
So I don’t touch her.
I just move in close enough that I can feel her breath on my lips.
She smiles, slow, dangerous. “Coward.”
I almost laugh. “Not coward. Professional.”
“Mm,” she says. “Shame.”
I breathe out. Slow. Controlled. My heart is beating too fast for how still I am.
“Lesson two,” I say.
She makes a tiny noise like she’s disappointed and amused in equal measure. “Fine. Go on, teacher.”
I reach for the black box. Her attention sharpens instantly. I set it on the table between us and flip the lid.
Inside sits a tiny flesh-toned in-ear, matte and unremarkable. A wafer-thin mic patch meant to sit under her jawline, and a chip the size of my thumbnail sealed in clear casing.
“What’s that,” she asks softly.
“Insurance,” I say, and watch her face.
Her eyes narrow. “What kind of insurance?”
“You’re going to wear comms,” I tell her.
“Not all the time — that’s sloppy. But when you’re with Rook or the others, you’re live to me whether he likes it or not.
I’ll hear you. You’ll hear me. If I tell you to drop, you drop.
If I tell you to run, you run. If I tell you to laugh, you fucking laugh.
You don’t argue. You don’t editorialize. You obey.”
Her chin lifts, defiance glittering in her gaze. “You think I can’t improvise under pressure?”
“I think you’re brilliant under pressure,” I say softly. “That’s the problem. Brilliant people improvise, and show off. Brilliant people get cocky or creative and that gets them dead. I don’t need you brilliant tomorrow. I need you alive.”
Something flickers hard and fast in her eyes. Vulnerability. Annoyance. Want. Gratitude she doesn’t know how to say without feeling like she’s conceding independence. She nods once, voice gravelly and soft. “Okay.”
It shocks me more than if she’d tried to argue.
I pick up the in-ear. “Tilt.”
She does. I fit it against the curve of her ear, press. It sits flush, invisible unless you know what you’re looking for. My thumb grazes the soft skin just behind her ear as I adjust the seal. Her breath catches. Mine almost does.
I keep my voice even. “Comfort level?”
“Fine,” she says, a little hoarse.
“Patch,” I say.
She swallows. “Where?”
“Pulse point,” I answer. “Here.” I brush my fingertips along the delicate line just under her jaw, where her throat meets the curve of her neck. Her skin jumps under my touch. “It’ll pick up even a whisper. You won’t have to raise your voice. Less suspicion that way, and it’ll keep you safer.”
She inhales, steadying. “Do it.”
I peel the backing and press the mic gently against her skin. It adheres like second skin. My thumb lingers a fraction of a second longer than strictly necessary.
Her pupils blow wide, like that little touch sparked something else dangerously close to need.
“Say something,” I tell her, before either of us can act on this. “Low.”
She moistens her lips. “Ash.”
The word filters through the tiny receiver on my wrist, clean, perfect. My name in my own ear, low, intimate and sinful.
My jaw tightens. “Good,” I say, too brisk. “Again.”
“Ash,” she whispers.
I swallow thickly, trying to ignore the way it makes me feel.
“That’ll do,” I say.
She smiles like she knows, stepping in again, close enough that her body heat bleeds through her shirt and sinks into me.
“So,” she says softly. “Am I prepared?”
“No,” I answer honestly. “But you’re less unprepared than you were, which is the most we’re going to get in twelve hours.”
Her lashes lower. “That your clinical way of saying I did good?”
“Yes,” I say.
“Say it,” she whispers.
“You did good,” I say.
Her smile goes slow, satisfied, pleased in a way that makes my pulse stutter. “Thank you, Lysander.”
I exhale through my nose. “You’re insufferable.”
“Mmm,” she muses, tilting her head. “And you’re mine.”
That lands hard, right in my fucking chest.
I choose not to react. “We’re done for now,” I say instead. “Get some sleep. Wraith’s not going to let you out of arm’s reach long enough to piss tomorrow, so enjoy these last hours of personal space.”
She laughs, quiet and wicked. “You say that like I don’t enjoy having his hands on me.”
Heat spikes in my chest. I ignore it. “Out,” I say, pointing at the door.
She rolls her eyes, backs toward the threshold, and only turns at the last second. Before she disappears, she glances back at me over her shoulder. “Ash?” she says.
“Mm.”
“We’re going to kill him,” she says. “I need you to know I’m not going into this just to breathe the same air as him and run. I’m here to end it.”
There’s no tremor in her voice. No play, no bluff, no desperation.
Just a vow.
I meet her eyes. “Yeah,” I say quietly. “I know.”
And I do. That’s what worries me. Because I’ve prepped assets. I’ve stabilized witnesses. I’ve cleaned bodies. I’ve wiped networks. I have never, not once, stood across from the weapon and realized I loved it.
She vanishes, bare legs, Caelum’s shirt, Ronan’s holster and my mic, and the room feels wrong without her in it.
I sit down at the table, pull the laptop toward me, and start pulling feeds for Canary Wharf. Traffic cams. Fire exits. Syndicate patterns. Everything Ruskin ever touched. I stack intel like sandbags against a flood I can feel coming.
Because tomorrow, we walk her into open ground.
And for the first time since I started doing this work, I’m not entirely sure that if it comes down to her or the mission—I’ll choose the mission.