22. Knox
Knox
It’s not long after dawn when my phone starts vibrating against the motel nightstand.
I wake instantly.
Not the slow kind of waking. No drift, no confusion. One second asleep, the next fully conscious, hand already moving before the second buzz finishes. Old habits. Bad ones. Useful ones.
The room is dim and sour with stale air and too little sleep. My neck aches from the angle I fell asleep at. At some point I must have gone under for an hour, maybe less, still dressed, boots on, back half-twisted because I never meant to sleep in the first place.
The screen lights my hand blue.
Unknown number.
I’m already answering before it stops vibrating. “Yeah.”
There’s a beat of static.
Then a voice I know. “Rise and shine, Knox.”
I sit up straighter at once. “Voss.”
Gabriel Voss.
The Shepherd Vale and Havoc talked to at the club.
His voice is low, controlled, still carrying that same dry edge, but there’s something different under it now. Less resistance. Less performance. But I don’t trust him.
I don’t like it, because men like Voss do not change their minds for free.
“What is it?” I ask.
“You need to get back to the house.”
I rub a hand over my face and look toward the weak light pushing around the curtains. Dawn, barely. Not enough sleep to call it rest.
“What house?”
A pause.
Then, flatly, “Your girl’s psycho date.”
That gets all of me awake.
I stand and move away from the bed automatically, lowering my voice even though I already know the others can sleep through worse when they need to.
“What about it?”
“There’s something here,” he says. “Something all three of you need to see.”
I go still.
Not because of the words. Because of the way he says them.
“Why are you there?” I ask.
Another beat.
“I decided to help after all.”
I let the silence sit. On the other end of the line, I can hear faint movement. Wind, maybe. A door creaking. He’s outside or near an opening.
“That’s not an answer,” I say.
“No,” he agrees. “It isn’t.”
I look toward the second bed. Vale is under the edge of the blanket now, one arm thrown over his eyes, breathing deep enough to pass for sleep.
Havoc’s on the other side of the bed, half on top of the covers, dead to the world in the way only men with a talent for compartmentalizing can be.
I frown at that. When did they get on the bed?
My jaw tightens.
Voss goes on before I can push.
“I had a thought after your friends left the club. Didn’t like it. So I took a drive.” His voice stays even. “Turns out I dislike being right this early in the morning.”
That’s more than he gave us last night. Still not enough.
“What did you find?”
“You’ll want to see it before I say too much.”
I hate that answer.
He knows I hate it too.
“You called me at dawn to be mysterious?”
“No,” he says. “I called because if I’m right, this stopped being about a dead amateur with a drugged girl in his basement the second you walked out of there.”
“What changed?” I ask.
“I’ll tell all three of you at once.”
I grit my teeth.
Voss hears it in the silence and gives me just enough to keep me moving. “Not going to give you much now but know that I’m right about it.” With that, he cuts the call.
I sit there for a second, phone still in my hand, then get to my feet.
The floor is cold under my boots. The room smells stale, cheap, lived-in for too many hard hours. Vale and Havoc are still crashed out.
I cross the room.
“Havoc,” I say quietly.
No response.
I step closer. “Vale.”
That’s when I see her. Lena is between them under the blankets, half-hidden until I’m right there, dark hair spilled across the pillow, one bare shoulder in the dawn-gray light.
All three of them asleep in the same bed, tangled up in heat and sheets and the kind of sight I was not prepared for at this hour.
I stop for half a beat.
Not longer than that. Just enough to feel the surprise hit before I bury it.
I say nothing.
There’s nothing useful to say.
Vale wakes first. His eyes narrow when he sees me standing over the bed. Havoc follows slower, one eye opening, then the other, the beginning of a grin already there because of course it is.
Lena stirs last. She shifts under the blanket, frowns like she’s trying to fight her way back under sleep, then opens her eyes and looks up at me. For one second she just blinks, still soft with sleep, then awareness starts catching up.
I keep my face blank. “We need to move,” I say.
Vale pushes himself up on one elbow. Havoc drags a hand over his face. Lena gathers the blanket a little higher around herself without taking her eyes off me.
The room is too quiet for that, and the call is still sitting in my head like a blade.
Vale speaks first, voice rough with sleep. “What happened?”
I slip the phone into my pocket. “Voss called.”
That wakes them properly.
Lena is still half under the blanket, looking from one of us to the other, trying to catch up. Her hair is a mess, her face still soft with sleep, and for one stupid second the room feels too intimate for the hour.
“What did he say?” Vale asks.
“Not enough,” I say. “Just that there’s something at Caldwell’s house the three of us need to see.”
Havoc sits up, rubbing at his jaw. “Well. That sounds cheerful.”
Lena’s eyes widen. “Wait, the guy who tried to kill me?”
“Yes.” That’s all I give her.
Lena looks at me over the blanket. “You’re taking me with you?”
“No.”
Lena narrows her eyes at me. “No?”
“You stay here.”
“With what?” she asks. “The motel Gideons and my thoughts?”
“With the door locked.”
Havoc snorts. “That’ll calm her right down.”
I ignore him.
Lena’s expression hardens. “I’m not staying here alone.”
“She can’t,” Vale says.
I look at him. He holds my stare.
Havoc stretches like none of this concerns him. “I’m with Scarface. She comes.”
Lena throws him a look. “Don’t call him that.”
Havoc grins. “Interesting.”
“Ten minutes,” I say. “Get dressed.”
They move after that. Vale out first, gathering his clothes from the floor. Havoc slower, shameless as ever. Lena sits up with the blanket still clutched around herself and reaches for the pile of clothes near the foot of the bed.
The blanket slips. Just for a second.
Enough.
My eyes catch the bare curve of her breast before she drags the blanket back into place, and the image lands hard and low in my gut.
Immediate. Unwanted. Her under me. Spread out on that bed.
My hands on her hips, holding her open while I drive into her until she’s breathless and wrecked and saying my name like she hates needing it.
I look away at once.
Focus.
House. Voss. Whatever waits for us there.
Not Lena half-naked in dawn light. Not the fact that she was sleeping between them. Not the fact that for one filthy second my head gave me exactly what jealousy wanted and dressed it up like memory.
This is not the time.
By the time Lena disappears into the bathroom with her clothes, Vale has his shirt on and Havoc is dragging jeans up his legs, still wearing that irritatingly satisfied expression.
“You handled that well,” Havoc says.
“I didn’t ask.”
“No,” he says. “But your face almost did.”
I look at him. “Keep pushing.”
His smile widens.
Vale says, without turning around, “Enough.”
That should help. It doesn’t.
The bathroom door opens a minute later and Lena steps out dressed, hair pulled back with her fingers, face scrubbed into something more awake and less vulnerable. Good. I prefer her like that. Easier to deal with.
We head out just after.
The morning is washed-out and cold, the motel lot still damp from night mist, gravel crunching under our boots. Havoc drives because he claims I’m worse company before coffee. Vale takes the front passenger seat. Lena and I end up in the back.
Nobody comments on that either.
The ride is mostly quiet. Havoc keeps one hand on the wheel, the other drumming against the door, too restless for the hour.
Vale watches the road like he expects it to rearrange itself if he blinks wrong.
Lena sits beside me, not touching, staring out the window at nothing much. I can feel the tension in her anyway.
By the time the house comes into view, that ugly pressure is back in all of us. It’s a neat place from the outside. Quiet street. Manicured lawn edges. Expensive windows. The kind of house that tries to look respectable while hiding rot in the basement.
Gabriel Voss is already there.
He’s standing near the front walk in dark clothes, hands in his coat pockets, expression unreadable. He looks like he belongs to the morning less than the house does.
Havoc kills the engine.
Nobody moves for a second.
Then Vale opens his door. I follow. Lena starts to get out too.
“No,” I say.
She looks at me immediately. “No?”
“You wait outside.”
“With me,” Havoc says lightly, circling around the hood. “I’m delightful in daylight.”
Lena gives him a dead stare. “I would rather eat glass.”
“Unkind.”
I ignore both of them. “You stay with Havoc.”
That gets a laugh out of her, short and disbelieving. “Absolutely not.”
“It isn’t a discussion.”
“Yes, it is.” She steps away from the car, shutting the door behind her harder than necessary. “I’m not standing out here while you all go inside and decide what my life means without me.”
“This is not your call.”
She comes closer, eyes bright with anger now. “No. I’m not letting that guy take any more power from me.”
For a second nobody says anything. Her chest is rising fast. Her hands are clenched at her sides. There’s fear there, sure, but more anger than fear, and I understand that better than I’d like.
Vale is watching her carefully. Havoc’s grin has gone quieter.
I say, “This could get ugly.”
“It already is,” she shoots back. “He drugged me. He dragged me into this. He doesn’t get to keep deciding where I go, what I see, and what gets hidden from me.”
Voss looks from her to me, mildly interested now. “Strong opinion.”
I don’t look at him.