Chapter Fifteen
Blair
Dagger storms out of the bathroom like something in him finally snapped loose.
One second he’s standing beneath the shower spray with me, bleeding and bruised and still somehow more worried about me than the bullet wound in his arm, and the next he’s moving through the apartment with that tiny black thing clenched between his fingers.
The tracker.
My brain keeps repeating the word like maybe if it says it enough times, it’ll start making sense.
Tracker.
Inside me.
Inside my body.
No.
Absolutely not.
My stomach twists so violently I almost double over, but Dagger doesn’t stop.
He doesn’t even look back. Water drips off his naked body onto the polished concrete in a scattered trail, blood thinning pink down his wounded arm, his whole frame rigid with a kind of rage I’ve never seen from him before.
And I’ve seen Dagger angry.
I’ve seen him jealous.
Possessive.
Violent.
I’ve watched him become something dark and terrifying over me more than once.
This is different.
This is quiet.
Focused.
Deadly.
“Dagger,” I say, stumbling after him with nothing but a towel clutched around my body. “Dagger, wait. What the fuck is happening?”
He doesn’t answer.
Which is how I know whatever’s happening is worse than my brain has fully caught up to yet.
The living room sits dim and messy after everything.
The TV is off now, reflecting the city lights in a dull black mirror.
The balcony door is cracked open, letting in cold ocean air and the sharp smell of smoke.
Somewhere below, downtown Severance Point keeps glowing like it didn’t just burn half of us alive tonight.
Like it doesn’t know.
Like it doesn’t care.
Noir is still outside on the balcony.
Smoking.
Of course he is.
He stands near the railing with his back half-turned to us, pale hair messy from the night, dark shirt clinging in damp places from sweat and rain and whatever violence happened between the rave and here.
His cigarette burns orange between his fingers, tiny and calm against the black city beyond him.
He hears us come in.
I know he does.
But he doesn’t turn right away.
That’s the first thing that makes my skin crawl.
Dagger crosses the living room fast, grabs the balcony door, and yanks it open hard enough it slams against the wall.
Noir finally turns.
His eyes drop to Dagger’s hand.
To the tiny black tracker pinched between his fingers.
And there it is.
Not shock.
Not confusion.
Recognition.
It flickers across Noir’s face so fast anyone else might miss it.
But Dagger doesn’t.
And neither do I.
My chest hollows out.
No.
Dagger grabs Noir by the front of his shirt and drives him back into the balcony railing with a metallic crack that makes my whole body flinch.
“What the fuck is this?”
His voice is low.
Too low.
Noir’s cigarette stays between his fingers.
He doesn’t fight back.
Doesn’t even look scared.
He looks at the tracker, then at Dagger.
Then his mouth curves.
Barely.
Tiny little smirk.
My knees almost give out.
Dagger sees it too.
His face changes.
“You motherfucker.”
Noir exhales smoke slowly to the side like he has all the time in the world.
Like Dagger isn’t one wrong breath away from tearing his throat out.
“Careful.”
“Careful?” Dagger shoves him harder into the railing. “You put this in her.”
The words hit me differently out loud.
Violently.
Like hearing it spoken makes it real in a way the object itself didn’t.
You put this in her.
My hand drops to my stomach, even though that makes no sense. It wasn’t there. Not anymore. Dagger already pulled it out, but my skin still crawls like it’s inside me somewhere. Like all of him is.
Every touch.
Every kiss.
Every whisper.
Every single second I thought he wanted me.
My throat burns.
“Noir,” I whisper.
He doesn’t look at me yet.
That somehow makes it worse.
Dagger shakes him once. “Answer me.”
Noir’s eyes stay on Dagger.
“What do you want me to say?”
Dagger hits him.
Hard.
The crack of his fist against Noir’s face snaps through the apartment. Noir’s head whips sideways, cigarette dropping from his fingers and rolling across the balcony floor in a weak orange smear.
Blood appears at the corner of his mouth.
He licks it away.
Then smiles again.
A cold, cruel, devilish smile that makes my blood turn to ice.
Dagger’s breathing turns rougher.
“It wasn’t Mikey.”
Noir says nothing.
Dagger’s eyes flicker.
He’s putting it together faster than I am.
Or maybe I’m refusing to.
Maybe my brain is standing in front of the truth with both hands over its ears because no, no, no, not this. Not him. Not after everything.
“Mikey was telling the truth,” Dagger says, voice shaking with rage now. “He didn’t know shit. He didn’t know Dante. He didn’t plant anything. He didn’t rat her out.”
Noir finally looks toward me.
And fuck.
There is no apology in his face.
No guilt.
No panic.
Just something almost amused.
Like getting caught is an inconvenience, not a tragedy.
Dagger laughs once under his breath, but it sounds broken.
“I knew something didn’t add up.” He turns back to Noir. “I fucking knew it.”
Noir wipes blood from his mouth with his thumb.
“You always were smarter than people gave you credit for.”
Dagger slams him into the railing again.
“Why?”
Noir’s smile thins.
For a second, something ugly and old flashes through him.
Grief maybe.
No.
Not grief.
Rot.
The kind of pain that’s been sitting too long, growing teeth.
“Because you ruined everything first.”
The words land sharp.
Dagger stills.
“What the fuck does that mean?”
Noir’s gaze slides past him to me.
Finally.
Fully.
I wish he hadn’t.
Because there’s nothing soft there now.
No pretty lie.
No obsession wrapped in tenderness.
Just a stranger wearing the face of the man who held me against him hours ago and told me I was his drug.
“I loved Brynn,” Noir says quietly.
My lungs stop working.
The apartment seems to tilt beneath me.
Dagger’s fingers tighten around Noir’s shirt.
“No.”
Noir laughs softly.
“Yes.”
My hand clenches tighter in the towel around my body.
Brynn.
Her name doesn’t feel like a name anymore.
It feels like a wound being reopened with dirty hands.
Noir’s eyes stay on mine as he speaks, and that almost makes it worse. Like he wants me to hear every word. Like he wants the truth to hurt exactly right.
“I loved her more than anything in this miserable fucking city.” His voice is quiet, but steady. “She was smart. Reckless, yeah, but smart. She saw things other people ignored. She knew how dirty Severance Point really was before any of you wanted to admit it.”
Dagger’s jaw flexes.
“Don’t.”
Noir looks at him then.
“She wanted out.”
Those three words hit harder than they should.
Because Mina said that too.
Brynn wanted me gone.
Brynn wanted out.
And I was too caught up in missing her, resenting her, trying to understand why she kept slipping away from me, to realize she’d been trying to claw her way out of something bigger than either of us.
“She wanted out,” Noir repeats, voice sharpening. “But she couldn’t get clean enough to run because you kept feeding her just enough to keep her close.”
Dagger’s face goes completely still.
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“No.” Dagger shakes his head once. “I didn’t get her hooked.”
Noir smiles with his teeth now.
“Of course you didn’t. You never do anything bad if you can dress it up as protection, right?”
Dagger moves like he’s going to hit him again, but Noir keeps talking, louder now, crueler.
“You gave her the drugs. You made sure she knew where to find more. You liked her wild. You liked her easy to manage. Then when she got too messy, when she started owing the wrong people, when she started becoming inconvenient, you cut her off and called it helping.”
Dagger’s face twists.
“I tried to save her.”
“You pushed her straight to Dante.”
Silence slams down.
My stomach drops.
Dante.
The name hits different now because Dagger killed him tonight. Because I thought that meant something was over.
Apparently, I am hilarious.
A real fucking comedian.
Noir’s eyes sharpen on Dagger.
“She was drowning, and you took away the one thing she thought kept her floating. So she went to him. She borrowed. She ran product. She moved information. She did whatever she had to do because she had debts and withdrawals and fear eating her alive.”
My throat tightens so badly I can barely breathe.
Brynn, what did you do?
Noir’s expression darkens.
“And then she found out too much.”
Dagger’s voice comes out low.
“What did she find out?”
Noir looks at me.
A tiny pause.
A deliberate one.
Like he’s choosing exactly where to cut.
“That Dante wasn’t just some kingpin she owed money to.”
My skin goes cold.
Dagger’s grip loosens slightly.
Noir smiles again.
“He was my father.”
For one second, nobody moves.
The words don’t even make sense at first.
They just hang there.
Ugly.
Impossible.
Dante was his father.
Dante.
Dante, who killed Brynn.
Dante, who tried to kill me.
Dante, who Dagger just put in the ground.
Noir’s father.
My mouth parts, but nothing comes out.
Dagger stares at him like the entire world just rearranged itself into something unrecognizable.
“You’re lying.”
“No.” Noir’s smile widens. “That’s the first honest thing I’ve said tonight.”
A sound escapes me.
Small.
Pathetic.
I hate it.
Noir hears it and looks back at me.
For a second, I expect something. An apology maybe. Some crack in the mask. Some proof that the man who touched me so gently earlier existed somewhere underneath this monster.
Nothing.
Just calculation.
“My father couldn’t have a rat in his ranks,” Noir says. “Even one I loved.”
My heart stops.
Dagger’s voice goes deadly quiet.
“You killed Brynn.”
Noir doesn’t answer right away.
He looks out over the city instead, past Dagger, past me, like he can see all the way back to whatever night he’s remembering.