Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Sebastian
Sebastian finally stopped checking the news.
The tabloids had linked Sutton to him within forty-eight hours of the hospital incident—her full name, her address, her Instagram, her parents’ divorce paperwork, Penn’s crime scene photographs making the rounds again.
A cable segment had aired the previous night speculating about the strange coincidence of America’s Hero ending up with the sister of the man who’d tried to kill the girl he’d saved.
A fan account with ninety thousand followers had posted a side-by-side of Sutton and Ginger with a caption Sebastian hadn’t let himself read past the first line.
It was worse than what he’d predicted, but between the farmhouse shower yesterday morning and the drive into town today, he’d stopped being afraid of it.
Not because the cost had gotten smaller.
The cost was exactly the size he’d warned Sutton about.
Every stranger on the internet was doing exactly what he’d said they’d do.
Her website had been attacked. Her Instagram had swelled from forty-three followers to eighteen thousand, but was hemorrhaging comments faster than she could mute the offensive ones.
He’d stopped being afraid of it because she wasn’t.
He was still recalibrating around that. Sutton had opened the tabloid coverage on her phone yesterday morning, read three paragraphs, said “Oh, they’re really going for it,” and then set the phone facedown on the kitchen counter and made pancakes.
From scratch, using the flour she’d made him stop at the grocery store to buy on the way home from her apartment.
She’d handled the worst media day of her life by feeding him breakfast and making him promise that when this was all over, they were going to Yellowstone.
He was still adjusting to the possibility that she might be right about them being okay.
Iron Rose was a different kind of wreckage.
The parlor had been untouched since the break-in.
The stations had been overturned, flash art torn off the walls.
Drawers had been pulled out of every cabinet and dumped onto the floor.
The empty cash drawer had been flung across the room.
Dom’s beloved needle-and-ink portraits of his Navy buddies, which had hung behind the register for a decade, lay scattered on the floor in various states of damage.
“Okay.” Sutton stood in the middle of it with her hands on her hips.
She was wearing paint-splattered overalls she’d dug out of her apartment, her hair tied back in a bandana.
There was a streak of dust across her cheekbone from loading the first round of debris into a contractor bag.
“This is going to take a week. Maybe two.”
“With the two of us?” he said. “Three days, tops.”
“You keep forgetting I have client appointments to reschedule, a website to rebuild with Jasper’s help, and a fan base that apparently exists now and has opinions about my art.”
“Told you.”
“The dragon drawing from last week has nine thousand likes. Nine thousand.” She picked up a fallen frame, examined the broken glass, and set it carefully on the counter.
“I’m a tattoo artist from rural Montana with a half-finished portfolio site, Lynx.
Nine thousand people have opinions about my dragons. ”
“Is that a problem?”
“It’s data.” She grinned over her shoulder at him. “I’m trusting it.”
He felt his mouth curve. She’d been weaponizing Vivi’s therapy advice for two days now after he’d been stupid enough to share it with her. She used it every time he started doing the thing with his face. It was infuriating. It was also working.
Outside, the street was quiet. Garrett and Mack had chased off stray photographers who’d been trying to get a shot of Sutton at the parlor. Paparazzi and fans, too.
CB had called in a favor from his motorcycle gang, and a handful of Canon Outlaws had been cruising the block, a rolling deterrent that had reduced the lingerers from fifteen to zero in under an hour. A Harley’s exhaust was a very effective means of communication.
They had the block. For today, at least.
Sutton bent to pick up the wreckage of Dom’s Navy buddies’ photos, their young faces staring up at her from creased paper. She set them on the counter with the kind of care she reserved for Penn’s sketchbooks. “So. Reopening.”
“Got a plan?”
“The original one was a quiet reopening with Dom back behind the register, me at my station, a couple of regulars showing up, and some new walk-ins if we were lucky.” She pulled a broom from a closet of cleaning supplies. “That plan is out the window.”
“Agreed.”
“New plan: soft reopening in three weeks. Website goes live again next Monday—the portfolio side and the print shop side, with a waiting list for custom tattoo appointments. I’m going to have to turn people away.
That’s—” She shook her head, like the concept hadn’t fully landed yet.
“That’s a thing I get to do now. Turn people away. ”
“You sound surprised.”
“I’ve spent years hoping for enough walk-ins to cover my rent.
Turning people away is not a problem I’ve had before.
” She started sweeping broken glass into a neat pile.
“The fandom thing cuts both ways. A lot of them are awful, yes, but a lot of them are—just artists and fans of ink. People who’ve been waiting for a female tattoo artist doing unique fantasy work, and now they’ve found one because the tabloids accidentally put her on their radar. ”
“Silver lining.”
“Bright silver. I’m making them earn it. Dom’s shop, Dom’s rules—no appointment, no ink. And no photographs inside the parlor.” She pointed a finger at him. “Which is a rule that also applies to you, by the way.”
“I’m not going to photograph you.”
“No, I mean—” She paused, leaning on the broom. Her expression shifted, serious. “The lynx. When I ink it on you, and I will ink it on you, it doesn’t go on the website. It doesn’t go on Instagram. It doesn’t go anywhere. Nobody copies it. Nobody knows it exists but us.”
“Swear?”
“Top secret.” She held up her hand like she was taking an oath.
“That design is yours. Nobody else gets a version of it. Not as a knockoff on some dude in Phoenix, not as a flash piece in a book, not as inspiration for an Etsy print. It’s a one-of-one.
As soon as we have a free afternoon, I’m going to ink you. ”
“I’m holding you to that.”
“I’m counting on it.”
He watched her sweep. The rhythm of the broom, the dust motes catching the late-morning light through the front windows. She was covered in cobwebs from hauling stuff out of the back office, and she’d never looked more beautiful.
“I’m posting up at your station when you reopen,” he said. “At least for the first few months, in case anybody tries to harass you in person.”
She didn’t look up. “You are absolutely not.”
“Excuse me?”
She leaned on the broom. “You’ll scare away every single one of my new clients.
Have you seen your face? You glower at people for fun.
People getting their first tattoo are already terrified.
They do not need a six-foot-two former Secret Service agent in a tactical stare-down with them while they’re trying not to cry from the needle. ”
“I don’t glower.”
“You are glowering right now.”
“I’m making a face.”
“The face. The glower.” She pointed at him. “That one.”
“I’m going to be here. I’ll stand in the back, behind a curtain, if you need me to. But I’m not letting some Reddit troll walk into your parlor and say something ugly to your face without my being within arm’s reach.”
“Once,” she said. “You can do it once a month. And you have to smile at least twice per shift or you’re out.”
“I don’t smile on command.”
“You’re smiling right now.”
He was. The muscles of his face had built it without asking permission. He’d stopped trying to suppress it. Vivi had called it letting the dashboard lights do their job, and every time he thought about it, he wanted to roll his eyes and also thank her.
He crossed the room and caught Sutton by the waist. A soft sound escaped her mouth, and he pulled her in and kissed her. She laughed into it, her hand coming up to curl around the nape of his neck, the broom clattering against the counter behind her.
When he pulled back, her eyes were bright. “We’re going to be okay,” she said.
“Yeah. We are.”
They worked for another hour. He bagged the worst of the debris. She triaged what could be saved. Around noon, the pile of flattened cardboard boxes and contractor bags had accumulated by the back door in quantities that weren’t going to fit through it in one trip.
“I’ll take these out to the dumpster,” he said, and gathered an armload. “You should take a break.”
“Don’t forget the box with the broken frames. I don’t want glass anywhere near Dom when he comes back.”
“Copy that.”
He bumped the back door open with his back. The early October sun was sharp in the alley, the dumpster ten feet to his left, the narrow walkway between the parlor and the check-cashing place running straight to the street. He registered it all automatically. Everything looked the way it should.
He walked to the dumpster, tossed the cardboard in, and hoisted the contractor bag with his free hand. Behind him, he heard Sutton scream.
The sound hit him like a physical blow—short, cut off. He dropped the bag and sprinted back to the door.
It was locked. He yanked at the handle. The deadbolt had been engaged.
His own goddamn operational instincts had caught him in a trap.
He’d convinced Dom to let him install a new lock before he and Sutton started cleanup.
He’d given Sutton the key and told her to never leave it unsecured while they worked, and now his own protocol was locking him out.
Sebastian ran to the window that looked into the back room—the tall, narrow one next to the back utility sink. It was frosted on the bottom half but clear on top. He pressed his face to the glass.