Chapter 11
RACK
The drive back stretched longer than it should have.
Her scent lingered in the car, its soft, rose-infused warmth sitting heavy in the air. I cracked the window without thinking, letting the night bleed in, but it didn’t clear fast enough. My focus stayed locked on the road, hands steady, as the engine pushed harder than it needed to.
What the hell was Calix doing?
I told him to go out. Blow off steam. Get his head out of the lab. Not this. Not bringing a human back. And not her.
We saw her with Manshu at the Track last night, so why did he follow her into that human bar? Was it a move against Manshu? Had something just called him to her? Both? With Calix, it was always a gamble. Sometimes it was strategy, but other times it was instinct, never a clear line between the two.
While Calix talked to her last night, I asked around about her and just found scraps. Her name, where she worked during the day, that she’d been at the Track and recently started working with Manshu. That was it. Enough to intimidate her, but nothing more.
I glanced at her.
She sat angled toward the window, arms tucked in close, eyes fixed on the passing lights. The reflection of the street lamps flickered across her face, catching the tension in her jaw and the way her fingers twisted together in her lap.
“Address?” I asked.
When she gave me the body shop, it caught me off guard.
“You don’t want me to take you home?”
She shook her head, not meeting my eyes. “I’ve got to get to work anyway. I have clothes there.”
The car fell silent again. I watched her from the corner of my eye, her unmoving gaze locked outside while something behind it worked overtime. Her fingers tightened, then loosened, then tightened again.
“Are you okay?” The question slipped out before I could stop it.
Her attention snapped to me, her eyes wide and shoulders tense.
“Y-yes,” she said quickly, her hands pulling closer together. “I’m fine.”
I nodded once but didn’t look away right away.
Her gaze dropped almost immediately, teeth pressing into her lower lip as her shoulders curled in just enough to notice. Something twisted low in my gut.
The only time I’d seen that shift before was when I mentioned Manshu.
“Don’t worry,” I said, my voice cutting through the quiet. “Calix isn’t going to come after you because of who you work for.”
Her fingers stilled.
“If someone’s actively working against us, then he turns into a bloody tyrant, taking out anyone in his path,” I added. “Otherwise… you saw how he is.”
I meant it as reassurance. Maybe a warning, too. Something to settle her nerves.
It didn’t.
She went still, and the rest of the drive passed without another word. She didn’t move, didn’t shift, just sat there, eyes forward, breath shallow enough I almost missed it.
When I pulled up in front of Alto’s shop, the engine idled for a second before I cut it.
She turned then.
And I caught it, her eyes glossed over, water brimming in her eyes, something breaking loose behind them.
“I didn’t have a choice,” she said, her voice cracking as it came out. “I hope he takes that into consideration.”
A tear slipped free.
My hand lifted on instinct, magic stirring, air bending to catch it before it could fall from her cheek.
And then… nothing.
The current stopped short, like it had hit an invisible wall, and the tear fell off her chin.
“What the—”
She gasped softly, eyes darting to my raised hand, then she shoved the door open.
Wait. Did she feel that?
She was out of the car before I could say anything, boots hitting pavement hard as she rushed toward the shop, moving fast enough to almost stumble.
I watched her go. The shop door slammed behind her, and the car sat quiet again.
Slowly lowering my hand, I stared at the shop for a second longer than necessary, then exhaled.
It was better this way.
She needed to be afraid. Of him. Of us. Fear was the only thing that kept humans alive in our world.
That didn’t stop the way my chest tightened when I thought about that tear.
I shifted the car into drive, pulling away slower than I should have. The shop stayed in my rearview mirror longer than necessary, its dim lights fading inch by inch until they disappeared completely.
“I didn’t have a choice.”
Her words circled back to me, and I thought about why she might be scared.
Manshu. I almost growled his name. Was he threatening her?
My phone rang. The screen lit up. Ezra.
I answered immediately. “Yes, Boss Ezra.”
“Do you know you’re the most formal of all the second-in-commands?”
A smile tugged at my mouth, one I’d never show in person, but alone, it slipped free.
“I’m only giving you the respect you deserve.”
Silence lingered before she chuckled softly.
“Always such a stickler for the rules. If you’d been this disciplined as a kid, maybe we wouldn’t have gotten caught after setting Grandfather Easton’s car on fire.”
“That wasn’t my fault,” I said, my response coming out quicker than I meant it to. “You and your brother came up with the idea. I just happened to be the one with the power to pull it off.”
A sharp click of her tongue came through the speaker, clear and familiar enough that I could picture the exact look on her face—a slight tilt to her head, the narrowed eyes.
“Just because someone says something doesn’t mean you follow it, R.”
A quiet breath slipped past my lips as they curled into a grin as memories surfaced. Us as kids, causing chaos, picking fights and finishing them. Back when life was simpler. Less… tangled.
Back when I was just R. She was just E. And we both gave Cal hell.
Now, she was the boss. Calix was my boss. And I was second-in-command. All of us were locked into the roles we’d been born into.
“And yet,” I said, “when the Syndicate says jump, all I do is ask how high. That’s always been my place. I figured that out early, Boss Ezra.”
A long, heavy sigh filled the line before she shifted gears, back to business. That was Ezra Desmond.
“How’s Calix? Has he left the lab yet? Did my suggestion help? He can be… a lot when he gets stuck in fix-it mode.” My eyes flicked to the empty passenger seat.
Did it help? Yeah. Did it complicate things? Also yeah.
Her tear-filled green-blue eyes flashed through my mind, and guilt twisted in my gut again. Maybe I’d been too hard on her.
“He surfaced,” I said. “Had a… productive night. I’m hoping it helped.”
I was also hoping that dazed, almost giddy look I’d seen on him didn’t mean he was spiraling into obsession. That particular family trait ran strong in him.
“Good. Good.” I could hear her drifting into thought before she continued. “Today’s meeting was short. No major breakthroughs from Calix or Nova, but one of the hostages from Nova’s raids finally talked.”
My focus snapped back.
“Before the silencing spell triggered?”
“You know how these groups work,” she continued, her voice smoothing out. “Layers. Cells. Everyone is disposable.”
I nodded even though she couldn’t see it.
We’d seen it too many times. The same pattern. One person per cell with real information—and even they didn’t get far before the failsafe kicked in.
“You got them to speak before it went off?” I asked.
A low chuckle slipped through the line.
“You know I always get what I want, Rack.”
There was something in her words, something colder, sharper, that settled along my spine. I didn’t respond.
Not only was Ezra powerful, but she was the most ruthless of the Desmond kids. When she wanted something, nothing stood in her way.
Nothing except her siblings.
They were her anchor. Her love for them was fierce and absolute. Even if they didn’t fully understand it, I did. I’d seen it. Hell, part of me envied it.
“They call themselves… Excitatio.”
I frowned, the word tugging at something distant in my memory.
“Wait—is that—”
“Yes.” Her voice dropped. “Latin. It means The Awakening.”
Silence stretched for a beat, then she let out another soft, almost amused sound, but it didn’t reach anything real.
“Not very original, are they? Their leader seems to think of themselves as some kind of poet.”
The Awakening was what the humans and historians called the time supes showed themselves to humans because their worlds were shrinking. It was also a time before the Syndicate was formed. A time of war.
“The only other thing I got out of the poor bitch was that they were trained outside the U.S., which leads me to believe their main base isn’t here.” A pause. “That’s all I got before her heart… melted.”
“Melted?” The word left a bitter taste in my mouth.
From the background, I heard the steady clatter of a keyboard, which meant she was still at her desk. Of course she was.
“Yes. Whoever’s in charge is using a variation of the silencing spell with inconsistent consequences.”
My brows pulled together, gaze narrowing on the road ahead. “That doesn’t track,” I said, the words coming out slower as I worked through it. “Traditional silencing spells don’t vary. Same trigger. Same outcome.”
On the other end, keys clicked in a steady rhythm.
“Some hearts rupture,” she continued, almost clinically. “Some collapse in on themselves. Others… Liquefy. There’s no clear pattern… not yet.”
I didn’t need her to say the rest. She wasn’t done, not by a long shot. She would push until there was a pattern, a thread we could follow. Hell had no rest for the wicked.
“If there’s a variable, I’ll find it,” she added, tone sharpening just slightly before smoothing again.
“Just keep Calix on task,” she said next, her voice cutting clean through the line. “I don’t want him burning out, but I don’t want him drifting either. Understood?”
Again, my gaze flicked, unbidden, to the empty passenger seat.
Dark hair. Red-tipped ends. Tearful bright eyes. The way his attention had locked onto her earlier.
She was a problem, something that could pull him off course, and I couldn’t let that happen.
“I understand.”
“Good.” She waited for a beat. “I trust you, Rack. Always have.”