Chapter 61
[LEONARD'S DARK VILLA]
Aurora stared at the tattoo setup like it had personally offended her.
Leonard stood beside it, arms folded, watching her with that infuriatingly calm expression.
"You're serious," she said flatly.
"I'm always serious."
"You actually want to tattoo me."
"I actually will tattoo you."
Aurora laughed once. Short and humorless. "Ren."
"Noelle."
She turned to face him fully. "I am not letting you put anything permanent on my body."
"Not yet," he said simply.
She blinked. "What?"
He unfolded his arms and stepped closer, eyes steady on hers. "Not today."
Aurora searched his face for the catch. There was always a catch with him.
"So what are you saying?" she asked carefully.
"I'm saying go."
She stared at him.
"Leave," he added, tilting his head toward the door. "You can go."
Aurora didn't move immediately.
Something about the way he said it made her skin prickle. Too calm. Too unbothered.
Like a man who had already won something she hadn't realized was at stake.
"Just like that," she said slowly.
"Just like that."
"No conditions."
His mouth curved slightly. "Did I say that?"
There it was.
"Ren..."
"You'll get the tattoo, Noelle." His voice was quiet. Certain. The kind of certain that didn't need volume to land. "Not today. But you will."
Aurora held his gaze. "You can't just decide that."
"I already did."
"I have a say."
"You do," he agreed easily. "And one day you'll say yes."
She scoffed. "You're delusional."
"Maybe." He stepped aside, clearing the path to the door completely. "But you're still thinking about it."
"I am not-"
"Your eyes went back to the table three times in the last two minutes."
Aurora's jaw tightened. bShe hated that he noticed everything.
She grabbed her bag from the chair, swinging it over her shoulder. "This conversation never happened."
"Whatever helps you sleep." She walked toward the door, spine straight, steps even.
His voice followed her quietly.
"You can run from the idea all you want." A pause. "It's still happening."
Aurora stopped at the door. She didn't turn around.
"I hate you," she said flatly.
"See you soon, Noelle."
She walked out.
The door clicked shut behind her.
Outside, the air was cooler. Quieter. She walked to where his driver was waiting and got in without a word, staring straight ahead as the car pulled away from the villa.
She exhaled slowly.
Her heart was still beating too fast and she hated it. Hated the way he looked at her like she was already his. Hated the way her eyes had in fact gone back to that tattoo table three times.
Hated that he'd noticed.
She pressed her fingers against her temple and closed her eyes.
One day you'll say yes. She would not.
She absolutely would not.
{MEXICO}
The corridor outside the briefing room was empty.
Shadow stepped out, pulling the door shut behind her. The digital mask shifted across her face, patterns bleeding quietly in the dim light. Her footsteps were measured.
Unhurried.
She turned.
And almost walked straight into Zane.
He stepped back immediately, jaw tightening, like her proximity alone was something he needed to put distance between himself and.
He moved to walk around her.
Shadow's arm came up.
Blocking his path quietly.
Zane stared at her arm. Then at her mask.
"Move," he said flatly.
"We need to talk." Her voice came out layered, modulated, stripped of its natural tone. Everything about it was deliberate.
"We don't."
"Zane"
"I said move, Shadow."
She didn't.
He exhaled sharply through his nose, the muscle in his jaw jumping once.
"You're still doing this," she said quietly. "We're partners. We work in the same building. We breathe the same air. And you still can't look at me for more than two seconds."
"I can look at you just fine," he said coldly. "I just don't want to."
Shadow tilted her head slightly. "People make mistakes."
Something shifted in his expression.
Not softness. The opposite.
"Don't," he said.
"Zane..."
"Don't say it like that." His voice dropped, edges sharpening. "Like it was just a mistake. Like it was something small."
"It wasn't small," she said. "I know that."
"Then you know why I can't stand to be in the same room as you.
" He stepped closer, not out of warmth but out of the specific fury of someone who had been wronged deeply and never forgot it.
"She should be here right now. Aurora should be here.
With me. That was the plan. My plan. Years of work. Years of patience."
His voice cracked slightly at the edges. "And it failed because of you."
"Your father..."
"Don't." The word came out like a blade.
"Don't put this on my father."
"He gave the order," Shadow said, voice steady. "I swore an oath to him before I ever swore one to you. You know that."
"You promised me," Zane said. Quiet now. Which was worse. "I trusted you more than I trusted him. More than I've trusted anyone." A pause. "And you still chose him."
Shadow said nothing.
"You're selfish," he continued. "You always have been. Everything you do, everything you execute, it serves you first. The mission second. Me never."
"That isn't true."
"It is." He stepped back, creating distance again. "And I'm done pretending otherwise."
Shadow reached out.
Her fingers almost touched his arm.
"Don't." His voice went ice cold. "Touch me and I promise you the next warning comes with blood. Mine or yours. I don't particularly care which."
Shadow's hand dropped.
She watched him turn and walk away, shoulders set, hands loose at his sides, the kind of calm that was built entirely on controlled rage.
He didn't look back.
She stood in the corridor until his footsteps disappeared completely.
Then she turned and walked in the opposite direction.
The prison yard smelled like damp concrete and despair.
Shadow's heels echoed against the floor as she moved through it, unhurried, eyes forward.
On either side of the narrow corridor, cells lined the walls. Some were dark. Some had the faint glow of a single overhead light. Behind every door was a sound.
Crying. Begging.
The low repeated knock of someone who had been knocking for so long they'd forgotten why they started.
"Please. Please. Someone. I'm... starving."
A child's voice somewhere to the left.
Shadow didn't slow down.
She had walked this corridor more times than she could count. She had learned, a long time ago, not to listen.
She stopped at the end.
The door here was different from the others. Heavier. Steel reinforced, with a digital keypad mounted at shoulder height.
Two guards stood on either side. Shadow looked at them once.
They stepped aside without a word and moved down the corridor, out of earshot.
She turned to the keypad. Entered the code.
Seven digits.
The lock disengaged with a heavy click.
She pushed the door open.
The cell was dark. Darker than the others. The kind of dark that felt intentional.
Shadow stood in the doorway.
Even behind the mask, something came off her. Something tight and complicated that she would never name out loud in a place like this.
She tilted her head slowly.
The figure inside didn't move at first.
Then, slowly, a face turned toward the light spilling in from the doorway.
Shadow looked at her for a long moment.
"Part of the fault is yours too," she said finally, voice modulated and quiet. "But I'm the one taking all the blame." She tilted her head slightly. "That isn't fair."
A pause.
The door stayed open.
The darkness between them sat heavy and still.
"Is it, Bianca?"