Chapter 5
Hollow stood on the safehouse porch and listened to the lock click behind him.
Good. She listened.
The rain had died to a mist, streetlights turning Lawrenceville into a smeared watercolor of brick and wet asphalt. He lit a cigarette and smoked it on the steps while Parkway idled in the truck at the curb, engine rumbling low, headlights off.
His knuckles throbbed. He looked down at them—split across the first two on his left hand, Durkin's jaw still imprinted in the swelling. Worth it. Worth every ache and then some, because the look on that son of a bitch's face when he'd gone through the glass was something Hollow would keep forever.
Nobody threatens her. Nobody.
The thought sat in his chest like a hot coal, and he let it burn.
He'd called her my woman in front of Durkin and his crew, in front of Ash and Gibbet, in front of a diner full of strangers.
Hadn't planned it. Hadn't thought about it.
The words had come out like breathing, like they'd been waiting in his mouth for two years of meatloaf and flirting and watching her run that diner like a queen running a kingdom.
She'd told him she wasn't his.
She was wrong.
His phone buzzed. Ash.
Window boarded. Durkin crawled away. His boys scattered. Diner locked up tight. You owe me pancakes.
Hollow texted back: Tomorrow. Stay sharp.
He finished the cigarette, crushed it under his boot, and walked to the truck. Parkway had the window down, one arm hanging out, eyes moving between mirrors with the constant vigilance of a man who'd spent years watching for pursuit.
"Ash has the diner buttoned up," Hollow said, leaning on the door. "Durkin limped off."
"He'll go straight to Sykes."
"Counting on it." Hollow looked back at the safehouse—dark now, Debbie and Jimmy settling in. "Sykes needs to know who he's dealing with. Ray Durkin flying through a window is a good introduction."
"And when Sykes decides to introduce himself back?"
"That's why we're here." Hollow walked around to the passenger side and climbed in. "I need you to stay on the house tonight."
Parkway's eyebrow went up. "You're staying too?"
"I'm not leaving her."
Something flickered across Parkway's face—not quite a smile, not quite judgment.
The Road Captain was the quietest of the officers, a man who processed the world through routes and escape vectors, always three moves ahead.
He didn't comment on the her instead of them, didn't point out that Hollow had said he wasn't leaving her when there were two people inside who needed protecting.
"I'll take the truck," Parkway said. "Park down the block, watch the approaches. You take the house."
"Good."
"Church is at eight. Pitt wants you there with everything Jimmy gave you."
"I'll be there." Hollow opened the door, then stopped. "Sean."
Parkway looked at him.
"Thanks for the driving tonight. That tail had no chance."
"Just doing my job." Parkway shifted into gear. "Go watch your woman, brother."
Hollow grinned and slapped the roof of the truck twice. Parkway rolled down the block, killed his lights, and backed into a spot with a clear sightline to both ends of the street. Settled in. Invisible.
The safehouse was quiet when Hollow let himself back in. The front room was dim—one lamp on, curtains drawn. He could hear Jimmy snoring on the couch, the deep unconscious breathing of a kid who'd finally stopped running long enough for his body to shut down.
He checked the back door. Locked, dead bolt thrown.
Windows latched. Kitchen stocked—Ash had done a supply run earlier in the week for a different situation, but canned food didn't expire and coffee was coffee.
The place was tight, defensible, a narrow row house with one entrance in front and one in back, both visible from inside.
He was checking the upstairs windows when he heard footsteps on the stairs.
Debbie stood on the landing in the same clothes she'd been wearing at the diner, arms crossed, watching him move through the rooms with her chin set at that angle that meant she was deciding whether to fight or listen.
"You're still here," she said.
"Told you I would be."
"You said you'd be outside."
"I lied." He finished checking the window latch and turned to face her. The hallway was narrow, barely wide enough for two people, and his shoulders nearly touched both walls. "Parkway's outside. I'm inside. Between you and any door someone could come through."
"I don't need a bodyguard."
"Good, because I'm not one. I'm something else entirely."
She stared at him. He stared back. The hallway was dark, the only light coming from the bedroom behind her, and in the half-shadow she looked exhausted and fierce and beautiful in a way that made his chest tight.
"You need to sleep," he said.
"So do you."
"I'll sleep when Sykes is in the ground."
"That's dramatic."
"That's accurate." He leaned against the wall, giving her space in the narrow hallway even though every nerve in his body wanted to close the distance. "Bedroom's clean. Sheets are fresh. Take it."
"Where will you be?"
"Right here." He tapped the wall behind him. "This hallway, all night. Nobody gets past me to reach you or Jimmy."
"You're going to stand in a hallway all night."
"I've slept in worse places."
She looked at him for a long moment, and he watched the fight drain out of her.
Not surrender—Debbie Nowak didn't surrender—but something closer to acceptance.
The acknowledgment that she was in over her head and the man standing in her hallway was the only thing between her and a problem she couldn't solve alone.
"You really threw a man through my window," she said quietly.
"I really did."
"The repair is going to cost a fortune."
"I said I'd cover it."
"You're damn right you will." She paused. "It was the original glass. My dad installed it in 1985."
Something in her voice cracked on the word dad, and Hollow felt it in his ribs. He pushed off the wall and stepped closer—not crowding, just present. Close enough that she could feel his warmth in the cold hallway.
"I'll find you better glass," he said. "Thicker. So next time I throw someone through it, they really feel it."
She almost smiled. Close enough to count.
"Hollow."
"Yeah."
"Why did you call me that? At the diner. In front of those men." She looked up at him, and her eyes were steady despite the exhaustion. "You called me your woman."
"I know what I said."
"We're not—I'm not—you eat at my diner. That's what this is. You eat meatloaf and leave ridiculous tips and flirt because you think it's charming."
"It is charming."
"It's annoying."
"You love it."
"I tolerate it." She shook her head. "You can't just claim someone because you want to, Hollow. That's not how this works."
"It's exactly how this works." He kept his voice low, aware of Jimmy sleeping one floor down.
"I've been coming to your diner for two years.
Two years of meatloaf and coffee and watching you bust your ass fourteen hours a day running a business that would kill most people.
Two years of you calling me a headache and threatening me with kitchen equipment and making me laugh harder than anyone else in my life. You think that's just flirting?"
She didn't answer. Her breathing had changed—faster, shallower—and she wasn't backing away.
"When Durkin walked into your place tonight," Hollow said, "when I saw him standing at your counter, looking at you like you were something he could touch—I didn't think.
Didn't plan. Didn't weigh options. I just knew that nobody gets to stand that close to you with that look in their eyes. Nobody but me."
"That's possessive."
"Damn right it is."
"I'm not a piece of territory."
"No. You're Debbie Nowak, and you're the strongest woman I've ever met, and I'm telling you right now—I'm not going anywhere.
Not tonight, not tomorrow, not when Sykes is handled.
You can fight it, you can throw coffee pots at my head, you can tell me I'm a headache every day for the rest of my life. I'll still be sitting at that counter."
The silence stretched between them, heavy and electric.
Debbie's jaw worked like she was chewing on a response, and he could see the war behind her eyes—the part of her that had been carrying alone for fourteen years screaming that she didn't need this, didn't need him, didn't need anyone.
And the other part. The part that had called his name first when the world started falling apart.
"You're impossible," she said finally.
"I've been told."
"And arrogant."
"Also been told."
"And if you think one speech in a dark hallway is going to make me swoon—"
"Wouldn't dream of it. You don't swoon. You'd hit me first."
That got the smile—small, reluctant, fighting its way onto her face despite her best efforts. She shook her head and stepped back toward the bedroom door.
"Goodnight, Hollow."
"Goodnight, Debbie."
She paused in the doorway. "If you're really going to stand in this hallway all night, there are blankets in the closet."
"I'll be fine."
"Take a blanket. You're no good to anyone if you freeze to death being stubborn."
She closed the door. He heard the lock turn.
Hollow stood in the dark hallway, listening to her move around the bedroom—shoes off, bed creaking, the long sigh of a woman finally lying down. He found the closet, pulled out a blanket, and settled against the wall between her door and the stairs.
The hallway was quiet. The house was quiet. The kind of quiet that usually sent him reaching for noise—radio, conversation, anything to fill the space where the ghosts lived.
But tonight the quiet held different sounds. Debbie breathing behind the door. Jimmy snoring downstairs. Parkway's engine ticking as it cooled on the street outside.
People he was protecting. People who were his.
Hollow pulled the blanket around his shoulders, set his back against the wall, and watched the stairs until morning.