Chapter 41
Ash
My workroom is lit low. Not dark — never dark, I don’t like blind spots — but low.
Screens humming on the far wall. Steel racks lined with gear.
Matte black table bolted to the floor in the center of the space.
Rubberized matting underfoot to dampen impact and blood.
The air smells like gun oil, coffee, and lemon cleaner because I don’t like mess lingering where I breathe.
She stops just inside the threshold, eyes flicking over the room like she’s assessing entry points, exits, usable cover. Good. She’s still thinking.
Her hair’s a little mussed. Her mouth is a little swollen. Vale.
I ignore that, because I’m still navigating this whole thing and I need control. Calm. “You’re late,” I tell her instead, even though I know she’s not.
Her mouth tilts, that annoying smirk sliding into place. “I kissed Mateo in a hallway and he talks a lot.”
I don’t smile. I don’t let myself. I just jerk my chin toward the mat. “Stand there.”
She rolls her eyes at my obvious dismissal, but doesn’t argue. That’s… New.
She steps into the center of the room, bare legs, borrowed shirt and the gun Wraith fit her against her ribs. The holster sits clean and flush along her side, no printing. He did good work. I could admit that. I won’t. Not out loud.
Her gaze flicks back to me. “So. How badly are you planning to bruise me before tomorrow?”
“I’m not,” I say, quirking a brow.
Her brows lift. “No?”
“No,” I repeat calmly. “You’re bruised already.”
Color climbs her throat, fast. She recovers just as fast. “Oh,” she says. “That.”
“Not that,” I say. “Emotionally.”
She snorts. “You going to give me a feelings lecture, Lysander?”
My jaw tightens. My name in her mouth shouldn’t hit where it hits.
“I’m going to make sure you live through tomorrow,” I say. “That’s all.”
Her chin lifts at that. She tries to make the movement bored. It’s not. It’s defiance and pride. I fucking love it. She doesn’t get that I see when she fronts, but I notice it all the same.
I cross to the table and set down what I’ve brought. An unloaded duplicate of her sidearm, two empty mags, a training knife, a handkerchief folded tight, and a slim black box.
Her eyes flick to the box first.
“Later,” I tell her.
She sighs heavily. “You always say that when it’s going to be bad.”
“It’s not bad,” I say. “It’s insurance.”
“Same thing,” she says with another eye roll that I pointedly ignore.
I step in front of her, close enough to touch, close enough to feel her breathing. Her pupils are already a little blown — adrenaline, not arousal. Good. If this were arousal-driven I’d send her to bed. We don’t train soft. You don’t retain soft.
Who am I kidding? I’d fuck her here in the floor like rabid animals if she said the word. I swallow thickly, ignoring the way my intrusive thoughts are starting to win.
“Lift the shirt,” I say, voice husky despite my efforts to remain in control.
Her brows arch. “Bold.”
I stare at her, pursing my lips until she gets the point.
She sighs, mutters, “You’re no fun,” and lifts the hem just enough to expose the holster.
The leather sits smooth against her ribs. My work, my measurements, my settings. Yeah. I noticed Wraith had altered the strap angle to compensate for her height. I already corrected it back. His adjustment was fine for comfort. Mine is for speed.
I tap the grip. “First lesson. You do not draw like the fucking movies, that will get you killed.”
She rolls her eyes. “I know—”
“No,” I cut in, voice flat. “You think you know. There’s a difference. You were trained for controlled environments, Ember. Dead streets. Clean drops. Eyes on you, backup on you. Your handling was meant to keep you from giving the Crown a PR nightmare.”
She goes very still.
I keep going. “Tomorrow is not that. Tomorrow is Syndicate corporate fronts, and mercenaries who don’t care about jurisdiction.
Tomorrow, if Damien moves on you, he’s not going to put a gun to your temple and whisper about loyalty.
He’s going to smile and put two in your ribs like you’re a loose end that got misplaced in paperwork.
You’re not impressive to him. You’re a liability. ”
Her jaw tightens. “I know,” she says quietly.
“I need you,” I say, stepping in closer, “to stop believing that just because you can think your way out of a room, you can’t also die in one.”
Her eyes lift to mine.
There it is — the flash of temper, the hurt under it.
The stubborn refusal to be less than any of us.
The spark that made Caelum look twice. The one that got Ronan feral.
The one that made Mateo stop playing and start circling.
The one that made Nikolai question his religion.
The one that made me, rationally, clinically, obsess.
I lower my voice.
“Ember,” I say. “Listen to me.”
Her throat works.
“Tomorrow,” I say, “if he touches you, you don’t argue with him. You don’t negotiate with him. You don’t go for his throat. You go for bone at the wrist and air at the lung. That’s it.”
Her eyes flicker. “Wrist, lung,” she murmurs.
“Good.” I take her hand and place it at the grip. Her skin is warm. Small. Not fragile. “Show me your draw.”
She breathes in. Her movements are good — better than good. Smooth. Controlled. Showing years of training under M16. The training I’m desperately hoping will keep her safe now. Her elbow tucks, her wrist stays straight, her fingers wrap without over gripping.
“Again,” I say.
She does it, this time a little faster—better.
“Again,” I repeat.
She does it. Same movements, same speed.
“Again.”
She huffs. “You’re going to make me do this fifty times, aren’t you.”
“One hundred,” I say. “Minimum.”
She mutters, “Sadist,” under her breath.
“Mateo’s the sadist,” I say. “I’m the archivist.”
That gets me a small, involuntary twitch at the corner of her mouth. She draws. Reholsters. Draws. Reholsters.
By the tenth repetition she’s breathing in counts. By the twentieth, her body starts doing it without conscious thought. By the thirtieth, she’s even quicker. Fast enough to matter. Not fast enough to impress me. Yet.
“Again,” I say.
She glares at me and does it.
When I lift my hand and settle my palm lightly over the inside of her wrist mid-draw, she freezes — not in fear. In readiness. I can feel the tight snap of muscle under skin, the raw, coiled impulse to finish the movement. Good. She’ll fight through contact.
“Now,” I tell her quietly, “imagine my hand is Damien’s.”
Her lashes flick up. Her eyes go cold. Venom masked in glacial pools of blue.
Before I can blink, she twists. It’s fast, vicious, efficient. She traps my thumb against the slide, turns in, pins my wrist to her chest so I can’t angle the barrel back at her. Her knee comes up like she’s going for my ribs.
I block it, because if I don’t, fuck—she’ll actually do it.
We’re breathing close now. My grip on her wrist. Her fingers on mine. Heat where our bodies almost touch.
Her voice drops. “You think I haven’t been held against a wall before, Lysander?”
Something ugly and protective snarls up my spine at that. I know her file. I know parts of what she did before Owen died. I know, clinically, what handlers sometimes do with assets who are technically off-book, technically expendable and technically someone no one would miss.
I don’t like knowing any of that, and it doesn’t change the deep and gut wrenching hurt I see buried there.
I peel her off me gently and reset her stance. “Good,” I say, and my voice comes out tighter than I prefer. “Again.”
We run it. Over and over. Me grabbing. Her breaking. Me blocking. Her adjusting. I force her to repeat until she stops thinking about the movements and starts letting muscle do what it was asked to do.
She remembers fast. Ember Calloway was never just an informant. She was built. Forged and shaped under iron will. Pointed and aimed at their enemies in a way they’d never see it coming. Whoever thought they could program someone like her and keep their fingers unburned was clinically…. Stupid.
Her breathing is starting to roughen. Sweat beads at her hairline. She’s flushed — high color in her cheeks, damp at her throat. She looks alive in a way that makes something ugly and selfish in me want to keep her locked in this room and away from everyone else.
I step back.
“Water,” I tell her, nodding at the bottle I set on the table.
She doesn’t move. Her eyes are still on me. Studying. Mapping.
“What,” I say.
“You’re angry,” she says.
Not a question. I go still. “No.”
“Liar,” she says, soft and sure.
I hate that, too — that she reads me. Rook reads me because he’s Rook. Wraith reads me because he watches everything like a hunter. Vale reads me because he’s a cruel romantic and likes to taste blood. Saint reads me because it’s his job to hear confession. Ember reads me because she just does.
“It’s not anger,” I say finally. My voice sounds steady. Clinical. Good. “It’s probability.”
Her eyes narrow. “Explain.”
I grab the handkerchief off the table and offer it to her. She blinks, then uses it to blot her collarbone, the hollow of her throat, the back of her neck. I force myself not to track every motion.
“Probability,” I repeat. “We’re running numbers.
Damien is cautious. Vindictive, even. Damien is smart enough to stay alive this long, which means he’s paranoid.
But paranoid men get sloppy around familiar faces.
Seeing you will either make him try to claim you back in front of whoever he’s meeting — or try to erase you to prove he can. ”
“So,” she says quietly. “Fifty-fifty.”
“No,” I say. “Sixty-forty.”
Her mouth curves. “And which side am I on?”
“I haven’t decided yet,” I say.
That wins me a low laugh. It’s small. It’s real. It slides along my skin like static.
I look at her for a long breath. Then whisper, “Ember.”
Her head tilts. “Lysander.”
“We’re not going to let you die,” I say.