Chapter 15 JACE
JACE
By four A.M. I’ve done three hundred push-ups and her mouth is still all I can think about.
I got home and stripped out of the shirt that smelled like her kitchen. Showered until it scalded. Stood at the window. None of it worked, so I hit the floor and started counting, and counting didn’t work either.
I drop into another set and my arms fold at forty. I roll onto my back, stare at the ceiling.
Fuck.
I say it to the ceiling. Then again, louder.
She kissed me first. That’s the part I keep telling myself.
It’s not the part that matters.
* * *
Six A.M. I’m at the office.
Lights off. Coffee I made myself. I open the laptop and pull up Tyler’s file.
I’m looking for holes. Things Garrett missed.
The background check came back too clean and I don’t trust clean—clean means someone scrubbed it.
I want the employment gaps. I want whatever shell company he’s probably hiding behind.
I want whatever Tyler’s been careful about, because whatever he’s been careful about is what I can use.
I read for an hour. Cross-reference two addresses. Flag a shell company in Jersey that’s going to be worth a closer look.
At seven-fifteen Nora’s head appears in the doorway. She’s never here before eight. I didn’t hear her come in.
“Fresh pot,” she says, and sets a mug on my desk. Takes the cold one I’d forgotten about.
She looks at me longer than I want her to.
She doesn’t ask.
She leaves.
Then I open the surveillance folder Garrett built. I’m checking timestamps, looking for a day Tyler and Wren were in the same frame. The first photo loads and it’s her.
Just her. Coming out of Wild Tide on a Tuesday afternoon. Bucket in her hand. Hair up. Laughing at something off-camera.
My hands go still on the keyboard.
That mouth. The one I tasted ten hours ago.
I can still feel her against me. The sound she made when I finally kissed her—I haven’t stopped hearing it since I left her apartment.
I shut the laptop.
Push back from the desk. Drag a hand down my face. Fuck .
I’m up before I’ve decided to be — at the window, one hand on the glass, looking out at a city already moving without me. Closed the laptop. Still see her.
She’s Dawson’s little sister.
I’m going to keep saying it until it works, because last night it didn’t.
Last night I had my hand on the back of her neck and her brother was nowhere in my head.
That’s the whole problem. Dawson’s in a country I can’t name asking me to keep her safe and I’m the one pinning her against her own front door.
Jesus Christ.
* * *
I go to the coffee shop on the corner first. The one Tyler’s been clocked at three times in the last two weeks. It’s empty at eight-thirty—two construction guys, one woman with a laptop. No one watching the door.
I check the bus stop across from Wild Tide. Nothing.
Check the bodega where Garrett flagged him once. Nothing.
And then I see him.
Not at any of the places he’s supposed to be. One block east of the shop, at a cafe he’s never been spotted at, sitting by the window.
I clock the sightline from his chair. It cuts across the street and catches the block of curb where I’ve parked twice this week.
A jealous ex noticing there’s a new man in her life isn’t a surprise. It was always going to happen. What matters is I’m ten steps ahead of him. I intend to stay there.
Which means I’m the wrong face on this block right now.
I pull my phone. One call, thirty seconds. Someone Tyler hasn’t seen will be sitting in a car two storefronts down within ten minutes.
I wait.
Eight minutes later a gray sedan slides into the spot. My guy. Eyes on the shop, eyes on the cafe where Tyler’s still nursing whatever he ordered. Covered.
I’m pulling myself.
I start walking toward my car.
And she’s there.
On the sidewalk with a watering can. A piece of hair falling loose.
Twenty feet. I could close it.
I keep walking.
She looks up.
Our eyes hold. Her whole face changes. She starts to say something — and I look away. Keep walking. Get to my car. Open the door without looking back.
I pull out before I let myself check the mirror.
She’s still standing there on the sidewalk. Watering can still in her hand. Watching me drive away.
Something tears.
I don’t do that.
I drive six blocks before I pull over.
I sit with both hands on the wheel for a long time.
The plan I’ve had in my back pocket since day one goes live today.
I’m still sitting there when my phone buzzes.
Dawson.
I stare at his name longer than I should. Then I send it to voicemail.
I can’t hear his voice today.
A minute later it buzzes again. Ryker. Probably wanting drinks, probably wanting to tell me about whatever twenty-year-old he woke up next to. My business partner. My oldest friend. He’d hear my voice and know something was wrong in two seconds flat.
Voicemail.
I drive back to Manhattan and I don’t go back to Brooklyn. That is the rule I set for myself today.
* * *
Nothing happens at the shop all day—my guys would flag it if it did.
Tyler sits in the cafe for an hour and leaves.
Wren stays inside. Sasha does the planters.
A delivery comes at one. All of it comes to me as text updates on a burner I set up specifically for this job, and none of it requires me to be there.
I read every update twice.
Back at the office. A meeting two floors down I’m not in. An inbox I haven’t opened. The bourbon I poured at three still sitting untouched on my desk.
I’m thinking about the way she grabbed the front of my shirt last night. The way she pulled me closer like she still couldn’t get close enough.
And then the look on her face when I stepped back.
The look on her face this morning when I walked past her.
That’s the part I keep coming back to.
At four-forty, I get in a gray Camry from the company fleet and drive to Brooklyn. I tell myself it’s for the handoff. The night shift’s starting. I should be there to make sure everything runs smoothly.
Bullshit.
I know exactly why I’m going.
Wren walks out first. Sasha follows a minute later, flips the sign, locks up. They hug on the sidewalk and Sasha says something that makes Wren laugh, and that laugh lands somewhere it has no business landing.
Sasha walks east. Wren crosses to her van—the one she’s been driving instead of walking since I told her to weeks ago.
She scans the street before she gets in. Two seconds, maybe three. Looking for the car she knows.
It isn’t there. I’m three vehicles back in a Camry she’s never seen.
She gets in.
I follow her home.
I watch her go inside. Wait for the third-floor window to light up. Wait until her shadow moves past the kitchen. Same kitchen where I sat with my knee against hers twenty-two hours ago and remembered her mother’s Sunday dinners out loud.
My phone lights up on the passenger seat.
It’s her.
Wren : Why didn’t you come in today?
I read it twice.
A minute later, a second one:
Wren : Is this how it’s going to be now?
I sit with the phone in my hand. The apartment window is a warm square three floors up and she’s in there right now probably staring at her screen the way I’m staring at mine.
I could type I saw you . I could type I’m sorry . I could type I’m right here.
Any of those would give her what she’s asking for, and any of those would undo a whole day of trying to survive this.
What I type is this:
Me : Coverage is in place. You’re safe. Call the number I gave you if anything feels wrong.
I send it.
The three dots appear.
They appear for a long time.
Then they stop.
No reply comes.
I set the phone down on the seat and put the car in drive.
I made it worse.
I walked past her on the sidewalk and pretended I didn’t see her. I answered her like she was a client.
She’s Dawson’s little sister.
I say it out loud at a red light on Atlantic.
This is for the best.
The light turns green.
I drive.