35. Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Five
Wrenley
The drive into the city is calm and comfortable.
Morning light rolls across the dashboard, painting Max’s profile in gold.
The mansion shrinks in the rearview, and for a blessed few miles, it’s just the hum of the engine and the faint buzz of some old rock station he refuses to change.
The air smells like him, cedar, leather, and whiskey, but there’s peace in it. A rare thing.
I should still be shaken from last night, but I’m not.
The bruise on my cheek aches when I smile, proof I made it out whole.
Liam’s hands trembling after the nightmare, the look in his eyes when he realized what he’d done, I’ve replayed it more than once, but it doesn’t sit like fear.
It sits like love that got lost in the dark for a moment.
“You’re quiet,” Max says, glancing my way.
“Just thinking,” I tell him. “About you and Liam this morning. What was that about?”
He drums his fingers on the steering wheel. “Nothing you need to worry about.”
“Max,” I drag out his name, half warning, half plea. “We said this doesn’t work with secrets.”
He exhales through his nose, a faint grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. “You know how he gets—can’t stop running scenarios in his head. I was just… talking him down.”
“That’s a lie dressed as concern,” I say.
“Maybe,” he admits with a full shit-eating grin now. “But it’s a good-looking lie.”
I roll my eyes. “You and Liam really need to learn how to protect me a little less.”
He glances over, voice dripping with sarcasm now, “Yeah, well, forgive us for trying.”
The quiet stretches again, easy for a moment. The city starts to rise ahead of us, Northwyck's skyline built from steel, glass, and bad decisions. I trace the edge of the window with my fingertip, watching sunlight fracture across the buildings. Something in me hums. It’s not nerves. It’s instinct.
“So,” Max says, deliberately changing the subject. “What are we doing in town, exactly? You said you needed supplies.”
I grin, finally letting him off the hook. “Oh, you know. This and that.”
“This and that?”
“Coffee beans that don’t taste like ash, new boots, maybe some ammo if the shop still has the good kind.” I pause, pretending to think. “And maybe something reckless for you and Liam just to see you sweat.”
He laughs, shaking his head. “You’re impossible.”
“Admit it,” I say. “You’d be bored without me.”
He doesn’t answer, but his smile lingers. The city swallows us then, traffic noise, people moving too fast, life pretending it’s ordinary. We park near the strip of shops that survived last year’s fire. Max kills the engine, scanning the street automatically. Old habits die hard.
“Stay sharp,” he mutters. “Northwyck’s been quiet too long.”
I push open my door, the warmth of the day wrapping around me. “You’re starting to sound more and more like Liam.”
“Yeah,” he says. “I wish that didn’t feel like a compliment.”
As we cross the street, a delivery truck rumbles past. The side panel flashes a company logo I’ve never seen, Crown Logistics.
The font catches me for half a second. Simple.
Elegant. But the emblem beneath it, a small, stylized serpent biting its tail, snags my breath.
A mark I’ve seen before, painted on the wall of the House of Silk.
I blink, and the truck’s gone.
“Sparrow?” Max’s voice cuts in. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” I force a smile. “Something caught my eye.”
He studies me, but lets it go. “Come on. Coffee first. Then chaos.”
I follow him into the café, the bell above the door chiming once. The smell of roasted beans hit me, rich and bitter. For a heartbeat, everything really does feel normal again. But the emblem won’t leave my head.
Sunlight slants through the café windows, painting warm golden stripes across the table. The smell of coffee and sugar sits thick in the air. Someone's playlist hums in the background, something slow and old that fits the morning better than it should.
Max orders before I can even open my mouth. He always does. Two coffees, one sweet enough to rot your teeth and one black and mean enough to wake the dead. He slides my cup across the table with that lazy grin that’s all charm and trouble.
“Two sugars,” he says. “Just enough cream to keep it from fighting back.”
I pause for half a second before taking a sip. Huh. It’s right. I glance at him over the rim of the cup. “You’ve been paying attention.”
He leans back in his chair, stretching like a cat, completely unbothered. “Always do, Sparrow.”
The nickname lands warm. It always does.
For a few minutes, it’s easy, the kind of quiet that used to feel impossible between missions, and near death nights.
I watch him watch the city outside, and for a heartbeat I let myself imagine this is all there is, just us, coffee, sunlight, no ghosts, no war.
“You’re thinking too hard,” Max says, eyes still on the window.
“I’m married to you and Liam,” I remind him. “Thinking too hard is part of the job.”
He smirks. “And yet, somehow, you still make it look good.”
I roll my eyes but don’t argue. He’s always been better at pulling me back to calm than I’ll ever admit out loud.
When we leave the café, the air outside is cool enough to bite.
Northwyck’s streets are waking up, the buzz of traffic, vendors setting up stalls, steam curling from manhole covers. It’s alive, messy, and familiar.
That’s when I see it, again. Painted small and deliberate on the edge of a brick wall across the street, a serpent biting its own tail. Black paint. Slightly faded, but fresh enough to gleam in the morning light. I stop walking.
Max turns halfway back, brow furrowed. “What?”
“Nothing,” I say too quickly. “Thought I saw something, again.”
He follows my line of sight anyway. “Where?”
“It’s gone.”
He studies me, that soldier stare I see in Liam more than him, that sees more than I want them too.
Before I can redirect, a car down the block catches his attention, engine idling, windows tinted too dark for daylight.
His posture changes in a breath. Without saying a word, he reaches for my hand and laces his fingers through mine.
It isn’t the grip of someone ready for a fight, it’s gentler, protective in a way that feels like an apology and a vow all at once.
“Come on, Sparrow.” He murmurs, voice calm but firm. “Let’s keep moving.”
We cross the street. The city noise swells and then evens out again, but I can feel the tension vibrating through his hand. He doesn’t let go. Not even when we’re half a block away and the car finally pulls from the curb, merging into traffic like it was never there.
I glance up at him. “You saw it too?”
He nods once. “Yeah.”
We don’t talk again. As we weave through the crowd, his thumb keeps brushing the back of my hand, small, steady motions to comfort me, and him. Still, I can tell his mind is working just as hard as mine. Normal’s over. We both feel it.
The cowbell over the supply-shop door gives its usual rusty jingle as we step inside. Rhett, the clerk, glance up from the counter, grin easy and familiar.
“Well, if it isn’t two of my favorite troublemakers,” he says. “What are we restocking today? End-of-the-world kit or date night?”
Max chuckles, dropping an elbow on the counter. “A bit of both, Rhett.”
I hand over a list. “Hollow points, twelve-gauge, and whatever nine-mil boxes you’ve got left in the back.”
Rhett whistles low. “Are you planning a war or restocking from the last one?”
“Somewhere in the middle.” I say, smiling.
He disappears through the swinging door and comes back a few minutes later with boxes stacked neatly in his arms. “Tell Torque he still owes me for those custom rounds.”
“Add it to our tab.” Max says.
We trade small talk while Max pulls out his credit card. It’s the kind of normal conversation that’s become its own armor. Safe, predictable… human. For a few minutes, it almost works.
Then we’re back on the street, heading past the row of storefronts until something bright in a window catches my eyes. Dresses. Soft fabric. A splash of color against the gray. I tug on Max’s sleeve.
“Come on,” I tell him. “We’re going in.”
He blinks at the sign. “A boutique. You have enough clothes to dress an army.”
I grin. “You’ll live.” I drag him inside before he can protest. The air smells like lavender and new fabric. Mirrors everywhere, catching pieces of us from every angle. He stands awkwardly near a rack of sweaters while I flip through hangers.
“This feels familiar.” He says.
I glance at him through the mirror. “Last time we went shopping like this, you ended up in the dressing room with me. On your knees”
He smirks. “You started that, Sparrow.”
“I did not.”
“You absolutely did.” He steps closer, voice dropping. “You keep looking at me like that and maybe I’ll have to follow you in one again.”
I laugh, shaking my head. “You’re impossible.”
“And you like it.”
The air between us hums. Same charge as that day, warm, daring, dangerous in a way that has nothing to do with weapons or war. I turn, ready with a comeback, but something in the corner of the mirror catches my eye. A woman steps through the door, looking directly at me. I tense slightly.
Max catches it immediately. “What is it?”
“That woman,” I whisper, nodding with my head.
Before he can answer, the woman’s voice cuts in, friendly and calm. “Mrs. Hayes-Blackwood?”
We both turn. She’s standing a few feet away, an envelope in her hands. No fear in her eyes. No tremor in her voice.
“I have something for you,” She says, as if she’s handing over a receipt. “I think you’ll understand when you read it.”
My heart thuds once, hard. The envelope is cream-colored, sealed with red wax, the serpent pressed into the seal. The paper smells faintly of the same cologne, the one that used to cling to the notes left for me.
Max steps forward, placing himself a step in front of me. “Who gave it to you?”
The woman’s expression doesn’t change. She lifts her hand to tuck hair behind her ear, and that’s when I see it, a small tattoo curling up her wrist. The serpent biting its tail. Black ink. Precise. Not new.
Her eyes meet mine, steady. “He said to tell you it’s time.”
The bell above the door chimes once as she turns and walks out, unhurried, like she didn’t just drop a bomb in the middle of our morning. Outside, the idling car is still there, dark windows, engine low and steady. She slips into the back seat, and the car pulls away without so much as a glance.
Max exhales, jaw tight. “Tell me that’s not what I think it is.” He says, slipping a gun, I never saw him draw back into his waistband.
I look down at the envelope. My name is written in the same looping handwriting I never wanted to see again.
“It’s him,” I say quietly. “Sebastian.”
Back in the car, I sit staring at the envelope. It’s in my lap like something alive, edges catching the light, the seal bleeding dark red. I can’t make myself touch it. I just stare at it while Max drives.
He glances over every few seconds, jaw tight, one hand steady on the wheel. The city blurs by outside, sunlight flashing through glass, the roar of traffic swallowed by the silence inside the car.
His other hand reaches across the console, resting gently on my thigh. Warm and Solid. “Sparrow,” he says quietly. “What do you want to do with it?”
I drag my eyes from the envelope, meeting his. “Let’s go home. Everyone should be there when this thing blows up.”
He nods once, already shifting gears. “Yeah. Home it is.”
He pulls his phone from his pocket and hits Reaper’s contact as he steers with one hand. It only rings once.
“Reaper,” he says. “We’ve got incoming. Another note.”
A pause, his eyes flick to me. Whatever Liam says, it makes his shoulders drop a fraction.
“She’s fine,” Max answers. “She wants everyone there when she opens it.”
Another pause. “Yeah. We’ll be there in fifteen.”
He ends the call, tossing the phone onto the dashboard, and presses harder on the gas. I sit there, trying to breathe like everything isn’t unraveling inside my chest. The city melts into the open road, and still I can’t stop staring at that goddamn seal.
He said it’s time. Time for what? The fucking house of horrors he’s been building in the shadows? Time for him to crawl back into my life like he never left? My brother doesn’t do accidents. Every move he makes is a trigger waiting to be pulled.
Max reaches over again, squeezing my leg just above the knee. “Hey,” he murmurs. “You’re not alone in this. Never.”
I nod, but I can’t trust my voice enough to speak. The drive feels too long and too short all at once. When we finally pull through the gates, the mansion rises ahead, sunlight gleaming off the windows, serene and silent like it doesn’t know what’s coming.
Inside, I drop the envelope on the coffee table and sit on the edge of the couch. My hands clasped so tight my knuckles ache.
Liam’s the first one in. He crosses the room without a word and sits beside me, pressing a kiss to the top of my head. “You okay?” he asks softly.
I give him a small, tight smile. “I’m okay.”
His hand finds mine, fingers interlocking, grounding me. The others file in one by one. Torque, Wrecker, Elias, Margot, Riot. They take their places around the room, the familiar orbit forming like instinct.
I look down at the envelope again, the seal gleaming in the light. The weight of every past note presses in at once, the threats, the riddles, the taunts. Each one was a step closer to this.
“Okay,” I say, exhaling slowly. “Let’s see what my psycho brother wants now.”
Liam’s hand tightens around mine. Max stands just behind the couch, silent, eyes on the letter. I reach for the envelope. Everyone in the room holds their breath.