Chapter 56
Not ten minutes later, I’m dialing a number that few people have and know exists. My voice is low and clipped, my tone giving no room for negotiation, when the line connects, “Put Demetri on. Now.”
I don’t bother pacing, sitting down behind my desk, a mountain in a storm, letting the rage ripple beneath the surface. It’ll stay contained and focused. Until I no longer need it to be.
When Demetri finally answers, his voice crackles through the speaker with the usual detachment of an ancient mercenary. “Boss.”
“I want a full sweep of everything. Underground channels, neutral allies, and especially enemy factions. Anyone who’s taken an interest in me or what’s mine.”
He pauses for a beat, then says, “Understood. Are we expecting trouble?”
I clench my fist that’s not holding my phone to my car, and stare out at the skyline. “We’re expecting a fucking war if someone doesn’t start talking.”
The Covenant of Shadows didn’t name names. Because, of course, they didn’t. They’re not known for transparency, only for veiled warnings wrapped in civility. All they gave me was a whisper. Some rumor that’s slipping through the sewers of the supernatural underground–a growing unrest, someone stirring up shit,
But that was all they’d say. Not who was involved. Only that if I wanted to keep my throne…and my vulnerabilities…intact, I needed to tighten my circles“.
At that thought, my jaw clenches so hard, I hear the faint grind of my molars.
Harley.
This is why I never let anyone close. This is why every connection I make becomes a liability. Because if one shadow is cast in her direction, I’ll rip out the entire night sky to find where it came from.
My hand twitches toward the phone again, but I hesitate. I want to call her and tell her to lock her doors and stay inside. To never open her goddamn window ever again without me there to check what waits on the other side first.
But I don’t. Because she’ll laugh at me, or worse–she’ll see how scared I am. She’ll see how this fear is nothing like what I’ve known before. It’s not fear of death or defeat. It’s fear of losing her before I’ve even had the right to keep her.
I make a conference call to two more of my enforcers–Zarek and Lucia. They’re trusted and ruthless. The kind who won’t hesitate if whatever this is turns bloody. I give them orders to spread out across the city’s supernatural underbelly–every hidden den, black market supplier, and whispered back alley deal
anyone even breathes my name,” I say, “I want it recorded, dissected, traced, and the person found.”
“Got it,” Lucia replies, her voice already buzzing with excitement.
“Do you want them alive? Zarek asks.
My silence is answer enough for him, which he acknowledges with nothing more than a mere grunt.
When I finally hang up, I lean back and exhale through my nose. The tension of the looming situation presses against my chest like a weight that’s too large to dislodge.
Griffin, who left silently somewhere during my call, walks back in without knocking. Again. Either because he has a death wish…or he’s the only one who can read me even when I’m trying not to be read.
This brow furrows slightly as he says, “Demetri, Zarek, and Lucia in one hour. That’s a reunion I don’t want an invitation to.”
I don’t answer.
n pauses, as if considering whether to say what’s so
He sets a folder on my desk with a practiced flourish that I’ve come to love and hate, then j clearly resting on the edge of his tongue.
1/3
Chapter 56
“What?” 1 snap, not in the mood for wordplay, my eyes glued to my phone, as if I can will it to ring with good news about the threat having been eliminated.
He just shrugs and says matter–of–factly, “You’re just…tense today. And more than usual. I assume it’s not just the spreadsheets?”
I say nothing, again.
Then, in his maddeningly calm voice, he adds, “I had a thought that’s purely strategic, of course. If Harley was a security risk, you would’ve removed her from the board by now,”
My eyes flick to him like a knife, my voice sharper than a finely honed blade as I say, “Don’t say her name like that.”
“Like what?” he asks all innocently.
“Like she’s a pawn. Or a problem.”
He bows his head slightly in mock apology, but I can see the flicker of satisfaction behind his eyes. He got the reaction he wanted–conniving
bastard.
Griffin always knows how to push me without being too forceful. He doesn’t prod me with questions, but he laces his observations with open ends and lets me walk straight into them.
“You
think this threat is real?” he asks me after a moment.
“If the Covenant deigned by calling, it’s real,” I say.
He nods, then folds his arms, still watching me, and asks earnestly, “And what’s the next move?”
I glance at the monitor on the opposite wall, where the bookstore’s street cams now feed onto, soundlessly, yet in real–time–Holland had them linked to my secure network hours ago. My mouth had said ‘precaution” and my heart had said ‘obsession.” I chose to ignore both.
“Containment,” I murmur, my eyes not quite leaving the monitor.
“Of the threat?” Griffin asks.
My gaze lingers on the screen, where the blurry form of Harley walks past a display table inside her store. She’s carrying a box, then pauses to scold a rowdy kid running around her legs. And even though her face is barely visible, her posture is unmistakable–tired and worn.
“Of me,” I correct him.
Griffin’s silence stretches put long this time, but then he pushes away from the desk and heads and says cryptically, “You’ve already lost the battle, you know.”
“What battle?” I ask, wary of what his reply will be.
s for the door. As he leaves, he glances back once
“The one where you try to convince yourself you don’t care about her,” he states succinctly, and then he’s gone.
1, on the other hand, am left staring at the grainy outline of a woman I never meant to fall for, while the edges of my control begin to crack.
I pull the camera feed up on my phone and tuck it in my inside jacket pocket as I head out, passing Griffin’s desk wordlessly, calling it quits for the day.
Because someone out there might be coming for her. But I’d rather go to
