The Night Before

Marlo

The storm had passed, leaving behind a thick, freezing fog that clung to the dark glass of the windows. Outside, the world was completely blacked out. Pier 42 lay somewhere in that darkness a concrete trap waiting for us with open jaws.

I sat on the edge of the massive, unmade bed, wrapped in a thick wool blanket. My knees were pulled up to my chest, my toes numb. Every muscle in my body ached, exhausted from the sheer emotional toll of the last twelve hours. The video of Cal bleeding in that chair was burned onto the inside of my eyelids. Siobhan’s warm, maternal smile behind the barrel of that revolver made my stomach turn into tight, sickening knots.

Beside the dark fireplace, Jarrah sat at a low mahogany writing desk.

He had stripped off his tactical gear, wearing only a plain black shirt with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows. A single tallow candle burned on the corner of the wood, casting long, dancing shadows across his hard profile. The light caught the silver lines of scar tissue on his arms and the harsh, hollow line of his jaw.

In his right hand, he held an old-fashioned fountain pen.

I watched him quietly. I had seen Jarrah Vance command a room full of syndicate lieutenants without raising his voice. I had seen him crack a man's bones on the ice without breaking a sweat. He was a predator, a prince of Melbourne's underbelly, a man whose very name made corporate board members sweat through their expensive suits.

But sitting there in the candlelight, his broad shoulders slightly hunched over a single sheet of heavy parchment, the terrifying captain completely vanished.

There was no pride left in him. No dark arrogance. Just a man stripped down to his raw, beating heart.

His hand moved slowly across the paper, the quiet scratch of the nib echoing softly in the stillness. He wrote with painstaking care, his knuckles split and bruised from the cafeteria fight. Every time he paused, his thumb would trace the edge of the paper as if he were touching something holy.

A quiet, painful ache bloomed deep in my chest.

For ten years, I thought he was the shadow hunting me down. I thought he was the monster holding the key to my prison. But as I looked at him now, feeling the intense, protective heat that hovered over the room like an invisible shield, the truth was brutally clear. He had spent his entire youth burning his own life to ashes just to make sure I kept breathing.

"What are you writing?" I asked, my voice barely a thread in the dark room.

Jarrah didn't stop writing immediately. The pen completed one last flourish at the bottom of the page before he slowly set it down in the groove of the wooden desk.

He didn't turn around to face me. "An insurance policy," he rasped, his voice rough and low, thick with a dark, heavy weight.

I let the blanket slip off my shoulders and walked bare footed across the cold rug. I stopped right behind his chair, resting my hands gently on his broad shoulders. The tension in his muscles was like twisted wire, but the moment my fingers touched his skin, a long, quiet breath left his lungs.

I leaned down, looking over his shoulder at the cream parchment.

The handwriting was neat, dark, and slanted. At the top was my full legal name: Marlo Cleary.

It wasn't a tactical plan. It wasn't a land registry document. It was a letter. A confession.

 "If you are reading this, it means I didn't make it off the pier tonight. It means the fire finally caught up with me. Do not look back for me, little bird. Everything I own, every shipping line, every vault, and every piece of ground my family stole is legally transferred to your name in the attached schedules. You were never meant to hide in my shadow. You were meant to rule it. Live. Rule them. And remember that every drop of blood I spilled was because I loved you long before I ever had the right to touch your skin."

Tears prickled violently behind my eyes, hot and sharp. My throat locked up so hard I couldn't speak.

"Jarrah" I choked out, my fingers digging into the fabric of his shirt. "No. Don't write this. We're going together. We're coming back together."

Jarrah stood up slowly, turning in the narrow space between the chair and the desk. He didn't answer with words. His large, calloused hands came up to frame my face, his thumbs gently wiping away the hot tear that escaped down my cheek. His amber eyes burned into mine with an absolute, terrifying devotion that made my heart shatter into a thousand pieces.

"I'm getting you out of Pier 42, Marlo," he murmured, his forehead coming to rest against mine. His breath was warm, smelling of dark coffee and rain. "No matter what happens down there. No matter how many of them stand in the way. You walk off that dock alive."

"Not without you," I sobbed softly, pressing my palm against his chest, feeling the wild, furious beat of his heart. "I won't leave you behind."

"You won't have a choice," he whispered against my lips, his touch so painfully soft it made my soul bleed.

He pulled back just an inch. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a small, silver folding knife, and flicked the blade open with a quiet click.

Before I could ask what he was doing, Jarrah brought the sharp edge of the blade against the tip of his left index finger. He pressed down without a flinch, letting a single, dark red drop of blood well up on his skin.

He folded the letter on the desk, slid it into a heavy black envelope, and pressed his blood-stained thumb directly over the paper seal.

The red mark soaked into the paper, sealing the letter tight. A blood vow.

"If I fall tonight," Jarrah rasped, placing the heavy envelope directly into my hands, "you open this. You take the keys inside, you take Cal, and you run."

"Jarrah, please"

"Promise me, Marlo," he growled softly, his hand tightening around mine until the paper crumpled slightly. "Promise me."

I stared into his amber eyes, drowning in the fierce, unyielding love burning inside them. I couldn't speak. I just gave a slow, agonized nod.

He let out a ragged breath, pulling me back into his arms. I buried my face in the crook of his neck, breathing in his skin, holding on to him as if the world were ending right outside our door.

The candle on the desk flickered violently as a draft cut through the room.

I opened my eyes, looking past Jarrah's shoulder toward the dark, fog covered windowpane overlooking the bay.

My blood ran instantly to pure ice water.

Floating on the glass, right over the center of the dark window, was a tiny, vibrant red dot.

It didn't stay still. It danced slowly across the glass, slid over the dark curtains, and moved with terrifying precision straight onto the back of Jarrah's neck.

A sniper's laser.

"Jarrah," I whispered, the word freezing in my throat as my eyes widened in pure, unadulterated horror.

Before he could react, a deafening crash shattered the silence of the night as a heavy tactical flashbang grenade blew through the glass window, blinding the room in a flash of white light.