로그인Chapter 45The CleanerGlass rained down on us.Kael's body covered mine from head to knee. His breath was hot against my temple, fast and uneven. I could feel every muscle in his back lock tight when another round hit the dome."Don't move," he said."I'm not the one with a bullet in her ribs.""Neither am I."He was lying. I knew it the way I knew my own name. His voice had gone tight on the last word, and something warm and wet was soaking into my sleeve where his arm pressed against me."Kael.""Quiet."His hand moved to the back of my head and pressed it down against the floor. His fingers were shaking. He tried to hide it by flattening them against my hair.The footsteps came closer. Slow. A woman's heels on old boards, tapping, one then the other."Cousin Kael." The voice was light and pleased. "How scandalous. Roland said you'd be tempted. I owed him a wager, and now I owe him a bottle of very good wine."My blood went cold.I had heard that voice described once, in a file. Ma
Chapter 44Midnight at the ObservatoryInes and Micah were settled upstairs by ten.I gave myself one hour before midnight and spent it badly. I changed my blouse twice. The first was too formal. The second was too soft. I put on the first again. I pinned my hair up, looked at it, and took it down. I put it up again.Down the hall, Ines's door was shut. Micah had fallen asleep on top of the covers with his shoes still on, and she had curled around him like she was afraid someone would take him in the night. I had stood in the doorway for a minute, and then I had made myself walk away."This is a business meeting," I told the mirror.The mirror didn't believe me.Somewhere deep in my chest, something stirred. My wolf had been silent my whole life, and in all those years I had never once felt it do this. It felt amused. I pressed a hand to my ribs and told it to be quiet.At 11:20 I took the car to the observatory.It sat on the hill behind the Moonlight estate, an old stone dome nobody
Chapter 43DorianKael pulled his shirt on too fast.He got one arm in and stopped, jaw tight. The tape across his ribs shifted and I saw him breathe in through his teeth. He tried the other sleeve. His hand missed the opening."Let me," I said."No."I was already across the room. I held the sleeve open. He looked at it, then at me, and for a second I thought he'd walk out half dressed rather than accept help. Then he put his arm through. My fingers brushed his side, just under the bruise.He went completely still.Neither of us said anything. His skin was hot. I could feel his pulse under my fingertips, fast and hard. I took my hand back."You didn't send the envelope," I said."No.""Then who did?"He opened his mouth. Then both of us turned toward the door at the same moment. We had heard the same thing: a slow, unhurried clap of hands.A man leaned in the doorway.He wore a charcoal suit that fit like it had been sewn on him. No tie, collar open, hair combed back. He looked about
Chapter 42The Price of ObedienceNobody moved.I counted six guns. Four pointed at me. Two pointed at Kael. Three exits: the main door that had just closed, a side door past the crates on the left, and a loading hatch up on the second level. Silas had not signaled back. My phone was in my coat pocket and I couldn't touch it.I kept my face blank and my hands where everyone could see them. My heart was going so hard it hurt, but nobody in that room was going to see it. I had sat across from board members who wanted me gone. I knew how to look calm when I wasn't.Roland looked relaxed. He rested both hands on his cane like we were discussing the weather. Then he reached into his jacket, took out a black pistol, and held it out to Kael. Handle first."Prove it," he said. "Put a bullet in Adrian Silver's knee. He has outlived his usefulness."Adrian went white. "What?" His eyes jumped to the door, to the men, to Kael. He took a step back and a guard shoved him forward again.Nobody looke
Chapter 41The Harbor DealAt 9:40 that night, the parking structure smelled of oil and wet concrete and something older, like a held breath.Level three. Half the lights were dead. The ones that still burned buzzed overhead in a sick yellow hum, and between them the dark lay pooled in the corners. Rain drummed on the roof above, a distant, hollow roar. Water dripped from a broken gutter in a slow, patient tick.Kael's car idled at the end of the row.Black. Engine low. The headlights were off, but the dashboard glow lit his hands on the wheel, and I could see them from where I stood. I had walked the length of the structure in the dark with my heels clicking on the concrete, and I had not once looked behind me. My coat was buttoned to the throat. In my right hand, I held a small square of black card, its edges soft with handling, a single dahlia printed on it in ink so dark it seemed to swallow the light.My thumb stroked the flower.I stopped three paces from his window."You were t
Chapter 40UnguardedMid-morning light fell through the glass wall of the executive conference room and lay across the table in long, pale blades.I sat at the head of it.The table was forty feet of black-veined glass, polished until it gave back every face that leaned over it, and I could see mine from where I sat. Hollow-cheeked. Gray under the eyes. A woman who had slept in forty-minute pieces for a week and was running on spite and bad coffee. The charcoal jacket I had put on that morning hung loose at the shoulders, and the silver pendant lay cold in the notch of my collarbone.Around the table, the room waited.Four senior board members, their hands folded, their faces carefully blank. Two physicians on the wall screen, framed in neat rectangles, one of them with his mask pulled down around his throat. A secretary with a notepad at the sideboard, pen frozen over the page. And two chairs down from me, on the right, sat Kael.He was there because of the twenty percent.His stake







