"I need someone in Grayson City who reads like me," Marcus said. "Shadow Warriors are tracking movement patterns. If I disappear and you disappear simultaneously, the picture becomes clear." He held her gaze. "You're the decoy. Act accordingly."Cosmo processed this for three seconds. "So I stay here, pretend to be you, and attract assassins.""You enjoy it.""I—" She paused. "That's not the point.""Quinn stays too," Marcus said, glancing at his wife. "The Hartford Group needs you visible. Zachary's people are still watching for instability. Disappearing now gives them an opening."Quinn nodded once. The agreement was immediate and without performance — the Saintess's particular form of trust, which expressed itself not through declaration but through the simple absence of objection."I'll have Aaron's people supplement your security," Marcus continued. "And I'll make a call before I leave."He pulled out his phone and dialed.It rang twice."Marcus Steel." Amadeus Fairbanks answered

Miguel absorbed this without flinching. He reached into his jacket and produced a card. It was gold — not gold-colored, but the specific warm matte of something that had been made to a standard rather than a price point — and he held it out with both hands."Moonlight Group," he said. "Every property we operate in Five-River Province. Hotels, restaurants, retail. The card covers everything, no ceiling. Use it however you like, as long as you're here."Marcus took the card. Turned it once. Pocketed it."The car is yours for the duration," Miguel added, gesturing to the Maybach. "The driver knows the province. If you need anything else—""I'll use the card," Marcus said.Something in Miguel Abbott's posture shifted — not relief exactly, but the particular release of tension that came from having offered the right thing at the right time. He nodded once, turned to his own car — a Bentley Mulsanne in deep navy that had been idling at the curb — and paused with one hand on the door."You h

Elize picked up the menu. Simeon picked up the menu. The table settled into the particular quiet of three people who had arrived at the same location by different routes and were still working out what to do about it. The food, when Elize glanced at what Marcus was eating, looked considerably better than anything she'd had all day."It's good," Marcus said, without looking up. "The bass."Elize opened her mouth. Closed it. Ordered the bass.The man arrived twenty minutes later.He came from the bar area, which was visible from table fourteen through a half-partition of frosted glass, and he brought with him three companions whose primary quality was that they occupied space aggressively — wide stances, leather jackets in a room full of tailoring, the practiced physicality of people whose job description involved being noticed as a warning.He was mid-forties, dressed expensively in the way of someone who had learned what expensive looked like from a catalog rather than from experience

Calvin moved toward Elize.Marcus put down his fork.He stood up from his chair and stepped between Calvin and the table in the same motion — not fast in any theatrical sense, simply present where he hadn't been a moment before — and the first of Calvin's reach was redirected by a forearm block that sent the larger man's momentum sideways. Marcus's free hand came up and caught the second man's collar, and the specific application of force that followed used the man's own forward movement to deposit him into the partition on the left with a sound that the entire dining room heard.The third man came from the right with a bottle.Marcus didn't look at him. His elbow came back at the precise height and angle required, connected with the man's forearm, and the bottle went sideways onto the carpet without breaking.Silence.Three of Dalton's men were repositioning themselves on the floor or against the walls with the specific expressions of people revising their professional self-assessmen

She stood up, walked to the bar, took a bottle, and brought it down on Dalton's head with a force that surprised everyone including herself. The impact was emphatic enough that glass fragments flew sideways and landed on the table immediately to the right, where a man in a gray suit was eating a ribeye with the complete composure of someone who had decided, approximately fifteen minutes ago, that his best strategy for the evening was to simply continue eating his steak regardless of developments.A shard of glass landed on his plate.He looked at it. Looked at his steak. Picked up his knife and continued.Simeon sat back down. Her hands were shaking slightly, but her expression had the specific quality of someone who had done something they hadn't known they needed to do."Better?" Elize asked."Yes," Simeon said, with some surprise.The man in the gray suit appeared at the edge of the table. He was holding the remaining two beers from his table in one hand and his glass in the other,