"Someone else." Cassandra's voice had gone thin, the office suddenly feeling smaller than it had a minute ago. "What are you talking about? Who else would have any stake in what happened to Killian?"Diane crossed to the window, putting distance between herself and her daughter before she answered, the way she always did when a conversation required more honesty than she was comfortable giving face to face."Two years ago, when you came to me shaking, covered in Jack Moore's blood, telling me you'd killed a man I'd never even heard of—" Diane's voice stayed level through sheer force of will. "I panicked. Not for you. I want to be honest with you, finally, about that much. I panicked for this company. A murder charge attached to the Ashbourne name would have collapsed everything my father built in one news cycle.""I know all this, Mother. I lived it.""You lived the part where I begged Killian on my knees. You didn't live the part where I made a call the same night, to a man I'd hoped

Killian set the phone down, and something in his stillness made both women lean forward instinctively."They know we're together," Cassandra said. "Right now. At this table.""They've known everything since before I walked out of that prison." Killian's voice stayed level, though the words landed heavier than his tone let on. "Which means this was never about catching us off guard. It's about timing. Whoever this is wants me at that address at a moment they've already chosen, and they've been arranging the pieces to get me there since long before today."Diane's hands had gone still on the table. "You're not actually considering going alone.""I'm considering that whoever sent this message could have told Cassandra everything two days ago and didn't. They're saving it for a reason." Killian turned the phone toward Chen, who'd gone quiet the way he always did when calculating something dangerous. "They said Reyes wanted me inside Deadmoo, and it has nothing to do with the Order. That c

The coffee shop's ordinary noise — the espresso machine, low conversation, a bell over the door — suddenly felt like static against the words on the screen."He's here." Cassandra's voice had dropped to barely above a whisper. "Today. In this city.""Which means whoever's outside that door right now could already be him." Chen's chair scraped back an inch, instinct taking over before thought caught up. "Killian. We need to move. Now, not after we finish deciding what this means."Killian was already scanning the shop the way he'd learned to scan a prison yard — exits, blind spots, the two men by the window who hadn't touched their coffee in the last ten minutes. Neither of them had moved since Killian first noticed them, which in itself told him something. Ordinary people fidgeted. Ordinary people checked their phones, glanced at the menu board, shifted in their seats. These two sat like men who'd been trained to be still."Don't look at them," Killian said quietly, gaze sliding past

"Absolutely not." Killian's voice cut through the alley before Cassandra could even process the message fully. "You're not walking into a meeting with the woman who's been orchestrating your family's ruin for two years, alone, because she asked nicely in a text.""She didn't ask nicely. She's making it clear she'll come to me eventually whether I agree or not." Cassandra's hands had stopped shaking, something colder and more deliberate settling into her expression instead — the boardroom stillness Killian remembered from before everything fell apart between them. "If this is about me, Killian, then it needs to be me who answers it. You spent two years paying for a debt that was never yours. I won't let you spend a third.""That's not nobility. That's guilt talking, and guilt makes people careless." Chen's voice carried the same flat authority he'd used on Killian a hundred times inside Deadmoo's walls. "Colette Vance doesn't offer meetings out of courtesy, Ms. Ashbourne. She offers th

The warehouse door swung shut behind Colette, leaving the three of them alone in the gray afternoon light filtering through painted-over windows. For a long moment, no one spoke. Chen was the first to break the silence, crossing from his position by the door to check the street outside through a gap in the blackout paint."She's gone," he said. "No car waiting, no escort. Either she walked here, or someone's picking her up somewhere we can't see.""Doesn't matter how she leaves." Killian rose from the table, something restless moving through him now that the negotiation was over and the actual danger had finally been named. "What matters is what she just told us. Aiden Cross is already in this city, and he doesn't send warnings."Cassandra remained seated, staring at the empty chair across from her like she could still see Colette sitting in it. "Thirty days," she said quietly. "I bought us thirty days, and she made it sound like a countdown to something worse than the Order deciding