Page 151 of The Final Cut

A laugh breaks out of me. It’s thin and frayed, more a protest than anything mirthful.

He leans across the console and presses his mouth to my forehead. His lips stay there for a few seconds too long, and I let them because my body is tired of being brave in public.

“You scared me,” he says.

“I didn’t mean to.”

“I know.” His voice roughens. “Still did.”

“I had to see him.”

“I know that too.”

He kisses my forehead once more, then sits back and puts the SUV in gear.

We pull out from under the loading bay and rejoin the wet streets, following whatever path Ever has built through the city. This time, I don’t look in the side mirror. I keep my eyes forward, one hand wrapped around the seat belt and the other resting palm-up on the console.

After a moment, Shiloh takes it.

Neither of us speaks again until the hotel lights appear ahead, bright and polished and temporary.

Another gilded cage. Another place Isabel will try to find. This time, though, something is different.

This time, when she reaches for me, we’ll be reaching back.

We’ve hit our limit.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

NASH

NASH

The elevator reaches the penthouse at 3:17 in the morning.

I know because I am watching the numbers climb on the security feed with my phone in one hand, a gun on the table beside me, and a cup of coffee gone cold near my wrist. Ever stands at the dining room console with his laptop open, one earbud in, tracking the path he built for Shiloh through the city. He has not sat down since the call came in. I haven’t asked him to.

Neither of us would listen if the other tried.

The private elevator slows. My hand closes around the gun, more habit than anything else.

Ever glances at the screen. “It’s them.”

Shiloh comes through first, jaw set hard enough to change the shape of his face. He has one arm around Reva, guiding her without making it look like she needs help. That is for her pride, not mine. I can see the state she’s in before they take three steps into the room.

Shaking. Badly.

Her hair is coming loose from its braid. The hood of her sweatshirt hangs back, damp along the edges. Her face is pale beneath the bright penthouse lights, eyes too large, mouth locked around whatever she has not let herself say. There’s no blood on her that I can see, but I look anyway, carefully. Hands. Sleeves. Throat. Waist. Legs. No obvious injury. No glass. No red flowers blooming through fabric.

Alive.

Beside me, Ever exhales through his nose, sharp and quiet.

Reva’s eyes find mine.

For half a second, everything in the suite stops. The hotel, the men posted beyond the door, Delia standing barefoot in the hallway with one hand on her doorframe, the scattered remains of room service no one finished. All of it fades down to the girl in front of me, trembling after bullets and hospitals and a dead mother who’s no longer dead.

Something in me settles into an ancient kind of calm.