Page 141 of Hunted

‘There’s a reason for that,’ I say. ‘We do not do well in each other’s company.’

‘Ah, you wound me.’

‘You’ll survive.’ I do not bother with pleasantries. ‘What were you doing in my territory?’

Silence hums across the line.

Even from nearly a thousand miles away, I feel the shift in him, humour draining out, tension tightening where mockery sat a moment before.

‘Careful where you level such accusations, Valentin.’

‘Do you deny it?’

‘I deny it because it is insulting,’ he says, each word edged now, ‘and incorrect. But I’m curious why you think I visited you.’

I let the silence stretch.

He exhales. I picture him pacing, hand at his jaw, eyes narrowed at nothing. ‘Rumours travel,’ he says, tone lighter but forced. ‘They say your countdown has finally arrived at your door. Perhaps you’re scenting ghosts because time has made you sentimental.’

He is fishing.

He wants to know whether the mark has awakened. Whether I am weakened. Whether New York is about to become vulnerable. ‘If I had become sentimental you would already have noticed the decline in standards.’

He laughs once, sharp and brief. ‘Still insufferable. Good. I’d hate to think mortality improved you.’

I do not reward that with a response.

‘This is easily resolved,’ he says, more measured now. ‘Extend an invitation. I will examine this evidence you claim and settle the matter in person.’

Rafael is reckless, arrogant, greedy and too fond of turning diplomacy into theatre, but I know his tells. I hear sincerity now, and something he would rather bite through his own hand than admit.

Alarm.

At the accusation. At the implication that a scent tied to him has moved through my city without his sanction.

‘Very well,’ I say. ‘Consider this a formal invitation. But be warned. Violate my hospitality in any way, and it will be considered an act of war. Agreed?’

‘Agreed.’

I do not like how quickly he says it.

‘Oh, and Navarro,’ I add, because I know him too well to leave the obvious unsaid, ‘you may bring three of your Seven.’

‘Four.’

My teeth grit. ‘Fine. Four.’

His satisfaction is audible. ‘I will be there at sundown.’

The line goes dead before I can revise the terms.

And as I lower the phone, wondering whether I have made a strategic correction or a spectacular error.

I suppose I will know in six hours.

Malachi’s voice enters my mind, composed now, stripped clean of the earlier fracture.

I will inform the others to prepare for his arrival.