Page 29 of Prospect’s Curvy Vinyl Girl

"So I used the network. I used my laptop. I hacked into their centralized server. I fabricated an offshore bank account in his name, moved twenty thousand dollars of the Syndicate’s money into it, and planted a flawless trail of encrypted emails making it look like he’s been ratting out his lieutenant to the feds since November."

Her jaw drops. "You framed him."

"I erased him," I correct, fiercely. "I sent the package to his boss an hour ago. By dawn, his own people will drag him out of his apartment. They’ll handle their own trash. He’ll disappear, and the Syndicate will think they plugged a leak. Your name isn't anywhere near it. The shop is safe. You’re safe."

She stares at me. The magnitude of what I did, of how I dismantled the threat to protect her, crashes over her.

This is it. The bleeding truth of who I am. The festering wound I have carried for four years.

"For years," I whisper, the confession ripping out of my chest, harsh and unpolished. "I’ve been nothing, Wendy. I’ve been Tom from Portland. I’ve been a long-haul trucker with a different name. A barback in a dive bar with another. A ghost who walks into rooms and wears a fake face so the club stays safe. I ran so many covers my identity vanished years ago. I was hollow. I slept in a bunk near the wall with a packed bag. I was just a tool waiting to be used and discarded."

I press my forehead against her collarbone, feeling her rapid pulse hammering against my skin.

"But tonight..." I close my eyes. The fated certainty of the Ignition settles into my marrow, anchoring my soul. "Tonight, sitting in the dark, I knew who I was. I’m yours. I used every piece of that shadow life, every phantom digital file, every trick I learned in the back-alleys, to build an iron wall around you. I’ll burn down the world from the inside out to keep you safe. I’ll manipulate the board, I’ll frame them, I’ll slaughter them. Whatever it takes. I’ll never let a threat touch you. You’re mine. That's all there is to it."

The silence in the small room rings, broken only by the ragged sound of my breathing.

Then, her hands land on my face.

She grips my jaw, her fingers strong and demanding, forcing my head up.

Tears shine in her dark eyes. But she isn't crying from fear. She isn't shrinking away from the reality of what I've done. She looks at me like I’m the only real, solid thing in this rotting town.

She doesn't say thank you. She doesn't need to.

She leans down and crashes her mouth against mine.

It’s a fierce, desperate, claiming kiss. It isn't sexual. It’s pure devotion. She tastes like black coffee and defiance. She opens her mouth under mine, demanding everything, accepting all the darkness, all the violence, all the obsessive control I offer her.

I wrap my arms around her, burying her against my chest. I crush her to me as the vinyl record on the turntable sits perfectly silent. The Tuesday Enforcer is a dead man. The Syndicate remains blind. And the woman in my arms is never, ever going to be alone again.

9

Wendy

The harsh glare of the single bulb over the milk crate illuminates the surveillance photos scattered across my mattress. Black-and-white glossies. Grainy prints. The terrifying, undeniable proof of a hunt I never even knew was happening.

A photo of me taking out the trash in the alley behind the shop. The date stamp is from last November.

A photo of me unlocking the front door of the Vinyl Vault. The angle is high. Taken from the roof of the pharmacy across the street. Date stamp: March.

A close-up of my face through the windshield of my car, stopped at the single traffic light on Main Street.

Bile rises hot and sour in my throat. I push the glossy prints away. They slide off the edge of the mattress and hit the scuffed oak floor of the back room. Seven months. The Tuesday Enforcer—Martino—has been watching me breathe for months. He built a dossier on my existence. He tracked my habits, my hours, the way I tie my boots in the morning. He cataloged my life for the Syndicate.

A calloused hand lands on my shoulder.

Heat radiates from the touch, burning through my skin and settling in my chest. The scent of dark roast coffee and clean sweat wraps around me. Tyler.

"Stop looking at them." His voice is low in the quiet room.

"He took a picture of me buying oat milk at the bodega, Tyler." My voice shakes. I hate that it shakes. I clamp my jaw shut.

"Martino is gone." Tyler’s thumb strokes the curve of my neck. The gesture is grounding. An anchor dropped in the middle of a storm. "He’s currently answering to a very angry Syndicate lieutenant about twenty thousand dollars in missing extortion funds and an offshore account traced to his IP address. He’ll never walk down this street again. He’ll never look at you again."

I tilt my head back. Tyler stands over me, terrifying and mine. The plain black t-shirt stretches across his broad chest. His dark eyes are focused. He doesn't look like "Tom from Portland" right now. He looks like the operative. The Broken Halos ghost. The man who dismantled a Syndicate threat at two in the morning with nothing but a burner laptop and a lethal devotion.

"You framed him for stealing from his own bosses."