Page 91 of Vows of Ruin

He disappears through the swinging door and comes back a few minutes later with boxes stacked neatly in his arms. “Tell Torque he still owes me for those custom rounds.”

“Add it to our tab.” Max says.

We trade small talk while Max pulls out his credit card. It’s the kind of normal conversation that’s become its own armor. Safe, predictable… human. For a few minutes, it almost works.

Then we’re back on the street, heading past the row of storefronts until something bright in a window catches my eyes. Dresses. Soft fabric. A splash of color against the gray. I tug on Max’s sleeve.

“Come on,” I tell him. “We’re going in.”

He blinks at the sign. “A boutique. You have enough clothes to dress an army.”

I grin. “You’ll live.” I drag him inside before he can protest. The air smells like lavender and new fabric. Mirrors everywhere, catching pieces of us from every angle. He stands awkwardly near a rack of sweaters while I flip through hangers.

“This feels familiar.” He says.

I glance at him through the mirror. “Last time we went shopping like this, you ended up in the dressing room with me. On your knees”

He smirks. “You started that, Sparrow.”

“I did not.”

“You absolutely did.” He steps closer, voice dropping. “You keep looking at me like that and maybe I’ll have to follow you in one again.”

I laugh, shaking my head. “You’re impossible.”

“And you like it.”

The air between us hums. Same charge as that day, warm, daring, dangerous in a way that has nothing to do with weapons or war. I turn, ready with a comeback, but something in the corner of the mirror catches my eye. A woman steps through the door, looking directly at me. I tense slightly.

Max catches it immediately. “What is it?”

“That woman,” I whisper, nodding with my head.

Before he can answer, the woman’s voice cuts in, friendly and calm. “Mrs. Hayes-Blackwood?”

We both turn. She’s standing a few feet away, an envelope in her hands. No fear in her eyes. No tremor in her voice.

“I have something for you,” She says, as if she’s handing over a receipt. “I think you’ll understand when you read it.”

My heart thuds once, hard. The envelope is cream-colored, sealed with red wax, the serpent pressed into the seal. The paper smells faintly of the same cologne, the one that used to cling to the notes left for me.

Max steps forward, placing himself a step in front of me. “Who gave it to you?”

The woman’s expression doesn’t change. She lifts her hand to tuck hair behind her ear, and that’s when I see it, a small tattoo curling up her wrist. The serpent biting its tail. Black ink. Precise. Not new.

Her eyes meet mine, steady. “He said to tell you it’s time.”

The bell above the door chimes once as she turns and walks out, unhurried, like she didn’t just drop a bomb in the middle of our morning. Outside, the idling car is still there, dark windows, engine low and steady. She slips into the back seat, and the car pulls away without so much as a glance.

Max exhales, jaw tight. “Tell me that’s not what I think it is.” He says, slipping a gun, I never saw him draw back into his waistband.

I look down at the envelope. My name is written in the same looping handwriting I never wanted to see again.

“It’s him,” I say quietly. “Sebastian.”

Back in the car, I sit staring at the envelope. It’s in my lap like something alive, edges catching the light, the seal bleeding dark red. I can’t make myself touch it. I just stare at it while Max drives.

He glances over every few seconds, jaw tight, one hand steady on the wheel. The city blurs by outside, sunlight flashing through glass, the roar of traffic swallowed by the silence inside the car.