Page 157 of The Final Cut

I set the mug down. “Get some sleep.”

Shiloh’s laugh is quiet and humorless. “That was abrupt.”

“You’re swaying.”

Shiloh rolls his eyes. “Fuck you. I am standing rhythmically.”

“You are swaying.”

Ever says, “You do look like shit.”

“Thank you, Rousseau. I was worried no one noticed my decline.”

“Sleep,” I say.

Shiloh glances toward the hall. The humor drains as quickly as it came. “Reva’s going to need someone. I can almost guarantee you she’s not sleeping right now.”

I already know this.

The need sits under my breastbone, sharp and inconvenient. I want to be the one beside her. I want to go into that bedroom, pull her against me, and be the wall between her and every truth that found her tonight. But I also know what my hands are full of now. Routes. Men. Marisol. Cal. Isabel. Succession. The next move.

Ever looks at Shiloh. Something silent passes between them, old as their bond and steady as anything I have built.

“We got her,” Shiloh says.

Ever nods. “Go think.”

For a moment, I let myself look at them. Shiloh exhausted, hollowed out, still ready to sit beside Reva until daylight if she needs him. Ever wired tight, already halfway back to his screens, terrifyingly calm because panic has to get through him before it touches her.

Mine, I think again. All of them.

This impossible family of killers, liars, broken sisters, old ghosts, and one orange cat currently chewing on a very expensive hotel throw pillow.

I nod.

Then I turn toward the office, pull out my phone, and start making the calls that will change the war.

DELIA

AGE 22

Cal took a bullet for her.

Of course he did.

I think I hated him for one breath. Maybe two. Not because he saved her, but because he had the right to.

He knew where to stand. He knew what she needed.

He got fifteen years of scraped knees, bad dreams, birthdays, breakfasts, ordinary mornings.

While I got fucking Isabel.

Then Reva looked at me, bleeding and terrified and alive, and the hatred went out of me so fast it left bruises.

She is my sister.

Still.