Page 132 of What We Become

She pulls back enough to look at me, her eyes bright, her cheeks flushed, her hair a disaster. “Definitely the most romantic of them.”

I kiss her gently, then lower her to the ground, keeping a hand on her hip when her legs wobble. The grateful, amused, and utterly wrecked look she gives me is one I’d happily replay for the rest of my life.

I fix her skirt. Tuck myself away. And while she’s running her fingers through her hair, the door to the alley opens and a burst of laughter tumbles out.

I spin, already stepping in front of Sage, my hand finding her waist to steady her as my eyes track the threat. Three figures stumble through—two women and a man, all laughing, clearly drunk, clearly harmless. They pass us and disappear onto the street. My pulse doesn’t slow. Half that bar knows my name, and I didn’t think about that once tonight—not when Val said it out loud across a crowded room, not when I walked her down an alley I hadn’t looked into first.

“That was close,” I say, shifting back a little.

Sage laughs. “Do I look like I was just fucked in an alley?”

“You look like you were very thoroughly appreciated in an outdoor venue.”

“That’s the same thing.”

“It sounds better my way.”

“I think Milo’s rubbing off on you.” She grabs my shirt and pulls me in for one last kiss—slow, unhurried, the kind that says thank you and I love you and take me home all at once.

“I like it when you take me on dates and then fuck me in public,” she murmurs against my mouth.

“I’ll take you on as many as you want.” I brush a strand of hair from her face, tucking it behind her ear. “Every week. Every day. As long as you’ll let me.”

She studies me in the low light. The bar hums behind us. The city murmurs beyond the alley. Her hand rests on my chest, right over my heart, and she leaves it there like she’s counting the beats.

“Take me home, Micah.”

I take her hand. We walk back to the car.

The drive home is quiet in the best way—her hand on my thigh, the radio low, the streetlights painting her face in stripes of gold and shadow. She falls asleep before we hit the highway, her head tipped against the window, and I drive slow because there’s nowhere I need to be that isn’t wherever she is.

This moment. This woman. This life.

I’d choose it every time.

THIRTY-ONE

MILO

The packet trace is garbage.

I’ve been running it for three hours and the only thing it’s confirmed is that Stephen Mercer-Davis knows how to disappear like a man who studied disappearing. Cash withdrawals in Ohio, a burner phone pinged once outside Pittsburgh, a gas station camera in Maryland that caught the back of a baseball cap. After that—nothing. The Annapolis marina. The boat. And a data trail that drops off the edge of the earth like the planet ran out of road.

Everything exactly as Odin said.

Fuck.

I lean back in my chair and stare at the server racks. They hum at me. Loyal, constant, doing their best.

“We’ll find him,” I tell them. “We always find them.”

The servers don’t respond, which is rude but expected.

My phone has a bunch of unread messages from Odin’s secure channel—new assignments, target profiles, the machinery of the Hangmen resuming operations like we didn’t just spend a month in a cabin, carving wood and having orgasms in hot tubs. I scroll through the briefs. Two possibles in the metro area. One in Portland that Holden’s already flagged to put forward as our next target during Tuesday’s in-person meeting.

I set the phone back down and sigh.

The wheels turn. The list refreshes. There’s always another predator.