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I shake my head and look her over in the corner of my eye.

She looks like she’s survived something. Because she has. There’s something in the way she moves, in the set of her jaw. Like someone who earned their knowledge in the worst possible way.

I did that to her.

And I’m looking at her — this woman with egg in her hair and a sex-shop whip in her lap eating bacon at dawn in her studio apartment — and something in my chest is doing the thing that I have no word for, and I don’t want to feel it because feeling it means something I’m not ready to look at directly.

She looks up.

Our eyes meet.

Hers are hazel and sharp and they are not warm. This the gaze of a woman who has looked at a lot of dark things and learned to stare back. Fear-tainted venom.

I look back down at my plate.

“Why the fuck are you back?” she says. “What the fuck is with that note?”

I take a bite of egg. I set my fork down. I pause.

She pauses, too. I feel her studying me, really studying me.

“Do you still have fucking feelings for me?” she says. “After everything. After all of it.” Her voice drops. “Because everything you’ve done has left me with nothing but hate. And that’s not even the right word. I don’t know the right word. I wish I fucking did so I could spit it in your face. But whatever it is, it’s not something that gets better.”

The thing in my chest tightens.

“This isn’t about feelings,” I say. “It’s about what you know.”

She watches me.

“You know where bodies are buried. You saw something when Midnight had you — you know what I mean. And if you talk to law enforcement, I don’t want my name attached to what you say.” I pick up my fork again. Keep it easy. Keep it clean. “If there’s chaos in the Sons — if Midnight or the president or the VP get taken down — that makes room at the top. I want that room. That’s all.”

June looks at me for a long moment.

Then she rolls her eyes.

“So this is just a power play,” she says. “You see an opportunity, you sneak out, and now you think you can walk back through my door and use me. Again.” Her voice doesn‘t rise. It goes flat, which is worse. “Do you think I’m fucking stupid, Dylan?”

“No,” I say.

“Then don’t talk to me like I’m a fucking pawn.”

“I’m not.”

“You just listed me like a fucking asset.”

“I know how it sounds.”

“Great. So you know it sounds like you’re trying to run me. Control me. Use me. Same as always.” She puts her fork down. “Say the part that’s different. If there is one.”

I’m quiet for a second.

Then I reach down and pull the hem of my shirt up on the left side. The scar runs from just below my lowest rib to my hip — eight inches of it, white and ridged and old, the specific topography of a wound that almost killed me before someone had the sense to do something about it.

“You know what this is,” I say. “You know what it came from.”

She looks at it. Something in her face changes. Just a fraction.

“You pulled the blade out,” I say. “You packed it. You called for help when I told you not to because I was too fucking stupid and proud to admit how bad it was.” I pull my shirt back down. “I didn’t come back to run you. I came back because I owe you a debt I can’t walk away from and because you’ve got people coming for you who are serious and specific and I know who they are. That‘s all.” I pause. “You help me stay out of what you tell the law. I help keep you alive from what’s coming. That‘s the deal.”