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4:00.

A sleek black sedan pulled up to the corner.

Vale stepped out in a suit so perfect it felt like a personal attack. Kalon moved to let him in. The bell over the door gave one soft chime. When Vale came in, Kalon took a step into his path. They stared at each other.

“She only goes if she wants to.”

Vale smiled. “This is why he likes you.” He turned to me. “Ms. Heart?”

I grabbed my bag off the hook and walked around the counter before testosterone poisoned the espresso beans.

“Hi,” I said. “So, are we pretending this isn’t weird, or are we leaning in?”

Vale’s mouth ticked up. “Leaning in is usually faster.”

Kalon’s face made everything worse, because, apparently, everyone around me had joined a secret club whose first rule was Do Not Explain Shit To Liv.

I shoved the card into my pocket. “Love being the group project.”

Kalon’s voice stopped me at the door.

“Liv.”

I glanced back.

He stood behind the counter, hands braced on the wood, face pale but steady. Protective. Tired. Good in a way that made my heart ache.

“You sure?”

I almost laughed.

“I’m sure of absolutely nothing,” I said. “But if I die, delete my reading history.” I stepped outside. The black sedan waited at the curb, engine purring. Tinted windows. Illegal, expensive, very on brand. Vale opened the back door.

Chapter 22

Liv

The inside of the car smelled like leather, rain, and money. Old, filthy, demon-lord money. Money that said if I bled on the seats, someone would replace the leather before sunrise and apologize. I sat in the back with my hands clenched around my bag strap, trying not to breathe too loudly. Which only made my breathing feel louder. Go figure.

My phone sat in my lap. No new messages. Of course not. The masked psycho who had spent weeks invading my apartment, annotating my books, and making customer-service offenders apologize had gone quiet the second I climbed into his car.

The tower appeared between two buildings ahead, black glass cutting into the late-afternoon gray. Lux Tower. I had been inside once before with a flower arrangement clutched in both hands. That time, I kept my eyes down, handed over the black box, signed the manifest, and fled. The Lux Corp logo glowed a faint silver across the front. Wards hummed around the structure in layers, pressing against my skin, curious and careful, tasting my pulse.

Friend or foe?

I had forgotten how huge everything felt up close. Or maybe my brain had filed the first visit under Things Liv Survived Through Strategic Blanking Out. Vale pulled up to the curb and put the car in park. The lobby beyond the front doors stretched wide and financially judgmental.

Neither of us moved. He turned in his seat and studied me over his shoulder. “Last chance to bail.”

My fingers tightened on my bag.

He nodded toward the street. “I’ll take you home. He’ll be pissed, but he’ll get over it.”

That sounded like a lie.

Home meant cold tea in my sink, rent due in six days, paperback stacks, and a doorframe carved up by a man who believed security cameras counted as intimacy.

The tower meant answers. A demon lord’s skyline. A masked man who had somehow found every impossible want I’d never said out loud and made them a reality.