Callum nodded, stepping back from the chair. Davish sagged in his bonds, blood dripping steadily onto the concrete. The puddle had grown considerably since they’d started.

  He crossed to the steel sink in the corner, pulling off the brass knuckles and letting them clatter against the metal basin as he turned on the water. The blood melted down the drain, disappearing into the city’s sewers where it would join a thousand other secrets.

  He washed methodically—under the nails, between the fingers, up to the wrists. When his hands were clean, he dried them on a gray towel that’d seen too many beatings like this, then pulled his rings from a small dish by the sink.

  Each one slid back into place with the comfort of routine—the onyx band on his left thumb, the two gold ones on his right pointer and ring finger, the copper rose one went on his left pinky, matching the mark his workers wore.

  “It seems we’ll have to cut this short,” he said, turning back to Davish. “You’ve given me something useful. That buys your life, but actions still have consequences.”

  The relief on Davish’s face was quickly drowned out with fresh fear.

  “Take one of his fingers,” Callum ordered his guards as he flexed his bruised knuckles. “The one that would’ve worn his marriage band, I think. Poetic, considering where he put his hands.”

  “No, please—” Davish’s protest dissolved into sobbing.

  “Wait until dark,” Callum continued, adjusting his cuffs. “Then drop him at the clinic doors. The ones in Heart South. Let them see what happens when the elites abuse their power in my territory.”

  “No!” Davish screamed, thrashing against his restraints. “Please! I have a family!”

  Callum turned his face toward him, something cold settling behind his mask. “So does Marina.”

  He approached Davish one last time, bending down to speak directly into his ear. “When you heal—if you heal—remember this: my rules aren’t suggestions. They’re commandments. Break them again, and I’ll take your hand. Break them a third time, and no one will ever find your body.”

  He straightened, nodding to the guards. Davish’s pleading dissolved into incoherent sobs as Callum walked toward the door. He didn’t look back, didn’t flinch when the first scream pierced the air behind him.

  Justice in the Heart was rarely clean.

  The sound followed Callum up the stairs, growing fainter with each step until the club’s music drowned it out entirely.

  His workers deserved protection. Safety. The ability to earn their living without fear of men who thought a Heart address made them untouchable. If that protection came at the cost of blood on concrete and fingers in boxes, so be it.

  The music hit him first as he pushed open his office door—not the club’s pounding bass but something classical floating from the speakers he’d forgotten he owned. Lira stood with her back to him, silhouetted against the glass wall that looked down onto the main floor, her body held in perfect stillness that only years of Heart training could produce. She’d traded her usual formal attire for training gear—fitted black pants and a sleeveless top that revealed lean muscle she’d built over months of sessions he’d apparently forgotten about tonight.

  “Shit,” Callum muttered, closing the door behind him.

  Lira turned, one eyebrow arched behind her rose gold mask. “Eloquent as always.”

  “Sorry I’m late, Li.” He moved to his desk, avoiding her gaze. The office still smelled faintly of the cigarettes he’d quit smoking three months ago, though he kept a pack in the top drawer for nights when the walls felt suffocating. “Got held up with business.”

  Her eyes dropped to his hands, catching on his reddened knuckles that were starting to swell.

  “Who crossed you this time?” she asked with the kind of directness that only came from years of knowing his patterns.

  Callum considered lying, then dismissed the thought. Lira could read him better than anyone, even Greyson. It was one of the things that made her dangerous to be around. Made her dangerous for him to be around. Not because she would share his secrets, but because he couldn’t hide from her.

  “Some distribution council functionary thought he could force himself on one of my girls.” He moved to the bar cart in the corner, pouring himself three fingers of whiskey. “Marina. You’ve met her—the redhead who runs the upper floor.”

  “Is she all right?”

  “She will be.” The whiskey burned down his throat, washing away the metallic taste that always lingered after violence. “Three broken ribs, bruised windpipe. Nothing that won’t heal physically. Mentally…” Callum’s words trailed off.

  “And the functionary?”

  Callum poured a second glass, offering it to her. She took it but immediately set it back on the cart. “Next time he’ll think twice.”

  Lira knew what Callum was in some ways, knew the intricacies of his world and the brutality that filled the dark corners of his life. But he always spared her the details, kept her at arm’s length from the blood that was on his hands. She could handle it, he had no doubt of that, he just didn’t want her to have to. She saw enough pain, enough violence in her own life, she didn’t need to carry the weight of his too.

  She took a step closer, close enough that he could smell the subtle scent she wore—something clean and expensive that reminded him of spring and Callum steeled himself as the palm of her hand found his chest. Her fingers ran over his collar as her eyes dragged up to his. Her presence had always overwhelmed him, an electric current—a magnetic pull that refused to release him.

  He drew in a measured breath, trying to steady his heartbeat, trying to calm his pulse so she couldn’t feel it against her skin.

  “Please be careful, Callie,” Lira whispered, her hand finding the side of his masked face and cupping his cheek.

  He hated the nickname, but coming from her lips—she could call him anything.

  Her touch sent a shiver through him, warmth dancing across his skin. He knew he shouldn’t let her get this close, shouldn’t allow himself these moments of weakness. But when it came to Lira, his restraint always crumbled.

  He swallowed hard, his throat suddenly dry despite the whiskey. “I’m always careful,” he murmured, the words unconvincing even to his own ears.

  Lira’s thumb brushed over his cheekbone, tracing the edge of his mask. “Liar.” There was no accusation in her tone, just a soft sadness that made his chest ache.

  Callum fought the urge to lean into her touch, to close his eyes and let himself forget, just for a moment, who she was. Who he was, and the line he wasn’t allowed to cross.

  He stepped back, letting her hand fall away. The loss of contact felt like a hollow space opening behind his ribs. “We should get started. Your brother will have my head if he thinks I’m slacking on your lessons.”

  Lira let out a soft sigh but didn’t push. She knew him too well, knew when to let him retreat behind his walls. “You need to talk to him, Callie. He’s not okay.”

  “I know,” he said, setting his glass down and shrugging out of his suit jacket. He draped it over the back of his chair then began rolling up his sleeves. “I tried to see him in the hospital, but they wouldn’t let me through because I’m not Veyra.”

  Lira was pacing now in the center of his office. “He pulled his mask off for that… that woman.”

  Callum took another sip of his whiskey as her eyes fluttered to his then back to the floor.

  “He’s spiraling. Ever since Brooker died he’s been spiraling, and I’m scared. I’ve never seen him this close to breaking. He did break.”

  She was right, he’d noticed it too. The tremor in Greyson’s hand that’d gotten worse over the past months. The way he was always looking over his shoulder as if he was hiding something, the haunted look that came more frequent behind his blue eyes. Callum saw all of it.

  The last thing Greyson had said to him replayed in his mind.

  ‘If anything happens to me, make them suffer.’

  An uneasy feeling pricked at the back of Callum’s neck at the thought. It was as if Greyson had expected this, expected something to go wrong. He knew he had secrets, knew there were things he spoke of to no one—but whatever he was hiding now, it was eating him.

  Callum forced himself to refocus on the words that were flowing from Lira.

  “… I can’t believe he would take his mask off, that he was stupid enough to let her see his face.”

  A soft smile hooked a corner of Callum’s lips as he caught Lira’s eyes from across his desk.

  “I recall you taking your mask off for me once,” he said, lowering into his chair and lifting the glass to his lips.

  Lira inhaled a sharp breath, her eyes never leaving his from over the cut crystal.

  “That was different,” she breathed. “I was in love with you.”

  His stomach hollowed as his heart gasped in his chest.

  Was.

  The word was sharper than Callum expected, slicing through every organ with no regard for his survival.

  Silence saturated the air between them as they stared back at each other, memories of that night five years ago rushing back in vivid detail. The way the alcohol had dissolved boundaries, how his fingers had trembled as they’d reached for her mask, how she’d whispered “Yes” before he could even ask the question. The forbidden intimacy of removing it, of revealing the face beneath—the most sacred taboo in Heart society.

  And then her hands on his mask in return, gentle but sure. The terrifying vulnerability of being truly seen for the first time since childhood. How the air had seemed to crystallize between them in that moment of mutual revelation.

  Her face had been more beautiful than he’d imagined—high cheekbones scattered with freckles, full lips split by a small scar in the left corner, eyes that caught the light like rays of sun on a calm sea. He’d traced the contours with his fingertips, committing to memory what he knew he should never have been allowed to see.

  Then her mouth on his, hesitant at first, then hungry. It’d been a weekend of stolen moments, reckless and drunk on the feeling of skin against skin with no barriers, no masks. Callum’s hands had roamed every inch of her, memorizing the dips and curves he knew he could never touch again.

  He remembered the breathy sounds she made as he trailed open mouthed kisses down her throat, the way she arched into him when he finally sank into her. They’d moved together, sweat slicked and panting, her nails scoring lines down his back as he drove her closer to the edge.

  The feeling had been branded into Callum’s soul, the way his heart had clenched then expanded to the point of shattering when she looked up at him through thick, dark lashes and told him she loved him.

  Her fingers had traced patterns on his chest as the morning sunlight dripped in through the window and painted her golden. They’d stayed there for hours, days, whispering confessions and promises. Planning for a future they could never have. Callum had let himself believe it, just for a moment.

  But reality had crashed back in with the new week, destroying every hope for them. Greyson would never forgive him. It was the one rule, the only rule their friendship had.

  Lira was off limits.

  So Callum had done what he always did—he pushed her away. Told her it meant nothing, that it was just sex and adrenaline. That he didn’t want her.

  Every word of it had been a lie.

  His heart belonged to her, every beat it took she owned. He knew, with bone deep certainty, that he would never love another woman.

  Greyson was right to tell him to stay away from her. Callum knew he was only trying to protect his sister from the savagery that plagued the edges of his world.

  Lira deserved better than him.

  Callum had spent every day since trying to ignore the ache in his chest whenever she was near, even when she wasn’t.

  Callum set his glass down with slightly more force than necessary, the clink of crystal on wood jarring in the loaded silence, and rolled his shoulders to loosen the tension building there.

  The door to his office crashed open with enough force to rattle the glass wall and both their masked faces snapped toward the sound.

  Greyson stood there like violence given form, his mask firmly in place. Callum didn’t need to see his face to read the rage—it lived in every line of his body, in the tight fists at his sides, the rigid set of his shoulders. His blue eyes held the kind of wildness Callum had only witnessed once before. The night they’d pulled Brooker’s body from the Heart’s plaza.

  Callum rose from his desk, already calculating how much damage control this situation would require. “What happened?”

  Greyson stalked to the center of the room, his movements like a caged predator—controlled, but barely. His hands opened and closed repeatedly, as if seeking something to destroy.

  Lira took three rapid steps away from him toward Callum, removing herself from the reach of his fury. Callum reached for her, his hand finding the dip in her waist and pulling her one step closer.

  “What’s wrong?” Lira asked, concern etching her voice.

  “She’s in my home.” The words came out like they’d been ripped from Greyson’s throat. “That fucking Daggermouth is in my home.”

  Callum’s spine fully straightened at the revelation.

  “I nearly killed her this morning. Had my hand around her throat, could feel her pulse racing under my fingers. If she’d stayed a second longer, just one more second, I would’ve snapped her neck. Would’ve crushed her windpipe and watched her die on my bedroom floor.”

  Finally Greyson stopped pacing, turning toward them as he dragged a hand over his mask. “He would have killed me for it.” Callum knew who he meant, even without the name. “He wants her alive, needs her alive for whatever plans he has for New Found Haven. Like she’s not the same filth that killed Brooker.”

  Callum moved from behind his desk.

  “You need to breathe, Grey.” He kept his voice deliberately calm, a counterpoint to Greyson’s fury.

  Greyson’s hand went to his abdomen reflexively. “I have to marry her. A fucking farce of a Vow ceremony. My punishment for making him look weak.”

  Lira’s sharp intake of breath drew both men’s attention. Something passed over her posture—a subtle shift that Callum recognized as guilt. Callum’s eyes narrowed behind his mask, assessing her.

  “How long have you known?” Greyson asked, his voice dropping dangerously as he turned to fully face his sister.

  “Known what?” Lira’s attempt at innocence fell flat.

  “Don’t.” Greyson took a step toward her. “You’re many things, Li, but you’re not a liar.”

  Silence stretched between them, taut as wire. Callum watched the siblings, sensing the explosion building. He’d seen this before—Greyson’s rage, Lira’s stubbornness, the Serel temper that lived in both their blood.

  “What do you know?” Greyson demanded.

  She straightened, squaring her shoulders. Preparing for impact. “Mother and I suggested the Vow to Maximus. The arrangement to her.”

  The words fell like stones into still water, ripples of shock expanding outward. Greyson went perfectly still, the kind of stillness that preceded violence.

  “You did what?” The question came out soft, which was worse than shouting.

  “We suggested the marriage as a way to save your life,” Lira continued, words rushing out now. “The Daunts wanted you executed for removing your mask. The law is absolute—you know that. But Mother knew there was a loophole for when masks fall in accidents. We convinced him that a Vow to her would serve his purposes better.”

  “Death wouldn’t have been the worst outcome.”

  “Don’t say that,” Lira whispered, her voice cracking. “I can’t lose you too.”

  Callum watched his friend’s posture shift, the rage momentarily giving way to something more vulnerable before hardening again.

  “So you decided that forcing me to live with my would-be killer was the better option?” Greyson’s laugh was hollow. “Brilliant plan, Li. Truly inspired.”

  “It bought us time,” Lira insisted. “Time to find another solution.”

  “What solution would that be? For her to finish the job? For Father to parade us around like some perverse symbol of the Heart’s power? You trapped me with her.” Greyson’s voice was still soft, still controlled, but Callum could see the muscle jumping in his jaw, the way his hands curled into fists. “You put that murderer in my home, in my bed—”

  “She sleeps in the guest room,” Lira corrected.

  “That’s not the fucking point!”

  The shout exploded from Greyson without warning, loud enough that Callum instinctively stepped between the siblings. He knew Greyson would die before he ever lay a hand on his sister, but he knew Lira, and she would absolutely pummel the shit out of him for speaking to her like this.

  “Enough,” Callum said firmly, one hand on Greyson’s chest, the other held up toward Lira. “Both of you. This isn’t helping.”

  “She betrayed me,” Greyson snarled.

  “She saved your life, dumbass,” Callum countered. “Even if the method was shit, the intention was good.”

  “I don’t care about intentions—”

  “Yes, you do.” Callum pushed harder against Greyson’s chest, forcing him back a step. “You care because she’s your sister and she loves you, and she was terrified of losing you. Just like we all are.”

  The fight went out of Greyson as quickly as it had come, his shoulders sagging.

  “I don’t know if I can pull this off,” he muttered. “I don’t know how long I’ll last in that apartment without killing her.”

  “Then we fix it,” Callum said simply.

  Both siblings looked at him.

  “How?” Lira asked, her posture softening.

  “Sit,” Callum ordered, gesturing to the leather chairs arranged around a low table. “Screaming at each other won’t solve anything.”

  To his mild surprise, they obeyed. The siblings settled into chairs across from each other, the tension between them still palpable but slightly diminished.