“This isn’t personal.” A half-truth.

  “Everything’s personal when you’re watching your people die.” She leaned back, studying him. “But perhaps that’s what we need. Someone stupid and brave enough to actually pull the trigger.” A pause. “Everyone knows what she did. It’s not spoken of openly, but everyone is singing. Everyone is whispering.”

  “I know,” Jameson sighed.

  “What’s your plan for her?” Farrow asked, rolling her neck.

  A muscle in Jameson’s jaw twitched. “We are going in tonight. Jaeger, myself, plus a small Daggermouth unit.”

  “That’s fucking suicide, Jay.” She couldn’t hide the shock from her face. “You’ll die before you make it to the first checkpoint out of the Cardinal.”

  “I’m done arguing this with everyone,” Jameson snapped. “It’s happening. I won’t let her rot away in the Heart.”

  “Touching.” Her tone was dry, but something in her expression softened fractionally. “I’ll consider your alliance proposal. If you survive tonight’s stupidity, we’ll talk terms.”

  She stood, moving toward the door. “I’ll try to get additional shipments to the Boundary in the meantime. Food, medical supplies, water. But I can’t promise anything.”

  Jameson rose, checking his watch. six hours until the extraction. Until he either had Shadera back or died trying.

  “Kes.” She paused at his voice. “Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me yet. If you die tonight, I’ll have to work with Rook, and neither of us wants that.” She pulled the door open as Jameson smiled at the comment. The two of them had never seemed to get along, even when they were running the streets together decades ago. “Be careful. The Heart is changing. Becoming more unpredictable.”

  “Dying beasts often are,” he replied, then slipped past her out of the room.

  * * *

  THE ROOFTOP GARDENS OF Serel Tower existed in defiance of the ugliness they grew above. Greyson sat on a bench between their perfectly maintained rows, watching the surveillance drones above circle in predictable patterns. He counted them out of habit—seventeen visible from this vantage point, another thirty hidden between buildings.

  His eyes fell to his boots where blood was still splattered from the morning’s duties. He flexed his hands, feeling the phantom weight of his gun, hearing the echo of his voice pronouncing the sentences. Three more families shattered. Three more reasons the rings would celebrate his death. His uniform chafed against his injured shoulder, the fabric stiff and unforgiving. He should have changed, but after the platform, after watching the light leave those men’s eyes—he needed air. Needed distance from his world.

  This was the farthest he could get.

  Greyson closed his eyes, trying to push away the image of the young man barely out of his teens, executed for “association with dissident elements.” No evidence presented. No defense permitted. Just another body falling to the platform floor as he pulled the trigger.

  Slowly he pushed his eyes back open, focusing on the gardens instead of his thoughts. Like him, they existed in an artificial environment, sustained by resources stolen from others.

  He hadn’t spoken to Shadera since she’d cleaned his wound, since her fingers had traced the Executioner’s mark on his back, since she’d seen the evidence of his father’s lessons mapped across his skin. The memory of her touch lingered, unwanted but persistent. The gentleness in those hands that had tried to kill him.

  ‘You deserve a better father.’

  The words burrowed beneath his skin, finding purchase in places he’d thought long dead. She’d spoken then with such conviction, as if she could see some version of him that didn’t exist. He’d spent the night in his study alone, confronting what that moment had revealed to him. His weakness, his desperate hunger for someone to see him as something other than the Executioner.

  A drone flew closer than usual, its camera focusing on him for a moment before continuing its patrol. A reminder that privacy was an illusion, even for a Serel.

  Especially for a Serel.

  The moon had fully risen when Greyson finally pushed himself to his feet. He couldn’t avoid her forever. There were things that needed to be said. Truths that would shatter whatever fragile understanding had formed between them. The thought of it—of watching her face when she learned what the Vow ceremony truly entailed—made something in his chest constrict.

  He dragged a hand through his hair, taking in one last deep breath of the garden air before he forced himself toward the elevator. If he were lucky, she’d put him out of his misery the moment she found out what came next.

  The descent from the rooftop to his apartment took exactly three minutes and forty-five seconds. He counted each one in an effort to calm the nerves flaring through his system. Count the seconds, focus on the numbers, push everything else away. By the time he reached his apartment, a familiar dread had settled into his bones.

  The lock clicked open, and he stepped inside to find the apartment silent. He lifted his mask from his face, setting it on the table quietly as he listened for any sign of her. A soft metallic scraping sound reached his ears from the hallway.

  Greyson moved silently, following the noise to the door of his weapons room. Shadera knelt before it, the tip of her tongue visible through her lips in concentration, a makeshift lockpick fashioned from what appeared to be a broken hair pin working at the electronic mechanism.

  “Are you going to try and break into something new every time I leave you alone?” he asked, keeping his voice neutral despite the twinge of amusement at her persistence.

  Shadera’s body went still, but she didn’t startle or show surprise as she looked up at him, unrepentant. “Yes.”

  Greyson found himself fighting an urge to smile at her candor. “That particular door requires both biometric authentication and a twelve-digit code that changes every six hours.”

  “I would’ve gotten it eventually,” she said, rising to her feet and squaring her shoulders.

  “I actually believe that.” He stepped back, creating space between them. “We need to talk.”

  She didn’t answer as her eyes took in the blood on his boots, the uniform. For the first time she didn’t send a jab his way about his duty, about carrying it out and, somehow, that was worse.

  “The living room.” He gestured his head as he turned away from her, listening as she followed him at a small distance.

  The apartment had been restored to order in his absence—the furniture replaced, broken glass removed, debris cleared away. Chapman worked quickly. No evidence remained of his violent outburst except the additional layer of unease that now stretched between them.

  They settled on opposite ends of the couch as Greyson freed himself from his jacket, folding it carefully and placing it across the coffee table, then rolled up his sleeves.

  “The Vow ceremony is in three days,” he began, forcing himself to meet her eyes. “You need to understand what will happen.”

  “I understand perfectly. I’ll be paraded before the Heart elite, before all of New Found Haven, a trophy to show how even Boundary filth can be tamed.” Her voice carried her usual mocking tone, but her fingers worked against each other, betraying her tension.

  “It’s more complicated than that.” Greyson leaned forward, elbows on his knees, searching for words that wouldn’t come. How did one explain a horror built on generations of tradition, a ritual designed to dehumanize and control?

  “Just fucking say it, Serel,” she snapped after a minute of waiting.

  “The ceremony will be public and held on the execution platform,” he said finally, watching her face carefully. “It will be broadcast throughout the Heart and both rings.”

  Shadera’s expression remained unchanged, but he could see the muscle in her jaw fluttering.

  “We’ll stand before a veiled altar. You’ll wear white—tradition dictates the bride must appear pure.” The irony of that particular tradition didn’t escape him. “We’ll recite the vows. There’s a brief unmasking. We see each other’s faces, then replace the masks before lifting the veil and turning to face the crowd.” Greyson’s hand moved unconsciously to his face, even with his mask already removed. “It symbolizes an act of binding, the intimacy of seeing each other’s faces.”

  “Why are we even doing this ceremony? We’ve already seen each other’s faces. We are already trapped here together, why doesn’t your sister just put out a release that you have taken the Vow privately?” Her words were frustrated and slightly erratic as she folded her arms over her chest.

  “He wants the symbolism. You mean something to the rings and he wants everyone watching to understand that you can be brought to heel.”

  “And if I refuse? If I don’t speak the vows?”

  “Then he makes good on the things he promised us in his office. He hurts the people we love.” The thought made his stomach churn. “Lira. Callum. Your friend in the Boundary—Jameson. They will pay the price and we will watch.”

  He saw her flinch at the name, saw something flicker across her face that might have been pain or longing or both. Greyson had the sudden urge to reach for her, to offer some comfort, but he knew his touch would not be welcome. Not now. Not with what he still had to tell her.

  “There’s more,” he said, his voice dropping lower. “After the public ceremony, there’s… a tradition.”

  Something in his tone must have warned her, because Shadera went perfectly still, like prey sensing a predator’s approach.

  Greyson couldn’t meet her eyes as he continued. “The marriage must be consummated, in a ritual.”

  He paused for her to say something, anything, but she stayed quiet.

  “It’s not private. It’s—” He stopped, started again, the words like glass in his throat. “There’s a chamber. Viewing platforms above. The governing men of the Heart, they watch. They witness. They ensure the marriage is… properly sealed.”

  The silence that followed was absolute. Greyson watched the color drain from her face, watched her hands curl into fists so tight her knuckles went white.

  “You’re going to force yourself on me.” Her voice was flat, dead. “In front of an audience. That’s what you’re telling me.”

  “No.” The word tore from him. “No, I would never—”

  “But you will.” She stood abruptly, fury radiating from every line of her body. “You’ll do it because Daddy commands it. You’ll do it because you’re a good soldier, a good son. You’ll force yourself on a Boundary whore while the Heart’s elite watch and applaud—”

  “Stop.” He was on his feet now too, something breaking inside him. “You think I want this? You think any part of me is excited about—” He couldn’t even finish the sentence. “I would die before I forced myself onto any woman. I would put a bullet in my own head before I became that kind of monster.”

  She stared at him for a long moment, then she bolted for the kitchen sink, barely making it before her body rejected everything, violent heaves that shook her entire frame. Greyson stood frozen, turning away to look at the wall, to swallow the sickness that was rising in his body.

  He didn’t turn back around until the sounds of retching were replaced with a cupboard opening, a cap being unscrewed. He watched her drag the bottle of vodka across the counter and lift it to her lips as she headed toward the balcony without a word.

  She didn’t bother shutting the door behind her, but for a moment he waited, trying to control his own rapidly beating heart.

  Eventually he followed her out, leaning against the railing and watching as she sat on the patio couch drinking from the bottle with her legs pulled underneath her.

  “I shouldn’t have said that.” She didn’t look over at him.

  A heavy sigh fell from his lips as he scrubbed a hand down his face. “I don’t blame you for thinking it. What the Heart is, who I am, gives you no reason to trust that I wouldn’t.”

  He hated that truth, but it was the truth. She had no reason to believe he wouldn’t hurt her.

  “You have given me a reason,” she said, finally glancing up at him, and he stilled. “You stood up for me to your father when you didn’t have to, knowing it would only cause trouble. You took a bullet to protect your sister.” She paused, taking another drink. “I think you hate me, deeply, because of what I am—because of what happened to your brother. But if you wanted to hurt me, you would’ve done it already. You would’ve done it knowing it would make your father proud, but you haven’t.”

  Greyson hesitated. Now wasn’t the time, but it might be the best opportunity he got. He took a step closer, pulling the bottle from her hand and taking a swig before handing it back.

  “Do you know what happened to him? Do you know who killed Brooker?” He kept his voice cautious, calm.

  “No.” She shook her head. The answer sounded honest. “I had no idea his death was at the hand of a Daggermouth until you said it.” She met his eyes from over the bottle. “I think you’re missing the bigger picture here.”

  His brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”

  “God, you’re dense.” She rolled her eyes. “No one in the Boundary or Cardinal has the kind of money needed to purchase a contract. “The hit on your brother, on you, came from inside the Heart.” Shadera lifted a brow and smirked at him. “He was dead long before a Daggermouth ever got to him.”

  Greyson froze. He hadn’t even considered that fact. He’d been blinded by Jaeger’s signature on the contract, by his hatred for Daggermouths, that it hadn’t fully clicked that the only ones who could afford the hit, were the ones living outside the rings.

  “Looks like your precious Heart has a snake in it,” Shadera said, snapping him from his spiral.

  He took another step toward her, snatching the bottle from her hand, and took a long pull as he fell onto the couch beside her. She pulled away from him as their thighs brushed, watching him carefully from the corner of her eye.

  Neither of them spoke for a long while as they passed the bottle back and forth, drowning their reality as it raced toward implosion. Greyson finally broke the silence.

  “Would you tell me, if you did know who killed him?”

  She finally turned to look at him. “No.”

  Greyson couldn’t hold back the smile this time as the corners of his lips lifted. It was not the answer he wanted, but it made him trust her. She was honest, remained loyal even when it could get her killed, and he admired that.

  A groan escaped his lips as he tilted his chin up toward the sky and rested his head on the back of the couch. There was still so much she needed to know.

  “What?” she asked, pulling the vodka from his fingers and downing the liquid.

  He turned his head to the side to look at her. “Do you want to know more about what happens after the ritual?”

  She only nodded.

  “Women who have taken the Vow are no longer seen as individuals to the Heart. You will technically become my property under Heart law.” He watched her teeth clench and her eyes pull shut as he continued. “You will have no rights, no authority. You won’t be permitted to stand beside me or any man in public, only behind. You’ll speak only when spoken to. Your body will belong to me legally, and any children…” He couldn’t finish the sentence, revulsion closing his throat.

  “I figured as much,” she whispered, leaning forward to rest her chin on her knees, her gaze returning to the city below.

  Greyson watched her profile, noting how her arms tightened around her legs, the flutter of the pulse in her neck. Something was breaking in her, something that all her training, all her hardship in the Boundary hadn’t managed to crack. The realization sent a surge of protective rage through him so unexpected it left him momentarily breathless.

  The Heart consumed, she’d said, and he was finally realizing the depth of that statement. Her identity was all she had, what kept her alive in the Boundary. She was giving up everything she was, to protect not just one person, but thousands.

  In that suspended moment, watching as the lights from the city danced across her skin, Greyson recognized a truth. There were aspects of her he was beginning to love. Not romantically, not sexually, but something more fundamental—her resilience, her fury, her refusal to bend. His whole life he’d bent for the Heart, his loyalty lying with no one and nothing, but her—she knew who she was and had no shame in that.

  For one wild, insane second, he allowed himself to imagine taking her away from all this. Not just her—his mother too, Lira, Callum. Finding some way beyond the Heart’s reach, beyond New Found Haven itself.

  The fantasy dissolved as quickly as it formed. There was no running from the Heart, from his father. There was no escape. No path that didn’t end in blood. The only way forward was compliance or resistance, and Greyson was done complying.

  “We should go out,” he said suddenly as he stood, needing to offer something, anything.

  Shadera turned to him, confusion breaking through her numbed expression. “What?”

  “Out. Into the Heart. To the Entertainment District. You should see more than this apartment. Have something before—”

  “Before I become your property,” she said dryly.

  “Before we lose all our freedom,” he corrected softly. “We can go to Callum’s clubs. They’re safe from my father’s surveillance. You could drink yourself unconscious and I can check on Lira.”

  Shadera studied him, suspicion warring with the curiosity in her expression. “Why would you offer that?”

  Because I need to see you alive before they kill your spirit. Because I want to witness you uncaged while it’s still possible. Because I hate what I’m a part of, what I’m doing to you.

  “Because,” he started instead, “the last time you were drunk here, you nearly burned the place down. I’d like to keep our home intact.”

  Our home.

  He hadn’t meant to say that. It was his home, not theirs.

  A smile flickered across her lips, there and gone so quickly he couldn’t be sure he’d seen it at all. She considered the bottle in her hand, then set it aside.