Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 97537 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 488(@200wpm)___ 390(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97537 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 488(@200wpm)___ 390(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
“Tomorrow,” she echoes.
She inserts her key into the lock. “Thank you, Hoover.” She enters her apartment, and I wait until I hear the familiar click of the lock before I turn around to head back to the Riverside loft.
“You’re lying to her to keep her alive,” I tell myself. “You’re lying to her to keep her alive.”
It doesn’t soothe as much as it used to.
By the time I’ve scrubbed the comm logs and encrypted the footage to two different offsite vaults, it’s almost three. Ozzy texts a string of victory emojis and a gif of a raccoon stealing a doughnut. Knight sends, Pulled a bottle of ‘Surge Reserve’ from the catering crate. Testing for poison at dawn. Render adds, Valentino’s public calendar shows a ‘breakfast with Gray’ at the Marina Club. Dress code ‘discretion.’ Gage appends two stills that make my breath catch: Valentino, mid-sneer. Gray, mid-smile, eyes like a shark.
We have our next target. We have momentum. We have a team that feels like a misfit family.
I have a best friend who nearly kissed me with my face covered by a scream.
Tomorrow, I’ll be the mask again. Tonight, I let myself be just Arrow Finn for three minutes, leaning against my own car parked two blocks away, staring at the river lights, and imagining a universe where I can be brave without hiding who I am.
When I get home, I write an op plan titled MAKE THEM SING, because if I can’t be honest with Juno yet, I can at least ensure the men who said funeral jog into a courtroom in cuffs—and make sure the next time she hears that word, it’s in the context of justice finally, finally ending.
15
Juno
Is it bad I thought about Arrow while some stranger was feeling me up? I’m going straight to Hell. Seriously, I am. Having thoughts about Arrow while some man touched me in my parking lot and made me orgasm out of my mind is not healthy.
When Arrow’s knock comes—three short taps, our exact rhythm—I’m halfway between a memory of a killer in a tuxedo and the fantasy of Arrow pressed against me. But it wasn’t Arrow. I jolt upright, hair doing interpretive dance, hoodie twisted around my ribs. My phone says 8:03 a.m. The apartment smells like sleep and last night’s dry shampoo. My brain tastes like crime scene chalk.
“Junebug?” Arrow calls through the door, cheerful in that offensive morning-person way he only deploys for me. “I come bearing caffeine and carbs.”
Guilt punches me so hard I sway. Right. Morning ritual. Bagels. Boy next door. Not the man in a mask who made my pulse forget its job.
I fumble the deadbolt, open the door, and there he is. He’s dressed in jeans and a navy hoodie, wind-flushed cheeks, the exact soft smile that used to mean “everything’s okay.” He’s holding two cups from the Bean Flicker and a paper bag that leaks the fragrance of toasted sesame.
“Emergency delivery,” he says, stepping in like he belongs here—which, on most mornings, he does. “You look like a raccoon that’s been kissed by electricity.”
“Flattering,” I croak. I take my cup—oat-milk cold brew with cinnamon, because he knows if you wake the dragon, you better bring sugar—and wrap two hands around it like a pilgrim at the altar. “What did I do to deserve you?”
“You were born,” he says, like it’s obvious, and the comment flickers somewhere behind my ribs.
We move to the kitchen. He sets the bag down, pulls out a sesame bagel and a cinnamon-raisin, hands me the sesame because I’m salty by default, apparently. He’s humming under his breath, some synthy loop that could be a Maddox Security hold tone. The hum vibrates in my skull until two words float to the top: standing order.
Because that’s exactly what he says next, casual as the weather: “Standing order: you eat before your brain starts solving murders.”
The phrase knifes through me. Standing order. Hoover’s words from last night. My teeth go cold against the paper cup.
I look up, too fast. Arrow’s already reaching for a knife, splitting a bagel with focused gentleness, like he’s performing minor surgery. He hands it over to me, and my brain tries to keep up.
I bite into the bagel, mostly so I don’t say are you Hoover? out loud. It burns all the way down.
“How was your night?” he asks, spreading cream cheese with unnecessary precision. “Sleeping? Editing? Summoning demons for content?”
“Editing,” I say too quickly. “You?”
“Firewall fun,” he says. “Then I crashed.”
Firewall fun. The words land, then slide. My mind supplies a scene of cream-lit hotel ballrooms and cigar-scented rooftops, the word funeral shaped by a man named Valentino. I’m going to rip his smug cobalt suit in half. Then I remember who was there beside me, a rubber scream and a steady hand. Two versions of safety perched on either side of the same person.