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T he room lapses into a tense silence as Rhys finishes berating Arius over the latest clusterfuck. My gaze flits between the two men—Rhys fuming with indignant rage, while Arius simply stands there with that infuriatingly impassive mask firmly in place. What I wouldn’t give for the wanker to wipe that smug look off his face for once.

With a derisive snort, I allow my attention to drift towards my lap, Jace’s head pillowed against my thigh. Nimble fingers idly card through those silky blonde strands, an automatic soothing gesture ingrained from years of providing solace during our darkest moments. He’s been unusually quiet since we arrived, not even cracking a single wisecrack amidst the escalating tensions.

Maybe the reality of our situation has finally sunk in for him.

Heaving a weary sigh, I tear my gaze from Jace’s pensive features to skate over the final occupant presently brooding in silence in the living room window. Briar’s perched on the recessed bench, slim arms wrapped around those shapely thighs drawn up against her chest in a defensive curl. Every line of that delicate frame radiates a fraught unease I can practically taste, despite her best attempts at composing an aloof mask.

“Oi, fuckwit,” I growl to recapture Rhys’ wandering attention, arching one brow in a wordless prompt. “Much as I’d love to watch you berate that smug prick all night, we need to come up with a game plan. And quickly, before Briar here has some sort of brain aneurysm worrying her arse off.”

Arius’ jaw twitches at the sally, but he doesn’t rise to the bait. Smart move, considering how close to the mark my barb landed. The bloke’s been painfully transparent regarding his protective streak towards our faerie-like companion lately.

Rhys releases another aggrieved noise akin to a growl, but acquiesces with a curt nod. “Where do you want me to bloody start, mate?” he grouses, scrubbing both palms over his face. “This whole sodding mess has spiralled completely out of control on account of that depraved hag and her sanctimonious cult of lunatics.”

A tiny huff of sound drifts from Briar’s direction, almost a bitter chuckle if I didn’t know any better. Arching a brow, I pin the petite blonde with a pointed look over the crown of Jace’s head.

“Got a hot take on the situation there?”

She doesn’t so much as twitch under my assessing stare, those piercing azure irises too shuttered and inward-focused to acknowledge my prodding. With a mental shrug, I chalk it up to the poor girl retreating into her own head as a coping mechanism—not that I can blame her after the trauma she’s been subjected to at the Order’s hands.

“Fuck’s sake, everybody just shut the fuck up and listen,” Arius’ gravelly rasp slices through the strained silence. Every head swivels instinctively in his direction, bracing for the onset of his next calculated stratagem.

“There’s no point screaming about what’s already happened,” he continues in a tone laced with steel. “ is right, our priority now needs to be formulating contingencies to get ahead of this before it escalates further.”

Rhys bobs his head in begrudging agreement, lips pursing into a petulant moue. “Can’t argue with that,” he mutters, almost sounding pained to voice the admission. “Staying holed up here like sitting ducks is only going to end one way—with us all in a shallow grave, courtesy of Hansley’s bloodhounds.”

Jace levers himself upright, twisting to regard me with an emotion I can’t quite decipher. One calloused palm drifts up to cup the slight rasp of stubble dusting my jaw, the stroke of his thumb sending a delicious shiver tingling down my spine. Leaning in close enough for his breath to ghost over my lips, he murmurs too low for the others to overhear.

“You reckon that’s finally it, then?” The undercurrent of desperate yearning lacing each syllable has my chest constricting painfully. “We can just leave, start over somewhere they’ll never find us?”

I purse my lips into a grim line, momentarily mesmerised by the feather-light sweep of those sooty lashes gilding high cheekbones. Then, reluctantly, reality comes crashing down around us once more. Bending to brush the barest wisp of a kiss across the downy hair at his hairline, I offer a muted shake of my head.

“Probably not, zlatko,” I murmur, the rumble of my voice somehow sounding hollow to my own ears. “Just means we’re gonna have to get really fucking good at being rats, hiding in whatever holes we can find.”

Jace’s expression crumbles into a rictus of heartsick resignation, those plush lips twisting as he releases a shuddering exhalation. Without another word, he turns back to gaze forlornly at Arius, any final vestiges of hope seemingly extinguished by my crushing pragmatism.

“Hansley’s no fool, regardless of her outdated philosophies,” Arius remarks, gaze distant and calculating as that formidable intellect plots out every conceivable angle. “She’ll start by attempting to bully us back into compliance through fear and intimidation before contemplating more extreme measures.”

One broad shoulder rolls in a negligent shrug, the corded muscles in his bicep bunching and contracting as he leans back against the wall beside Briar. “I’ll… have a discussion with her. It’ll buy us a narrow window to get our shite sorted before having to relocate entirely.”

A derisive scoff slices through the weighted silence, prompting my head to swivel in Rhys’ direction once more. “Oh, brilliant fucking plan there, Einstein,” he sneers with enough venom to curdle dairy. “Got any brilliant locations in mind for us to fuck off to without the Order snapping at our heels?”

Arius regards him with that infuriatingly impassive expression for several beats before inclining his head in a subtle nod. “My family has a safehouse we can—” he begins, only to immediately get cut off.

“Absolutely fucking not,” Rhys interjects with a derisive snort, shaking his head vehemently. “Using anything even remotely connected to your bloodline is the first shitty idea Hansley would think to check. We go anywhere near that place and we might as well tie nooses around our own fucking necks.”

He pauses to rake one hand through that dishevelled mop of dark curls, lips peeling back over gritted teeth. “Your connections are officially burned to the fucking ground, in case you were labouring under any other delusions.”

For a split second, Arius’ mask fractures—brows descending into a fierce scowl before that composed veneer slips back into place like a well-worn mask. Before he can muster some derisive retort, however, Rhys is already steamrolling onwards with renewed vigour.

“I’ve got a location stashed away that should do the trick, granted we can get there without being tracked.” His gaze skates sidelong towards where Jace and I watch the exchange in brooding silence. “Won’t be a picnic, mind you. Place is a bit… rustic.”

I feel the subtle shift of movement rippling through Jace’s torso a split-second before that lush head whips around, emerald eyes blown wide with incredulity and a dawning sense of panic.

“Over my fucking dead body are we going back to Romania, mate,” he snarls, features contorting into a rictus of disgust and haunted terror. “Not after everything they—after what they did to me. To us. I’ll sooner rip out my own tongue than set one toe back in that depraved fucking country, Rhys.”

Ah, there’s that feisty hellcat I know and adore. Unable to resist diffusing the sudden spike of tension, I curl my palm around the nape of Jace’s neck in a gentle squeeze. More a reassuring caress than any attempt to restrain him, letting him know he isn’t alone in this battle—no matter how misguided that Irish bastard’s intentions.

“Easy there, gorgeous,” I murmur against his hairline, the endearment dripping with thinly-veiled amusement. “I’m sure the wanker has more than one safehouse up his sleeve, eh Rhys?”

I allow my gaze to slide towards the belligerent fucker sprawled indolently in the opposite armchair, fully prepared to trade barbs until the situation defuses somewhat. Because while I might tease and needle Jace to alleviate the strain, I’d never dream of trying to force him into revisiting those past traumas against his will—not after bearing witness to them firsthand all those years ago.

“Look, wherever we end up going isn’t a permanent solution,” Rhys eventually reasons once he’s regained some composure. Lacing his fingers atop his thigh, he regards each of us with that same clinical detachment that always sets my teeth on edge. “Just a place to regroup and figure out our next plays while Hansley starts tearing the city apart trying to track us.”

At the periphery of my vision, I catch a glimpse of Briar shifting slightly, the first indication she’s been following our exchange at all. But before she can utter a syllable, Jace is huffing out a low, sarcastic bark of mirthless laughter and shaking his head.

“Right, because that always works out so swimmingly whenever the Order is involved.” I watch in rapt fascination as one corner of his full mouth twists into a mocking leer, every acidic syllable dripping with disdain. “Why don’t we just cut out the middleman and ask Hansley to put bullets between our eyes herself?”

“You seem to be well adept at shooting down ideas but lack the ability to offer solutions, Caldwell. That’s not very fucking helpful,” Arius mutters as he shifts off the wall, stalking the few paces to the couch. The cushions sink as he flops his large frame down onto it, expelling a weary exhale while he pinches the bridge of his nose.

“You’re all idiots.”

Every head in the room swivels to stare at Briar, all of us wearing mirror expressions, blinking like owls at her sudden interjection into the conversation. Arius is the first to crack, lips curling into a half smile as he shakes his head with a quirked brow.

“Care to enlighten us as to what’s rattling around in that empty head of yours?” Rhys’ acidic retort causes Briar to scoff, her ashen hair tumbling over her shoulder as she shakes her head.

Briar pushes up from the window bench, pivoting to swing her legs over the edge and stand. “First, fuck you, Rhys. You’re a prick. Second, you’re all forgetting one crucial detail. Hansley doesn’t know me as well as she thinks she does. She may have had me tracked for years, but that doesn’t mean she knows everything. Arius, text Sid and tell her to come over. She needs to be a part of this.”

“Absolutely fucking not. We’re not involving anybody else, Briar. That’s not an option,” Arius’ voice lowers to a warning rumble, pewter eyes pinning Briar to the hardwood where she stands.

“It wasn’t a bloody fucking request, Whitlocke.”

The tension in the room thickens to a near-palpable miasma, every molecule of oxygen seeming to crystallise as we all instinctively hold our collective breaths. Jace shifts restlessly beside me, gaze flickering between Briar and Arius in mute fascination—like a spectator awaiting the first volley to be lobbed in this latest skirmish.

For his part, Arius maintains that infuriatingly impassive facade, not so much as twitching a muscle in response to Briar’s blatant insubordination. The weighted seconds tick by with agonising lethargy, each one chafing against my already frayed nerves until I’m vibrating with the urge to lash out simply for something to disrupt this stifling stalemate.

Then, finally, Arius shifts infinitesimally—chin dipping as those mercury irises shutter closed briefly. When his gaze reopens, it skates coolly over the rest of us gathered in the common area before landing squarely on Briar’s diminutive form. One thick brow arches ever-so-slightly in a subtle expression I can’t quite decipher.

Bloody fucking hell, the smug bastard is actually contemplating capitulating to her outrageous demand.

Sure enough, Arius inhales a deep, measured breath before extracting his mobile from the pocket of his gym shorts. Thick fingers swipe over the screen, the sharp ridges of his knuckles flexing with each deft movement as he taps out what I can only assume is a summons.

I tear my gaze away from the spectacle to pin Rhys with an incredulous look, the disbelief mirrored in his own astonished expression. For as long as either of us have known Arius, the arrogant prick has steadfastly refused to relinquish even an ounce of his authority or control.

So witnessing him cave to Briar’s petulant demand with barely a token protest? It’s enough to make me seriously reconsider how solid the foundations of our reality might be.

Christ, is the apocalypse imminent or some shite?