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T hat went better than expected. I mean, I was pretty sure Lance was going to knife me in the gut when I wasn’t looking, but I got everything I wanted.

The Barons had their fancy education, but I just outsmarted them.

And Lance wasn’t my brother, so I wasn’t some kind of deviant, so I was in a pretty damned good mood.

Until we stepped out of that obscenely wealthy room and Lance punched me in the face.

I felt my nose break. Damn. Lance didn’t look like he could hit that hard, but the kids always did used to underestimate him at school.

I mean, I guess I owed him since I broke his nose once, even though he deserved it.

“If you want to play with Theda’s life, then that’s on you, but leave mine out of it,” he hissed.

“Not here,” I said, grabbing his elbow and hauling him out of here.

Lance and I had a lot of unresolved issues and some of them might require our fists to solve, but we couldn’t do that here. And I had a plan. I always had a plan. If it was the lives of people I couldn’t stand on the line instead of women I loved, I had a plan.

That was the beauty of apprenticing with a Jagged Key Isles assassin.

I learned how to adapt. Lance was madder than a wet cat and I couldn’t exactly explain outside of Guttertown.

I also needed to keep Lance with me. I intended to keep him in the loop since Caitrin was just as important to him as Momma was to me, but Lance wouldn’t be doing either of these tasks.

I had every intention of killing the Ghoul and Folcard and my father just made it loads easier.

I now had permission to move about Nestran and to insert myself into Trevils's investigation. I needed to keep an eye on Lance because I could allow myself to be around him now that I knew he wasn’t my brother. I had to make it right.

Lance hit me and now I just had to stop him from storming back home.

We had permission to be here now, but I didn’t trust these people.

Lance was beautiful in an androgynous way and we celebrated that kind of beauty in Guttertown, but the rest of Nestran might try to start something with him because they thought he was into guys.

Which was also a complication. Lance might not be my brother, but I was also pretty sure he wasn’t into men.

He was a fucking legend at the brothel, but he’d never gone back.

I mean, I guess he wouldn’t need to pay for it if he was good at it.

I’d just never seen him with a girl on his arm, either.

It was just another part of the mystery that was Lance Argent.

I was trying to inconspicuously haul him to the tavern where Trevils would be eating lunch. He didn’t know who I was, but Old Man Aimes told us enough stories when we were kids that I knew he’d be my downfall if I got careless. So, I made it a point to learn his schedule so I could avoid him.

Talking to Lance used to be easy. We snuck into each other’s bedroom at night and stayed up late talking. Sometimes, we’d fall asleep and sneak back home before our mothers woke up. But then shit happened and the only talking we did was to scream at each other.

If I could get him to the tavern without being punched in the nuts, I could just show him.

Lance was smart, and he’d figure it out.

Lance wasn’t trained by anyone from the Jagged Key Isles, but he was a Guttertown brat, so he could sneak a ball punch in the fancy part of town without all the rich people noticing.

Arsehole.

“I have a plan. If you’d just shut up and follow me, you’ll see,” I growled.

“Fuck your stupid plan. You should have left my mother out of it,” he hissed.

I tossed him into an alley and caged him between my arms so he didn’t bolt.

Fuck, I wanted to kiss him now that I knew he wasn’t my brother, but he looked about two seconds away from head-butting me, which wasn’t my favorite.

I had all my teeth and really didn’t want to lose any because Lance fought dirty.

“I don’t want you involved in this. I was planning on taking the Ghoul out, anyway.

I manipulated those arseholes so that we both get the cure when the tasks are done.

They did it that way because they expected one or both of us to fail.

It was just them being cruel. I fixed it where everyone gets what they want. ”

Yeah, he head-butted me. He didn’t get my mouth, just my nose that he broke earlier. My eyes watered, but I let him go before he kicked me in the balls. That wasn’t my favorite, either.

“I’m still mad, so I suggest you do whatever you were planning when you were dragging me through the fancy part of town before I kick your nuts out of your mouth.”

Yeah, Lance always did have a temper. He just got a little less violent about it when everyone hit their growth spurt. Which meant he was really pissed at me because after I hit mine, I was probably one of the biggest men in Guttertown outside of Autar.

“Follow me. Am I going to have to drag you?”

“First of all, fuck you. Secondly, touch me again and I’ll throw you through that rich ponce’s fancy window.”

“Right this way.”

I was trying not to chuckle. I was a giant, trained assassin, but Lance had been tossing drunks since they were a kid. He probably could throw me through that pretentious window.