Page 16 of Silent Night, Savage Heart

My little brother touches his split lip and winces. "I tried to slow them down. Told them you were following orders and doing your job. But Domenic didn't buy it, and neither did Nico."

"Nico was there?"

"Nico's been in Silas's pocket since you left. You know that."

I did know that. Doesn't make it easier to hear.

"Thanks for the warning," I say.

Luca nods, starts to leave, then stops. He looks at me with something complicated in his eyes. My kid brother, who used to follow me around, who learned to fight because I taught him, who still carries the weight of the choices I made that affected him.

"Whatever happened at White Ember," he says quietly. "Whatever you did or didn't do. I never blamed you for leaving. Just for not taking me with you."

Then he's gone, footsteps echoing down the stairs.

I lock the door and turn back to Peyton. She's standing exactly where I left her, glass in hand, expression unreadable. I reach for my own glass. If she weren’t here, I’d probably down the entire bottle.

"White Ember," she says. "The warehouse you burned?”

"Yeah."

"Your brother knows about it?”

"Everyone knows about it. They just tell different versions depending on who's listening."

"And the true version?"

I move to the window, look down at the crowd below. Bodies moving, drinks flowing, people forgetting their problems for a few hours before the morning reminds them why they came here in the first place.

"The true version is that I was supposed to look the other way," I say. "Silas was moving girls through a fight logistics network. Trafficking them under the cover of a legitimate business. I found out. Confronted him. He told me to stand down or I'd regret it."

"You didn't stand down."

"I burned the warehouse. Got six girls out. A man died in the fire—Merrick Vale, Silas's accountant. The one who kept the books clean." I turn to face her. "I didn't mean to kill him. But I'm not sorry he's dead."

"And Silas?"

"Silas wrote a different narrative, which made me the villain, and put a price on my return. The only reason he let me walk away was that killing me would have started a war Nonno didn't want."

“Nonno?”

“My grandfather.”

"But now you're back."

"Now I'm back. And Silas thinks I owe him for letting me live."

Peyton sets down her glass, crosses to where I'm standing. Close. Too close. The kind of distance that means something.

"You don't owe him anything," she says. Her voice is quiet, certain. "Men like that, they take and take until there's nothing left. You don't owe them. You survive them."

"So did you."

"Not yet." She looks up at me, and her eyes are dark, fierce, full of something that looks dangerously like trust. "But I'm planning to."

The space between us feels charged, dangerous. Like standing too close to a fire you know you'll get burned from, but the warmth is worth it.

I should step back and put a respectable distance between us. I need to remember that she's a job, a responsibility, and a line I can't cross without consequences.