Aria’s POV
From the living room ca the sound of Noah narrating an elaborate dinosaur battle to an audience of stuffed animals, his voice rising and falling with dramatic intensity.
Damien caught my eye over my shoulder, and the corner of his mouth lifted.
"Together," he said.
"Together," I agreed.
That single word, worn smooth by use, was sohow enough. Then his phone buzzed on the counter.
He picked it up with one hand still resting on my waist, and I felt his whole body go rigid before I’d even seen the screen.
I turned. An unknown number. No ssage — just a video clip, ten seconds long, shot from sowhere close. Our kitchen window. The two of us at the counter, him with his arms around , looking up at him. Close enough to see our faces. Clear enough to read our lips.
And at the bottom of the screen, a single caption.
Enjoy it while it lasts.
Damien was already dialing Reyes, his voice going sharp and imdiate, but I stood there staring at that video and felt sothing go cold in my stomach that had nothing to do with fear.
Detective Barnes ca to us on the fourth day of lockdown, and the fact that he made the trip himself told everything about how serious it had beco.
Barnes was not a man who made house calls. He arrived at ten in the morning with his tie slightly crooked and a folder under his arm, carrying the expression of soone about to propose sothing they already knew would cause a fight.
He wasn’t wrong.
"We want to draw him out," he said, spreading photographs across our dining table — surveillance images, location scouting, three scenario briefs paper-clipped together like this was a business proposal and not a plan to use a human being as bait. "Marcus’s patterns since his escape tell us he’s staying close. The video he sent last night, the call to Ms. Monroe — he wants to be seen. He’s taunting, not hiding, which ans he’s ready to move. We need to give him sothing to move toward."
"A decoy," Damien said, his voice already going flat.
"A controlled situation," Barnes corrected carefully. "We choose the location, the timing, the variables. We control everything except him, and when he shows"
"Who’s the decoy?" I asked.
Barnes glanced at , then at Damien, then back at . Which told everything.
"No." Damien’s voice cut across the room, hard and absolute. "You are not using Aria as bait. Find another way."
"Mr. Blackwood, with respect"
"There is no version of this conversation where I agree to put her in Marcus’s path intentionally." He set his hands flat on the table. "None. So if that’s your proposal, you’ve wasted the trip."
Barnes’s jaw tightened with the patience of a man who had dealt with protective partners before. "Ms. Monroe," he said, redirecting deliberately. "Do you want to hear the operational details?"
"She doesn’t need to," Damien said.
"Damien." I put my hand on his arm, and he looked at with sothing barely controlled, barely contained — all that fear and fury compressed into the space behind his eyes. "Let hear it."
"Aria"
"Let hear it," I said again, quietly, and held his gaze until he sat back. It cost him sothing, I could see it costing him, but he stayed quiet.
Barnes laid it out in clean, professional terms. A public appearance at a restaurant near the river, sowhere Marcus had already surveilled twice. The cover story: a business dinner, routine, plausible. FBI inside, at every exit, on rooftops across the street. A wire, a vest, an abort signal. Marcus would see his target and walk into a net.
"He wants specifically," I said when Barnes finished, spreading my hands over the photographs. "He said so himself — I took his brother’s love. He’s not after Damien. He’s after because I’m what Damien chose over him. Which ans a decoy that isn’t actually won’t work. He’s too smart for that."
"That’s our read," Barnes confird, nodding.
"So this is the fastest option." I looked at Damien directly. "Not the most comfortable one. The fastest one. And every week this drags on is another week Noah asks about the park and we say soon."
Damien’s jaw went tight, and he looked away from , staring at the wall like it had answers in it.
"There are slower alternatives," Barnes offered. "But Marcus could go underground entirely if he senses we’re closing in, and then we’re looking at weeks. Possibly months."
Months. I thought of Noah on my lap, counting soons. I thought of this penthouse becoming a fortress that a little boy stopped being able to tell apart from a cage.
"Two days to prepare?" I said to Barnes.
"Aria." Damien’s voice was quiet, but it stopped cold. "Don’t."
I looked at him. The expression on his face was sothing I hadn’t seen before — not his business cold, not his protective fury, not even the open love he’d learned to wear. This was sothing beneath all of that, sothing raw and afraid in the way people are afraid when they’ve already lost sothing precious once and know exactly how that feels.
"Give us a minute," I said to Barnes.
The detective stood, gathered his folder with professional discretion, and moved to the far window.
"Don’t tell no," I said to Damien before he could speak. "I know it’s dangerous. I’m choosing this anyway — my body, my risk, my decision."
"I could have Reyes’s team ensure you stay in this building," he said, and there was sothing almost desperate in it.
"You could try." I held his gaze, steady. "And it would be the single fastest way to destroy us, so let’s agree not to go down that road."
He stared at for a long mont, sothing working behind his eyes.
"I cannot be objective about this," he said finally, his voice stripped back to sothing honest. "The idea of you standing in his sightline on purpose — I can’t think straight when I consider it. I need you to know that."
"I know." I reached across and covered his hands with mine. "But Damien, you’ve trusted . Coming back into this, choosing this life, choosing you. You trusted with Noah and with our family and with all the hardest parts. Trust with this too."
And I’m close." His hands turned over and gripped mine hard. "Not inside if Barnes says no. But close, Aria. I’m not sitting in this penthouse while you’re out there."
"You can be close," I said, and squeezed back.
He was quiet for a mont, but I could feel sothing else sitting behind his eyes, sothing he hadn’t said yet, and I waited.
"Last ti," he started, then stopped, jaw working. "Last ti he put a bullet in you. You were wearing a vest and I still heard that shot and I still" He exhaled hard through his nose. "I still see it. So nights I still hear it."
"Damien"
"I need you to understand sothing." He looked at , and what was in his eyes wasn’t just fear — it was sothing harder, sothing that had been quietly calcifying since the night Marcus escaped. "I ant what I said to him after the arrest. I wanted him to get help. I wanted my brother back. But if he touches you again, Aria — if he so much as" His voice dropped low. "I won’t be looking for a way to reach him this ti. I won’t be crouching beside him asking him to choose better. Whatever rcy I had left for Marcus Blackwood, he is spending it right now just by making you walk into that room."
The room was very quiet.
"I need you to know that going in," he said. "Because I need you to co out. That’s the only version of this I can live with."
I held his gaze and nodded, slowly and deliberately, because so things deserved more than words.
He sat with it for one more mont, holding on, and I let him, because sotis love is just holding on while soone you love does sothing that terrifies you, and there’s nothing to do but hold on and trust them.
"Barnes," Damien said, loud enough to carry across the room.
The detective turned.
"She’s doing this." Each word sounded like it had been dragged up from sowhere deep and difficult. "So let’s talk about how we make absolutely certain she cos ho."
We spent the rest of the day planning, and I listened to every detail with my hands steady in my lap, mapping every variable, cataloguing every contingency. This was what I did. This was, in fact, exactly the kind of thinking that had built Monroe Global from nothing — the ability to look at risk without flinching, find the territory inside it, and make the calculated move.
Marcus thought I was a target. He didn’t understand yet what I’d do to protect those I loved.
That evening, after Barnes left and Noah was finally asleep, I stood in the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror for a long ti. No strategy, no armor — just , asking the honest question underneath all the logic.
Are you scared?
Yes. Deeply.
Are you going to do it anyway?
Also yes.
I splashed water on my face and went back out to where Damien sat on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees, staring at the floor. He looked up when I ca in and said nothing, just reached for my hand and held it, and we stayed like that in the quiet for a long ti.
"Go to sleep," I said finally.
"I’ll sleep when you’re back safe," he said without looking up.
"Damien"
"I’ll rest." He shifted, pulling down beside him and tucking against his side. "I’ll close my eyes. But sleep" He shook his head slightly. "Not tonight."
Reviews
All reviews (0)