And things went wrong often enough that I'd learned to plan for it.
I opened the storage compartment built into the bike's frame and pulled out the case. My hands were steady as I unlatched it, muscle memory taking over. The bow nested inside like a sleeping predator. Dark oak. Handcrafted. Every curve and angle memorized by my fingertips over thousands of hours in my workshop.
I'd built this bow from scratch. Learned to carve wood because my mother used to, because her hands had shaped the little archer I'd carried everywhere as a child. Learned to calculate trajectory and draw weight and arrow velocity because helplessness was worse than death. Learned to hunt because being hunted was all I'd ever known.
The limbs were reinforced with carbon fiber, invisible to the eye but adding pounds of draw weight. The grip was wrapped in leather I'd treated myself, worn smooth in the exact shape of my palm. And wound around it, like a talisman, was my mother's necklace. The silver crescent moon and star she'd pressed into my hand before she died.
I ran my thumb over it, feeling the worn metal, the way eighteen years had smoothed the edges.
“For you,” I whispered.
It wasn't enough. It would never be enough. But it was all I had.
The quiver came next. Thirty arrows, each one hand-fletched with raven feathers I'd collected from the palace gardens. Half had standard broadheads. The other half had obsidian tips, razor-sharp and weighted for punching through body armor. I'd tested them on ballistic gel. On Kevlar vests. On car doors and brick walls and anything else I thought I might need to shoot through.
I pulled on the tactical gear next, piece by piece, each item transforming me from prince to something else. Something darker. Black cargo pants with reinforced knees that had taken hits from concrete and worse. Combat boots with steel toes that had caved in ribs when necessary. A fitted shirt that moved with me like second skin, didn'tcatch on anything, didn't slow me down when speed meant the difference between breathing and bleeding.
The shoulder holster came next. Worn leather that smelled like oil and old violence. Inside it, the knife. Eight inches of folded steel I'd commissioned from a blacksmith in East London who didn't ask questions because he knew better. The weight of it against my ribs felt right. Familiar. Like coming home to the parts of myself I couldn't show in daylight.
Then came the gloves. Black leather reinforced at the knuckles with carbon fiber plates that turned my fists into something that could break bone without breaking skin. I flexed my fingers, felt the leather creak, felt the transformation settling into my muscles like muscle memory.
But it wasn't complete yet.
I moved to the workbench where the final pieces waited. The ones that let me disappear into darkness and become someone who could do what needed doing without dragging the crown down with me.
The hood was custom-made. Black ballistic fabric that breathed but didn't tear. Fitted close to my skull, leaving no loose edges to grab. I pulled it on, felt it settle against my skin like a second face. The fabric molded to my features, hiding everything except the shape of my jaw and mouth.
Then the mask.
Black leather, cut and shaped to cover my eyes and the bridge of my nose. Simple. Effective. The kind of thing you'd see in old illustrations of highwaymen or vigilantes who knew that anonymity was the only armor that mattered when you had everything to lose.
I tied it behind my head over the hood, double-knotted it the way I'd done a hundred times before. The leather sat snug against my cheekbones, cut my peripheral vision slightly but not enough to matter. I'd learned to compensate. Learned to move with it. Learned to see in the dark with half my face covered and still hit every target.
I looked at myself in the small mirror propped against the wall.
Sebastian was gone.
The golden prince with his charm and his smiles and his carefully maintained image had disappeared behind black fabric and leather.
I swung my leg over the bike and hit the ignition. The engine roared to life, purring like a beast waking up hungry. I keyed in the override code for the north gate, watching the security feed flicker on the small screen mounted to the handlebars. Guards turned away right on schedule, same as they had for three years. Cameras looped their footage. For exactly four minutes, I didn't exist.
I twisted the throttle and shot forward into the night.
The rain hit me the second I cleared the gate. Cold and sharp, soaking through my coat in seconds. Thunder rolled overhead, and I couldn't help the grim smile that pulled at my mouth.
Of course it was raining.
It was always raining when I did this. Like the universe had a sense of humor and I was the punchline.
London blurred around me. Streetlights smeared into gold streaks. Neon signs flickered in doorways. The glow of apartment windows where normal people lived normal lives, where sons didn't watch their mothers die, where crowns were just things in history books.
I wove through traffic, cutting between cars and taxis, heading east toward Belmont. Toward the parts of the city the tourists didn't see. Where the crown's influence ended and something darker began. Where men like me could disappear and no one asked questions.
My comm crackled to life in my ear. I'd hacked into the police frequency months ago, riding their channels for intel. Tonight was no different.
“All units, we've got reports of suspicious activity near the docks. Warehouse district, sector seven. Possible weapons trafficking. Approach with caution.”
I changed lanes, angling toward the docks.
