And if you failed after I delegated something? You didn’t stay around long.
Legitimate business wasn’t all that different from the streets. The predators just wore nicer watches.
“So where do you—” Olivia abruptly stopped mid-sentence.
I turned back toward her and followed the direction of her stare. Tall frame, ash-white hair, and an attitude like he owned the place.
Calix.
He stood inside one of the shooting-range booths behind reinforced bulletproof glass, focused entirely on the weapon in his hands.
Olivia unconsciously drifted a step closer, and I moved behind her automatically, my palm settling against her waist.
“One thing FangTech takes seriously is product testing,” I murmured near her ear. Her attention stayed locked on Calix as he loaded the magazine with practiced ease.
“Everything here is magically reinforced,” I continued softly while guiding her forward. “You can get as close as you want.”
She stepped nearer to the glass, and I followed until my chest almost brushed her back.
Calix cocked the slide back smoothly. Olivia’s breath caught quietly.
At the same moment, my fingers slipped beneath the edge of her shirt, absently tracing circles against her cool skin.
Her shoulders twitched. Not away, but toward me.
The combination of her trying to focus on Calix while melting beneath my touch was dangerously addictive.
My lips brushed the side of her neck, and she gasped softly.
Bang.
The gunshot cracked through the range, and Olivia jerked, eyes going wide as she clutched her head.
One second, she was standing in front of me, and the next her entire body went limp.
“Olivia?” My heart slammed painfully against my ribs as I caught her before she hit the floor. “Olivia!”
Her fingers clawed weakly at her head, her face twisted in agony. Her teeth ground together hard enough that if she’d still been human, they would’ve shattered.
Cold terror flooded straight through me, and I hauled her into my arms, my pulse roaring in my ears so loudly everything else blurred into static.
Calix was suddenly there, appearing outside the booth so fast the air itself cracked.
“Rack, what’s going on? What happened to her?”
His eyes raked over Olivia, searching for blood, for damage, for anything physical he could fix.
“There’s no wound,” he muttered sharply, frustration tightening every word as his hands hovered near her stomach.
At the sound of his voice, Olivia jerked hard. Her eyes snapped open wide enough to show too much white.
Fear flooded them.
“Calix—” She grabbed his forearm with both hands so tightly her knuckles blanched. “I remember.”
The words tumbled out breathlessly.
“I remember what happened.” Her grip tightened harder, nails biting into his skin, as panic climbed into her voice. “And you’re in danger. He’s planning to kill you.”
