Footsteps crossed the threshold, and I looked up.
Fitz stood there, face carefully blank—too blank. It took half a second for me to see it. The shadow at the corner of his mouth. The satisfaction he didn’t bother hiding fast enough.
He knew. He’d walked me right into this.
The realization hit harder than the kill. He’d wanted this. Wanted me off balance, humiliated, reckless. Anything to shiftthe ground under my feet so he could wriggle free of what he owed.
The heat inside me detonated. Air ripped from my lungs as my vision flared white.
No.
That kind of disrespect didn’t get to breathe. The sound that tore out of me wasn’t human.
I was on him before he could step back. Surprise flashed across his face just long enough for me to grab him and hurl him through the wall. Plaster and wood exploded outward as he crashed through a few rooms.
I didn’t slow.
Making my way though the Fitz-shaped holes, I hauled him up by the collar and dragged him back, his boots scraping uselessly across the floor.
“Let go!” he screamed. “You fucking idiot!”
My fist met his face. His body went limp, crumpling bonelessly. He’d wake soon—supes always did—but I didn’t need long.
I hauled him through the club, past stunned faces, past Rack’s frozen stare, and dropped him to his knees just as his eyes fluttered open.
The music cut. Every man in the room stood. Weapons shifted. Bodies tensed.
Fitz groaned, trying to pull away. I wrenched his arms behind him and leaned in close, my voice low enough that only he could hear it as my fingers slipped into my pocket.
“You took something from me,” I said softly. “So I’m taking everything from you.”
He stilled, eyes flicked around the room. His men, his club, his throne of rot and noise, and the truth landed too late.
“No—don’t?—”
I threw the metal balls in opposite directions.
The first hit the floor and erupted instantly.
Hellfire acid sprayed outward, coating bodies, faces, skin. Screams tore through the room as flesh sloughed away, regeneration failing, pain absolute. The sound washed over me like a balm.
Fitz watched with wide eyes, then the second one detonated five seconds later. The blast ripped through the back wall and ceiling, fire and debris roaring upward.
Fitz’s scream cut sharp and high. “My building! My club!” I stood there, holding him down, and watched it burn.
Screams tore through the room, filling every inch of space around me, but they slid off my back like rain. I let Fitz go and stared down at my hands.
Only one was red, and that felt wrong. In complete.
“Calix?”
Rack’s voice cut clean through the noise. Calm. Steady. A question without words.
I barked out a laugh that didn’t sound like mine. “Guess you were right,” I said, eyes still on my hands. “But this works out. Two birds and all that.” I glanced up, lips curling. “We don’t keeptenants who don’t pay.”And we don’t keep girls that fuck me over.
Before he could answer, I was moving.
I crashed into Fitz, driving him to the floor, fists falling in a blur. Bone cracked. Blood sprayed hot and thick across my face. I tasted it without thinking, copper and heat. Something old and starving tore loose inside my chest.
