“No?” I echo. “Are you sure? Because it sounds like you’re confused about the situation you’re in.”
She glares, chin lifting slightly.
That’s the girl I remember. Mouthy. Brave. Dumb as hell when it comes to consequences.
I step even closer, letting the silence stretch between us until she’s backed so far against the wall, her shoulders twitch when the brick scrapes her hoodie.
“You don’t get to say no, Tessa,” I murmur, dropping my voice to something soft and sharp. “You forfeited that right the second you picked up the brick.”
She swallows. Her jaw tenses.
I lean in, not enough to touch, but enough for her to smell my cologne. Something clean and expensive. I’m not the boy she used to sneak out to meet. I’m not the one she left.
“This is how it works now,” I say. “You get one card. One condition. And when I call it in, you don’t ask questions. You just do it.”
“What do you want?” she whispers.
Ah.
There it is.
The real question.
What does Rowan King want?
The answer is simple.
Revenge.
But I don’t say that.
Not yet.
Instead, I smile.
“I don’t know yet,” I lie. “But I will.”
And then, just to twist the knife, I reach into my coat pocket and pull out a playing card.
No logo. No name.
Just three letters, written in clean black marker.
IOU.
I hold it out between two fingers, watching the horror flicker across her face.
She doesn’t reach for it.
So, I tuck it into the front pocket of her hoodie myself, just above where the puppy’s tiny head pokes out.
Tessa’s hand trembles.
But she says nothing.
Good.
She’s learning.
