I should be afraid of wanting a future with him.
I am.
But as Kauss sits beside me in the humming transit skiff, warm and solid and quietly amazed by the simple fact of being wanted, I realize fear is not the same as refusal.
Sometimes fear is just the doorway you stand in before stepping through.
CHAPTER 16
KAUSS
The date should end at the transit platform.
That would be the sensible place for it. Clean. Contained. A successful evening concluded without disaster, emotional collapse, or organized crime interference. Evie would smile at me beneath the station lights, tell me she had fun, maybe squeeze my hand again if fortune favored me, and then I would escort her safely home while pretending the warmth inside my chest was survivable.
Instead, Vedder City remembers what it is.
The Ninth Ring hums behind us with bass-heavy music and neon laughter spilling through the open doors. Downtown traffic streams overhead in stacked ribbons of light, blue-white hover lanes crossing red freight corridors high above the rain-slick streets. I smell engine heat, wet pavement, perfume, alcohol, and ozone drifting off the transit rails. Evie stands beside me beneath the platform awning, smiling in the soft afterglow of the evening, her shoulder pressed lightly against my arm.
Then a man says my name from behind me.
“Kauss.”
The voice is smooth. Controlled. Human male, middle-aged, practiced at sounding polite while carrying implied violence beneath every syllable.
My body changes instantly.
The warmth from the date collapses into tactical awareness so fast it almost hurts. I turn slightly, placing myself between the speaker and Evie without making the movement obvious. My gaze finds the man near the edge of the platform stairs.
Gray suit. Black gloves despite the mild weather. Hair slicked neatly back. Expensive shoes unsuited for Halo but perfect for downtown. No visible weapons. That means nothing. Men like him weaponize implication first and bullets second.
Evie glances up at me. “You okay?”
“Yes.”
Lie.
The man smiles politely at her. “Miss.”
“Hi?” she says cautiously.
His attention returns to me. “May I borrow him for a moment?”
“No,” I say immediately.
His smile widens by almost nothing. “It concerns mutual acquaintances.”
I do not recognize him personally, but I recognize the type. Organization man. Messenger. The kind who delivers invitations that are not invitations at all.
“Who are you?” I ask.
“A representative.”
“That is not a name.”
“It is sufficient.”
Evie’s fingers curl lightly against my arm. “Kauss?”
