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The older man appeared to make a hasty decision. He jerked his hand toward one of the thugs. “Give me that.”
When the guy handed over his gun, Sheeran waved for them to go out the back door. “I can take care of this bunch. You make sure no other idiots are skulking around, looking to hassle us.”
“But—” one of the gunmen started to say.
Sheeran glared at him. “Get the fuck out and follow your orders, or you’ll be getting a bullet in the skull too.”
Rafael waved at them with his pistol. “Go right ahead. I won’t stop you.”
Frowning, the three men filed out into the back alley. Lou positioned herself by the door so she’d hear their return.
She narrowed her eyes at Sheeran. “If you think you can cover up what you’ve been doing,you’rethe idiot. No matter what your men here know or believe, I can call up the Harvester directly and tell him the score.”
Sheeran scoffed, though his knuckles had whitened where he gripped the gun. “You can’t prove anything.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Oh, no? You’ll need to explain why you’ve got custom secret pockets stitched into this coat—and who knows how many other pieces of clothing. And why he’d find traces of the ink used on cash and maybe drugs as well in them. That stuff wouldn’t wash out easily.”
“We wouldn’t give you a chance to try anyway.” Lou smirked at him. “I could make the call while we have our little standoff, and I bet he could have someone checking your house in an hour or two, no sweat.”
No sweat for the Harvester, anyway. A few beads of perspiration had formed on Sheeran’s forehead. “You fucking bitch,” he snarled.
She shrugged. “Look, I don’t even care how you’re screwing over your boss. Do whatever the hell you want… as long as you leavemeout of it. I’ve told you before and I’ll tell you again: I don’t give a shit about your territory. I’m only here to skate. I’ve cut all ties with the Deadly Rose. I’m not a threat, and all I want is for you to leave me alone.”
Sheeran snorted. “The Deadly Rose’s heir wouldn’t simply run off to take up figure skating. You might as well try to sell me on the story that you’ve joined the circus.”
“How would you know?” Lou retorted. “You don’t know a thing about me. Just because my mom pushed me out of her body doesn’t mean I’m her carbon copy. I’m capable of wanting different things from this oh-so-fantastic life.” She motioned around her at the dingy room.
“You have access to so much more than this. No one throws that away—not the power or the money.”
“Speak for yourself, jackass.”
Sheeran’s lips curled into a sneer. We’d had him on the defensive, but now he was mocking Lou again. The possibility that she was telling the truth was so far outside the realm of what he could imagine that he hadn’t even bothered to look into her story. Or maybe he figured she was spending all that time in the arena as a front for some criminal scheme.
My heart sank. Even this gambit wasn’t going to work… because I didn’t think Lou did have an immediate line to any members of the Devil’s Dozen. Not without her mother finding out and ruining everything anyway.
So how the hell could we—
A spark of an idea drew me up short. We couldmakehim look.
I turned to Niko. “You have some recordings of our latest run-throughs of the routines on your phone, right?”
Niko blinked at me. “Of course.”
I made an urgent gesture toward the bulge of the device at his hip. “Show this dickwad what she can actually do. What no one who hadn’t dedicated themselves to years of skating practice could possibly pull off.”
Without needing any further prompting, Niko whipped out his phone. As his thumb darted across the screen, Lou shuffled her feet, her stance tensing. “Noone’sseen the full routine except us.”
I glanced at her. “We’ve got to convince him, right?”
Sheeran was rolling his eyes. “If you think a little video of her gliding around a rink is going to make a difference—I’m not an imbecile."
Niko ignored his comments, turning the phone’s screen toward him. The familiar melody of our free skate music pealed from the speakers.
I knew the movements of the routine by heart, on or off the ice. With each beat, my muscles flexed instinctively, the motions playing out in my head. I didn’t need to see the video to follow what it showed.
The wavering light played across Sheeran’s grim features. He adjusted his grip on his gun, his sneer deepening. “Very nice. You set up this whole farce to pretend—”
His voice fell away with the swell of the music—the moment when we’d launched into our first synchronized jumps. The first lift would be next, Lou spinning over my head and stretching into a pose so graceful you’d think she was not just an angel but a goddess incarnate.
