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“Um. In.” And because she’s shivering under her ridiculously thin coat, I wrap my hand around her wrist and lead her toward the door. “Come on.”
Instantly, she tries to fight me. “Archer, no, I—”
“In,” I repeat.
Swinging the door wide open so we’re blasted with body heat, the stench of booze, and the sound of the jukebox, tucked in a corner, I drag her through the doorway and away from the eagle-eyed gaze of my brother as he mans the bar and monitors who comes into his establishment.
“Archer!” Minka has to shout to be heard over the music, the clatter of pool cues hitting balls, and the chatter of patrons already a few drinks into their evening. “You don’t get to—”
I shove her onto a stool at the far end of the bar and breathe in her exhalation of air as she drops down with athud. Then I cocoon her in with my hand on her neck, and my body shielding her from everyone else. “Why are we fighting?”
“What?” Her glare, a mixture of anger and confusion and a hell of a lot of despair, searches mine. “What do you me—”
“Whatexactlyare we fighting about? Is it because you do that thing you do? Or because I don’t want you to do that thing?”
“Archer—”
“Is it because I think what you’re doing is wrong, or because I’m scared you’re gonna hurt yourself while you’re doing it? Or is it that we just don’t fit, and now’s as good a time as any for you to shove me out the d—”
“Archer!” Twisting away from my hand, she smacks it aside with a slap to my wrist, then sits taller under my gaze and crosses her legs. “We’re not—”
“Compatible?” I lean in until I can smell her in my lungs and taste her on my tongue. “What needs to change for us to be compatible?”
“Oh my god, Archer. You can’t just—”
“What are our issues?” I growl. “What exactly do we have to mediate and overcome for you to tell me you love me too?”
“I already told—”
“Yeah, while you were tossing me out the fucking door! That wasn’t a declaration of love, Mayet. That was letting me know what I was missing out on. So now you’re gonna tell me what you need, and I’ll tell you what I need, and we’ll see if we can meet somewhere in the middle.”
“We can’t meet in the middle.” Her eyes glitter as she shakes her head in that sad way that says she pities me. “I won’t stop what I’m doing, and you won’t condone it, so there’s literally nothing for us to mediate.”
“Your issue is the bad guys getting away with their shit, right?” I back up a step and drop onto the stool that touches the backs of my legs. “At the very core of all this, your issue lies with the system not doing its job.”
“Right.” She looks around the bar, past me, to the pool tables overflowing with cops—and then over her shoulder, where more mingle.
This is the bar where every first responder on this side of the city drinks at night, and we’re discussing the fact she kills guys in her spare fucking time.
“The issue,” she says, “is that these people continue to escape prosecution.”
“So if prosecution was to be found, yourplans,” I glance between her eyes, so we talk in code and still understand each other, “become redundant. Yes?”
“Yes.”
“The law is upheld, douchebags go to prison, and you stay in at night?”
“Yes. Archer, I—”
“How do you choose?”
When Tim comes closer, I nod and raise two fingers. Two drinks.
“Minka?” The moment he’s gone, I place my fingers beneath her chin and drag her around to face me. “How do you choose?”
“How do I choose what?”
“Who to go after. Who to pursue. More importantly, how do you gather all the facts?”
