Halo is unchanged. The house still smells like spices and home. Except its friendly faces aren’t focused on me. Each set of curious eyes is trained on Jay. She’s the burning question in the room. The stranger with an aura of mystery whose stolid expression still holds a hint of pleading in it. For our part, Tristan and I are silently pleading too, or at least we will be once Martine shows up.

We’re waiting in the dining room of the mansion on St. Charles. The sun has set, and the chandelier above the table casts a dazzling pattern of lights on the walls. Zeda is across from us, silently studying Jay when Skye walks in with a few glasses of tea and sets one in front of each of us.

“Can I get you anything else?” Skye may be opening the offer to everyone, but she’s looking directly at Jay.

Skye doesn’t have to say it. I can tell she’s reliving the horror of what she went through with her old pimp the second we walked in. She’s been all nervous energy and questions and fussing since we arrived.

Finally the front door opens with a groan. The click of heels on the hardwood floor ends with Martine’s presence filling the room.

Halo’s own fairy godmother is dressed in a white shift dress, emboldened with loud streaks of color as if she’d walked through a narrow gauntlet of ready paintbrushes. Her cheeks are tinted with their usual rouge. Her yellow hair coiffed for whatever business she was attending to today is still held nicely in place.

She stands at the head of the table, paused beside the chair reserved for her.

“Isabel. Tristan. You’ve come back.” She smiles warmly. “With a friend, I see. To whom do I owe the pleasure?”

“This is Jude McKenna,” I say.

“Welcome to our home, Jude. You’ll have to pardon my very bold assumptions, but you do look as if you’re in need of a soft place to land, child.”

Still Jay doesn’t speak, and I know now I’ll have to be the one to do it. For a moment, I worry that explaining the situation with Skye and Zeda in the audience is wrong, but then I remember what Skye once told me about there being no need for secrets. How it puts everyone in danger. And if they decide to accept a manager of mercenaries in their midst, they deserve to know the extent of it. Especially Skye, who looks like she’s ready to take Jay under her wing the second Martine gives the okay. At the moment, she has no idea what kind of person Jay really is.

“She goes by Jay and has been working with Tristan for several years,” I begin. “She was the one who confirmed the information about Vince Boswell when we needed it. She was also the one who arranged for the hit on my life.”

Silence descends on the room. A heavy, tense silence.

“By a series of unfortunate events, she’s been disconnected from that organization. Not by choice but by circumstance. And now…”

“The people I work for are not the forgiving type,” Jay says, her voice steady and almost businesslike. “I’ve been compromised. If I’m found, they’ll kill me. No questions asked.”

“So you’re the reason why Isabel’s been on the run?” Skye interrupts.

“I’m one cog in the wheel. I’m not blameless, but I’m hardly the mastermind of the operation who doles out assignments to men like Tristan. I can assure you, there’s a lot more to it.”

Skye grimaces, conflicted, as if she’s pissed that I let her feel sorry for such a soulless woman. I offer an apologetic half smile.

Martine drags her chair back, its feet moaning along the floor before she lowers into it. She leans back and cocks her head slightly. “This is a safehouse, you realize.”

“I’m not a murderer.”

“And yet you’ve murdered,” Zeda adds coolly.

Jay sighs. “If it’s not obvious already, I’m not especially adept at defending myself. I wish no one here harm. I’m only here by Isabel’s invitation in an attempt to protect my own life. If you can’t help me then don’t.”

Martine purses her lips, still carefully studying her would-be charge. “Who do you answer to?”

Jay hesitates and glances to Tristan.

“I’m curious about that myself,” he mutters.

“Are you wanting to barter?” Jay asks pointedly.

Martine lifts the corner of her mouth into a coy smile. “I don’t ask for payment from those who stay with us. I ask for an open mind. I ask for loyalty and trust. I don’t imagine you can give us much of that, so perhaps I can, in this case, ask for something more specific. An offering in exchange for our trust to hold you here among us.”

Jay’s breathing ticks up. She stares down at her lap, twisting her fingers. The information she carries is her true lifeline. Once it’s gone, it’s gone. Then she’s just a woman who’s betrayed the strictest confidence, a certain death sentence.

“You may stay here tonight. But I can’t have an enemy residing inside these walls, Miss McKenna. You’ve struck against one of our own, so you’ll need to prove some semblance of loyalty to us if you hope to have our protection. I see no other way around it.” Martine rises. “We can meet again in the morning, once everyone’s had some rest. Skye, please show Miss McKenna to a room and whatever she might need to be comfortable for the evening.”

With that, Martine leaves and everyone slowly begins to move. While Skye gets Jay settled upstairs, Zeda follows us to the foyer.

“You staying here?”

“I didn’t know if it was an option,” I admit.

Zeda laughs. “If she can stay”—she gestures toward the stairs—“you can stay.”

Tristan stiffens. “I’d rather not.”

I glance up at him and take his hand. “Just one night, okay? It’s been a long drive.”

Zeda doesn’t wait for him to relent. “Come on. There’s a second master this way.”

She walks us to the east side of the house through a hallway that leads to a large corner bedroom with an adjoining bath and bay windows that face the street.

“Most people who come are on their own, so this room rarely gets used. I’m sure Martine will let you stay as long as you want.”

I step through the doorway and survey the space. White carpet stretches across the floor, meeting the bottoms of the floor-to-ceiling drapes, which are rough, creamy silk. In the center of the room sits a four-poster iron bed, bracketed by lavender velvet head- and footboards and covered in matching decorative pillows.

“Will this work?”

I turn to her. “It’s perfect, thank you.”

“Get some sleep,” she says, lifting her chin toward Tristan as if some camaraderie exists between them.

“What was that about?” I ask when she shuts the door.

He goes to the windows and draws the curtains closed. “We got to know each other a little when we were prepping things at the hotel for your rendezvous with Boswell.”

I tug off my shirt and toss it to the floor. “You’re quite the pair for confidences.”

He turns to me. “She doesn’t trust Martine’s soul-saving bullshit, and neither do I. That’s as far as the confidences go.” He strips down to his briefs and tears back the silky duvet before sliding atop the sheets.

Undeterred by his mood, I slip off my jeans and the rest of my garments until I’m naked.

“I was just asking. You can bring your guard down now.”

I move to the foot of the bed and lift my knee to the mattress. He’s still, following me with his eyes.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

Slowly, I crawl up the bed and sit astride him. “Reclaiming all of your attention.”

He brings his hands to my hips, taking firm hold as if to keep me there.

I smooth my hands over his pectorals and down his rippled abdomen, admiring and savoring the feel of him, a luxury I’ve been denied for too long. “I feel like I can’t touch you or say what I want to when she’s around.”

He grasps my roaming fingers, squeezing them gently.

“You’re wise not to. You can never trust her. No matter how humble she may seem all of a sudden.”

I know it, of course, but his reminder is one I’ll have to keep fresh in my mind. Jay is smart enough to play on my kindness if it suits her agenda, if her agenda is anything past staying alive.

“Do you think she’ll talk to Martine?”

“If she doesn’t talk to her, I think she’ll talk to me. And if keeping Martine in the know means taking Jay off my hands, at least for a little while, then I’m on board with that. I just need to find out who’s behind the Company.”

“I guess we’ll find out soon. Until then…” I brush my lips over his, flickering my tongue along his lower lip.

When I pull away, he cups my nape and guides me back, holding us together as our mouths reacquaint. He trails his lips from mine, drawing hot kisses down my neck and over my chest, teasing my nipples into aching points.

“We probably shouldn’t be doing this here,” he mutters without much conviction.

“It’s a big house.”

He groans. “We should have gotten a room.”

“Tristan?”

“Yes?”

“I need you to shut up and fuck me…please.”

He exhales roughly, his eyes darkening. My heartbeat ticks up. Something about the dangerous fusion of lust and challenge swimming in the depths of his look prickles my skin and wraps me in a welcome heat. Like he’s a stranger capable of the darkest deeds wrapped in a lover I know. The lover I need…

I roll my hips. Slowly and deliberately, making no mistake of my desire against his. “I don’t want to think about anything except how you feel.”

With a low growl, he shoves me to his side and quickly takes the advantage, holding his weight above me and using it to pin me to the mattress at once. He nips at my collarbone. Rakes his blunt nails down my thigh until I’m bucking against him. “My dirty little saint. Now I want to make you scream.”

Clawing the sheets, I silently beg him to. I don’t want to alert the rest of the house to all the ways I need him, but when he kicks away the last barrier of his clothing and slides into me, I cease caring.

We move together, grabbing and holding on to each other like one of us might slip away. But the world only seems to contain the two of us. Two lost souls climbing toward that one pinnacle moment when everything that haunts us can fade into the darkness. I’m torn between the journey and destination, but the climb is too fast.

I’m trembling at the edge of release when my name slips off his lips. Then a needy groan that disappears into his next savage kiss. His thrusts speed up. “Come for me. Need to feel it…”

I whimper into the electrified air between us, tumbling into the pure possession of his movements. Then, as if his words alone had the power to summon it, a fierce climax like none other rips through me. He swallows my screams, extends the feeling when he pounds out his own fevered release, pulling me further into the drowning wave. Until slowly the wave flows back out to sea, leaving us to our racing hearts and humming skin.

He rolls to the side, bringing me with him so there’s no space between us. I catch my breath and trace the planes of his ribs and stomach. I close my eyes, letting my fingertips memorize the scars I wish I could take away.

He stills my restless touch, threading our fingers together with a sigh. “I think you officially reclaimed all of my attention.”

I giggle and nuzzle against his skin, wrapped in contentment I know can’t last.

The morning is lively—an almost surreal contrast from the tense meeting the night before. With an apron cinched over her sunshine-yellow dress, Martine is the captain of the kitchen, tending to the pans on the stove and directing everyone else. Zeda is cutting up fruit and placing it into little bowls while Skye arranges place settings in the dining room. Jay joins from upstairs just as Isabel and I are noticed.

Martine lifts her eyebrows. “Miss McKenna. You showed up just in time. I have toast that needs butter.”

“I can do it,” Skye offers.

“Nonsense. Your hands work, don’t they?”

Jay glances nervously between Martine and me. I bite the inside of my lip, holding back a laugh at the hilarity of it all. After a moment of hesitation, Jay comes to the island and wordlessly starts in on the task.

Martine turns down the burners and waves me over. “I need you too. Take this to the table for me, please.”

She arms me with mitts to relocate a cast-iron pan of fried potatoes that might weigh as much as she does. And after several more minutes of fussing and directing, she calls everyone to sit. We dig into the hearty breakfast in unison. I’m not especially at ease here, but I allow myself to accept the normalcy of it. Too, I recognize how the comforts of the home Martine’s created draws her tenants in and keeps them here long enough to brainwash them into loyalty and glorified servitude.

If I weren’t convinced Martine kept a mountain of secrets hidden under all that light she pretends to spread across the land, I might become a willing follower, with my stomach full and my basic needs more than met after weeks on the run. But I know better, and I suspect Jay soon will too.

Conversation is thin, limited to small talk about the goings-on in town. A street festival coming up soon. A small mention of Noam, who will no doubt be relieved to see Isabel back in the studio again.

Then the dishes are cleared and Martine’s proposition lingers, unspoken but ever present. She pushes back from the table, crosses her legs at the knee, and focuses on Jay.

“Miss McKenna, how did you sleep?”

Jay smiles politely. “Very well. You’ve been more than hospitable.”

“I appreciate that. We’re all fresh now and our appetites are satisfied. Seems as if this might be a good time to settle the matter of whether you’d like to stay here with us.”

Jay clears her throat and lifts her chin. “What exactly are you offering? I’d like clear terms, if you don’t mind, since my life is on the line.”

“Certainly. You may stay here at the house as long as you wish. Rent free, obligation free, save a few household to-dos that we all chip in with.”

“I don’t care about buttering toast. I’m more concerned about what happens if my whereabouts become known.” Jay’s silver tongue is revealing itself. Once more she’s the calculating manager who’s lethal behind a desk, even if she can’t hold her own when faced head-on with the men she uses as weapons.

“I know many others who would bring you under their roof without hesitation,” Martine says. “If it’s a matter of protection, you have my word that we will provide. Keeping our sisters safe is of paramount importance.”

The muscles in Jay’s jaw tense and release. She shakes her head slightly. “I’m sorry. I’m certain you have the best intentions, but I’m not sure you realize who you’re up against.”

Martine’s face lifts into an easy smile. “Child, I’ve brought governors to their knees. I’ve faced off with bankers and lawyers and the worst kinds of men, here in our city and all over the country. I keep a rather colorful range of people in my acquaintance—some well-meaning and others not as much. This is all to say, I know very well where I sit in the grand scheme of things, both in the hierarchy of the world we read about in the papers and the real one that exists in the underbelly of our society. I’m certain you work for some powerful forces, but if that sort of thing scared me, I’d hardly be in a position to help anyone.”

Jay pauses, seeming to take that all in. “And if I were to tell you more about those powerful forces, in detail, what do you intend to do with that information?”

I lean in to speak. “You said you know everything, so what’s the difference if you’re already marked?”

If Jay starts revealing information based on what she thinks we’ll do with it, we’ll only get a fraction of the picture. And I want the whole thing. Every piece of the puzzle.

She narrows her eyes. “Because, Tristan, if you or anyone else here take action against them using the information I give you, you have no idea how aggressively they’ll maneuver to destroy you. You have no idea.”

Martine and I share a look. A hungry glimmer of anticipation.

“Martine’s given you her word that she can keep you safe. Why don’t you just tell us what you know, Jay, and let us worry about the rest?”

Jay takes in a deep breath. Wrings her fingers in her lap. And for a few tense moments, her choice hangs in the empty silence.