Ember waited with her door wide-open so she wouldn’t miss his return. If he returned.
Lounge light on, TV off so she could hear every creak, she sat on the edge of her sofa facing the door. Aside from her light spilling into the hallway, the stairwell remained in shadows; it had remained shrouded in silence for the three hours she’d been sat there. She hadn’t even got around to changing or showering, despite wanting to get the grime of the day from her skin, fearful of him returning then leaving again in the interim without her having a chance to speak to him – or of him refusing to answer his door.
She needed to know what was going on. She needed to know if that was why he had been there all along. She needed to know if her friends were in danger. She needed to know if her chances of getting across the border were already gone.
When she eventually heard a click at the bottom of the stairwell, her heart skipped a beat. Her back straightened. She held her breath. For a moment she convinced herself it had been a figment of her imagination caused by longing, like seeing a mirage. Because there was no sound on the stairs to reinforce it. No giveaway clues in the echo chamber. So much so that when Nate eventually appeared outside her door, her heart leapt with the shock of it.
She wanted to stand but her legs wouldn’t move.
He met her gaze, albeit fleetingly, before turning and heading across to his apartment.
‘Wait!’ Ember forced herself from the sofa to the threshold. She grabbed hold of the doorjamb for support.
His back remained to her as he slid his key in the lock.
‘You didn’t tell me,’ she said. ‘You should have told me.’
He turned casually to face her. ‘Told you what?’ he asked, his voice as steady as his gaze.
‘That you know them. That you know the Hordas clan.’
‘I know a lot of people.’
‘OK, that you work for them,’ she said, adding the specifics. ‘You work for the Hordas clan.’
‘I’ve done work for them. There’s a difference.’
She had to know. ‘Have you told them? Do they know what I asked you to do? This was my idea, no one else’s. They can’t hold my friends accountable for what I did. This isn’t their fault.’
Because she was going to clear them of the responsibility of this. She was not going to let them suffer because of what she had done.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I haven’t told them.’
His answer was definitive.
Despite relief pooling through her, she needed to be convinced. ‘Why not?’
He frowned. ‘Why would I?’
His attention returned to his door.
‘Why wouldn’t you?’ she asked.
He turned to face her again, his brow furrowed.
‘Is that all this was about?’ she asked. ‘Did I complicate things by saving your life?’ She crossed her threshold. ‘You let me beg you for help and you said nothing. “The only people who would engage in the conversation already work for them.” How did I not read between the lines with that one? Is this is what you do, Nate? That is your name, right? Do you bully innocent people? Advocate murder?’
‘Unlike you?’
‘That’s not fair.’
He took a step towards her. ‘You asked me to kill for you. Exactly how is that different? Does the morality behind killing someone vary according to the reason?’
‘In this case, yes. When there is an aggressor, it’s called self-defence. When there’s no other way to prevent attack, it’s justifiable to protect the non-instigators in the best way you can.’ She took a step closer to him. ‘Even after I told you it was the Hordas clan I was after, you let me continue.’
‘I never disclose who my contacts are.’
‘Then why did you come in the café earlier if not because you wanted me to know? If not because you wanted me to know you now have even more over me?’
His frown deepened. ‘You think I plan to blackmail you?’
‘Do you? Because if you do want something, Nate, just say. If you’re going to use it against me, make it clear now. Is this why you moved next door? Is it because you knew I was getting into Midtown? Are you hoping to turn that to your advantage?’
‘Like for money? A feed? A fuck? This might surprise you but I don’t need to rely on blackmail to get any of those. I went to the café because I needed an excuse to go and meet with them off my own back without implicating you or any of the others.’
Her heart pounded as she stared at him in the shadows. ‘Meet with them about what?’
‘I’ve sorted it, Ember, just like you asked.’
‘Sorted?’ She shuddered at the prospect that her wishes had been met. ‘Sorted how?’
‘My way. They’ll leave Harry’s alone. That’s all you need to know. And all you need to do now is keep your mouth shut and go about the next few days as if none of it happened.’
Her pulse raced as she waited for the punchline. None came. ‘You helped?’
‘If you want to see it that way.’
He turned his back on her again, the enigma of his words wrapping itself around her like an ethereal mist as she wracked her brains for clarity.
‘Why?’ she asked, her heart pounding to the point it made her light-headed. ‘Why did you do it? Yesterday I couldn’t afford you. What’s changed?’
His sideways gaze met hers as he stepped across his threshold. ‘Have you ever heard the cliché about not looking a gift horse in the mouth?’
He moved to close the door but she lunged forward, pressed her palm to the door.
‘You don’t owe me anything,’ she said. ‘You told me that yourself. This doesn’t make any sense.’
‘And I don’t owe you. I didn’t do it for you: I did it for me. All you did was give me the heads-up what was happening.’
‘For you?’
‘It’s my place of business too, remember? So I got them to back off.’
‘No one tells the Hordas clan what to do.’
‘My work for them is freelance. They needed a job done so I did it in exchange for them backing off.’
‘What kind of a job?’
As he moved to close the door, she pushed her foot across the threshold, her hand still pressed to the door.
‘You saved my life when it would have been easier to let them kill me,’ she said. ‘You fixed and returned my necklace when you could have chucked it away. You’re back here when you could be anywhere else. What’s this really about? Who are you? What do you want from me?’
‘I keep telling you: I don’t want anything from you.’
‘I don’t believe you. There’s more to this.’
He held her gaze for a moment longer before breaking first. When he looked back at her, he did so with sullen resolve in his eyes. ‘I saved your life because you saved mine and because I hate owing anyone – whether they’re alive or dead. I got the Hordas clan to back off so I can keep running my business from there without complications. And I gave you your necklace back because I felt sorry for you.’
‘You felt sorry for me?’ She exhaled tersely. ‘There’s nothing to pity about me.’
‘No?’
‘No,’ she said firmly, hearing the indignation evident in her tone.
‘Still wearing your dead fiancé’s ring ten years later? I’d say there’s a lot to pity.’
Her stomach lurched. She recoiled. ‘How do you know about that?’
‘Twenty-second of November, right? I saw you that night. I saw you breaking your heart over Liam’s dead body in the alley, just as I saw Jasper give you that ring,’ he said, indicating the one on her engagement finger.
She instinctively clasped her hand over it. ‘What has my ring got to do with anything?’
‘I was the one who got it for Liam. It’s what I do. I’m a collector. I get my hands on whatever people want me to get my hands on. It’s worth a lot of money. More than he could afford. When he stopped paying the instalments, I tracked him down only to find someone else had got there first. Apparently a sire wasn’t too happy to hear your boyfriend had been up close and personal with his favourite feeder. He’d been screwing some girl for months. He was wrapped around her little finger – and that ring was what she demanded in order for him to prove his love to her. That’s why I felt sorry for you. That ring wasn’t meant for you, Ember. It was meant for her.’
She felt as though she was staring at him down the length of a dark tunnel. As though she was in a backwards freefall.
‘You’re wearing the ring of a guy who’s been dead ten years and didn’t even love you. So like I said, quit looking a gift horse in the mouth. Get yourself out of Lowtown. Start your new life. Move on. Fuck knows you deserve it.’