#tw: hit and run | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

leiawritesstories · 1 year ago

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PART NINE: SEPTEMBER

Word count: 10.7k

Warnings: *covers eyes* swearing, a shitload of scheming, Maeve being her usual self, police presence, angst, one NSFW scene, and um maybe some angst *runs away*

All my thanks to my lovely betas @mariaofdoranelle & @house-of-galathynius love you guys 🫶🫶

Masterlist

Read on AO3

Enjoy!!

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Aelin had felt ice prickling at her spine for a handful of weeks now, and as she walked into her office on the morning of September 6th, she knew it was time to put the contingency plans into motion. Ever since Arobynn’s demise, she had sensed that her Boss days were numbered, so she’d been working on a range of options for what she could do if—when—she was discovered.

She almost couldn’t stomach the idea of letting her beloved company go, but it had to happen.

Elide, Nehemia, Ansel, and Lysandra all came to her office at eleven, as she’d asked, each woman wearing an expression of a different level of confusion.

“What’s up, boss lady?” Elide broke the film of tension as she sat down, fixing Aelin with a look that was equal parts concerned and hesitant.

Aelin twisted her ring beneath the surface of her desk. “I asked if you would all meet me because I…because…” She pressed her lips together and took a deep, steadying breath. “Because there are some documents that I need you to sign.”

“Why does this sound ominous?” Ansel’s eyes narrowed.

“It’s a contingency,” Aelin admitted.

“For what?” Her lawyer was nothing if not persistent and exacting.

Pain wrinkled Aelin’s forehead. “For if—when—the law catches up to everything and everyone that I am.” Her words dropped like stones in the silence of her office.

Lysandra’s brows crinkled in unspoken sympathy. “Will you tell us about this contingency before we have papers pushed at us?”

Aelin cracked a half-grin. “It’s pretty simple, honestly. If I should be, shall we say, involved in a shockingly lurid criminal trial, I vacate the CEO position and completely step away from the company. Ells, you become CEO in my place. Lys, you assume the COO role. Ansel, you’ll probably be faced with the impossible task of defending my guilty ass, but you’ll retain your position here, and you’ll have full authority over the company’s finances.” She exhaled, twisting her ring around her middle finger. “Nehemia will remain in charge of the labs.”

Elide curled her fingers around the edge of Aelin’s desk. “Why me?”

“Because you’re not only the right woman for the job, you’re the perfect woman.” Aelin met her dear friend and lifelong business partner’s heavy gaze. “Ells, you’ve practically given your life to this company, and I trust you completely to guide us through whatever fallout happens when the law catches up to the Boss.”

“You said when.” Lys broke in.

Aelin nodded.

Lys drummed her fingertips against her thigh. “Why did you say when?”

“Because I’m afraid it’s inevitable,” Aelin murmured. “I…something tells me that shit’s going to come crashing down. Soon.” A haunted look flickered through her eyes.

Nehemia’s penetrating gaze fixed on Aelin for a long moment before she picked up a pen, pulled the stack of papers towards herself, and began working through the pages, signing where it indicated. The office was silent as the chief engineer worked, and when she finished, she simply laid down the pen, nudged the papers back to the middle of the table, and folded her hands. “I trust you, Ae,” she said. “I want to protect this place and these people too.”

Unexpectedly, Aelin’s eyes watered. “I don’t deserve you, Nemi.” her voice cracked.

“Nonsense.” Nehemia returned. “We’d all have left a very long time ago if we weren’t determined to keep Gal Inc alive and well.”

Elide nodded as she picked up the contracts and the pen. “I second that.”

The office was silent again as Elide worked through the papers, carefully reading each section before she signed and initialed the dotted lines. When she reached the final line, her hand faltered slightly, but she set her jaw and signed her name, accepting the role that she couldn’t help but feel would fall upon her before the end of the year.

“Let me know when you want to talk about the transition,” she said quietly. Aelin’s eyes were glassy as she nodded.

Surprisingly, Ansel was the next one to sign the papers, not really reading any of the text as she worked through the signatures. She had been the one to draw them up, albeit reluctantly and with a hell of a lot of questions about the motivation, when Aelin had come to her a few weeks ago. “I still don’t like the fatalism of all of this,” she remarked as she slid the stack of papers into the center of the table. “It feels…Ae, I’m going to be blunt here. This feels like you’re about to make some big, splashy statement to the press and bring down the cops and the TSF all over the place.”

Aelin flinched. “No.”

Ansel raised a brow. “No?”

“No.” Emphatically, Aelin shook her head. “My goal with…with the Boss has always been to stick to the shadows. It wouldn’t make any sense to pull off some kind of grand reveal, which would just jeopardize the safety of these plans.” She tapped the stack of papers. “I have this sense that my days of hiding are almost over, but I’m not going to try and upstage the cops by revealing myself. When the law comes, I’m not going to hide from it. That’s all.”

Elide weighed Aelin’s words, mulling over the phrasing. When the law comes. “Ae, do you…” She paused, the question hanging thick in her throat. “Do you think you know who’s going to put all the pieces together?”

Thick, tense silence blanketed the room for a moment. Slowly, Aelin nodded, a jagged slice of grief flickering through her eyes before she shuttered it. “Yes.” The finality of the single word dropped like a stone into the air-conditioned silence of the conference room. She closed her eyes for a brief, steadying moment. “And knowing that he’s the best at his job and would always have figured it out won’t make it hurt any less.”

Everyone in the room knew who she meant, knew why that grief had crossed her face.

“Still feels an awful lot like doomsday,” Lys commented as she pulled the papers to her seat. She hesitated for a moment before she began reading and signing, stuffing down the bile that churned in her stomach as she signed the documents. Out of all of them, she was still the most closely linked to the Boss business, since she monitored the cameras around the Boss’s apartment and warehouses. She’d seen everything that happened when the TSF and PD went through Fenrys’s stakeout apartment. “But if you trust us, boss lady, then I trust you.”

“Thank you,” Aelin rasped, reaching across the table to squeeze Lys’s hands. “Thank you.”

By the end of the day, the documents were notarized and filed, ready to reshuffle the executive structure of Galathynius Inc. if anything should happen to its current CEO.

When that something inevitably happened to its CEO.

“You needed me, ma’am?” Connall stepped into Maeve’s office, his eyes adjusting rapidly to the familiar darkness. He’d never understand why the hell she insisted on keeping her office so dark she could barely see five feet in front of her, but it was probably for the whole “Queen of the Night” aesthetic.

“I did.” Maeve’s voice was as cool and controlled as ever, although as Con drew closer to her desk, he could see how her skin was paler than usual. “Connall, I suspect that I’m being poisoned.”

He remained absolutely still, keeping his face neutral. “What do you need me to do?”

A faint, insidious smile curled the corners of her scarlet lips. “Kill the kitchen staff and replace them. Get me the doctor for a diagnosis, and when he’s given it, kill him. Then, find the antidote.”

Con nodded, a sharp dip of his chin. “Right away, ma’am.”

Maeve smirked. “Good boy.”

He was on his phone before he even left her office, calling the doctor who lived in the compound to get his ass to Maeve’s office. He let Maeve hear that brief conversation, because she needed the assurance that her closest, most loyal dog was doing her bidding.

All of his carefully-laid plans would crumble if she turned on him.

So Con headed down to the kitchens, patting the gun tucked into his hip holster and the assortment of tiny darts hidden in the pockets of his black jacket. He knew the handful of cooks and servers who were kept on staff to feed the Queen of the Night and her men, and he knew that the kitchen staff was aware that they could be killed at a moment’s notice.

Not a single one of the twelve kitchen staff were surprised when Con strolled into the kitchen, locked the door, and sat down at the raised butcher-block counter, and placed a row of tiny darts in front of him. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

Jes, the current head chef, just removed their apron. “We all know you’re not a sadist,” they replied, calmly sitting down opposite him.

Con’s throat tightened as he pulled a small, narrow copper tube out of his sleeve. “The least I can do is make it quick.” He’d had the darts specially designed to be surgically sharp and as small as possible, and they were one of his favorite ways to knock a target out cold.

To knock them out, not to kill them.

The drug contained in the darts put all twelve of the kitchen staff into a kind of comatose state that looked like death to an untrained eye, slowing their breathing and heart rate until it was just high enough to keep them alive but just low enough that a cursory inspection would assume they were dead. He hauled each one out the back door, loading their inert bodies into the back of the nondescript van that Maeve’s men used to dispose of bodies, and drove off the property. A quick glance in the mirrors showed a flicker of dark violet curtains in the upper hallway, the only sign that Maeve had been watching as he dragged the ostensibly dead kitchen staff out of the compound.

Perfect.

After dropping the slumbering staff off at the docks, where they were taken aboard a cargo ship that belonged to Kingsflame, Celaena Sardothien’s smuggling company, Con drove back to the compound and returned to Maeve’s office. He pushed open the door, blinked in the familiar shadowy gloom, and sighed as he nearly tripped over the corpse of the doctor.

“Dry cleaning nearly had a fit the last time they had to wash blood out of your carpet, ma’am.”

Maeve shrugged. “I wanted him to think he had a chance.”

Con let out a snort. “I’m always in awe of your creativity.” He stopped in front of her desk. “What did he say?”

“He suspects that it’s some kind of concentrated medication or steroid that’s damaging my internal organs,” Maeve said, oddly calm for someone who was being poisoned. “The suggested treatment is to consume a dose of activated charcoal, induce vomiting to see if it will purge any substance that hasn’t been absorbed, and immediately start NAC supplementation to counteract the poison.”

Connall nodded tightly. “What do you need me to do, ma’am?”

“Get me the things that the doctor mentioned.” Maeve’s cold, calculating expression swept over Connall. “Get the corpse off my floor, send the rug to dry cleaning, and then come find me. You know I like to reward my good boy.” Something almost like fondness passed over her face.

“And if dry cleaning throws another fit about your rug?” The last time he’d taken Maeve’s run down to her preferred dry cleaners, they had all but thrown the damn thing at his face when he informed them that it was once again bloody and needed expedited cleaning.

“I’m sure they can be adequately convinced,” Maeve drawled. “However, I have begun to tire of this old thing.” She scraped the toe of her crimson-bottomed stiletto heel across the rug. “I suppose it wouldn’t be too terrible to freshen up the tired old décor in here, if necessary.”

“Of course, ma’am.” With a dip of his head, Con left, dragging the doctor’s body behind him. Out in the hallway, he deposited the corpse in the large, unmarked chute that would send it down to be incinerated, frowned at the blood on his hands, and ducked into the closest bathroom to wash up before he left the compound again, heading to the nearest pharmacy. They had long since grown used to Maeve’s men barging into their storefront, and he had a hunch that she either paid off the pharmacists or planted one of her men in the place to make them more agreeable to her…needs. Or both.

He picked up the few things that Maeve needed, palming a vial of essential oil that he tucked into his sleeve as he strolled through the small pharmacy. Combined with the pennyroyal oil that he was already lacing into Maeve’s food, the rosemary oil would speed up the effects of the poisoning, making Maeve weaker by the day.

Making it easier for when Celeana Sardothien led the Queen of the Night to her death.

Aelin rolled down her window as Rowan turned off the highway, letting the mid-September breeze brush through her hair as she inhaled the crisp scent of the leaves beginning to turn. She and Rowan had finally found a day where both of their calendars were clear, and he had wasted no time in planning this date. Don’t even think about accepting any calls, love, he’d teased as he picked her up from her apartment, a laugh sparkling behind his tired eyes.

“First time you’ve seen sunshine in a while?” Rowan joked as he drove down the country road, flicking her a glance in the rearview mirror.

Aelin poked his firm shoulder. “I have plenty of windows, love. I should ask you the same things, since apparently it’s a requirement at the police station not to have any windows, if the crime shows I watch are any indication.”

He chuckled softly. “We have…uh, some windows.”

“Liar.” A grin broke across her face. “We have to enjoy this last bit of good weather while we can, since I’ve heard we’re supposed to get a record cold winter this year.”

“No,” Rowan groaned. He turned onto a secluded side road, heading east, towards the Oakwald Forest. The road was mostly gravel, so Aelin reluctantly closed her window.

Her expression brightened as she realized where they were going. “You remembered,” she whispered, her throat unexpectedly tight.

“Of course.” He reached over and laid his hand atop hers. A few weeks ago, Aelin had told him about the spot where her family always took picnics when she was a child. About an hour’s drive outside Orynth, the natural area that bordered the Oakwald had been one of her favorite places to explore. When she was little, she daydreamed about being a forest princess who could speak to the Little Fae Folk of the fairy tales. That daydream had faded as she grew up, but the place had remained one of her favorite spots to go when she was feeling overwhelmed.

In fact, she’d been there just last week, right after she’d filed the contingency documents, and she’d stared out across Terrasen until the sunset faded into star-speckled darkness.

Rowan pulled into the small parking lot, hopped out of his SUV, grabbed the picnic basket from the backseat, and hurried around to open Aelin’s door. He looped his arm around her waist as they walked down one of the trails, his warmth seeping into her skin. She stole the bag with the blankets from him and slipped her arm around his waist, flashing him a smirk.

“I can’t let you carry everything,” she teased.

He pretended to sigh. “It’s called being a gentleman, love.”

“And I love you for that, but I’m an independent woman.”

“You don’t have to be all full-on girlboss with me.” He kissed the top of her head.

A tiny corner of her heart melted at the sincere softness of his words. “I know, but…it’s so hard to get away from that persona.”

“I know.” His thumb rubbed against the curve of her hip. “I feel like I can’t ever turn off the investigator half of my brain. It’s always going, always trying to fit different puzzle pieces into different places, even when I’m sleeping.”

“That sounds rather distracting,” she remarked. “For me, it’s all the contracts, all the deals, everything I’ve ever signed or shaken hands on. It’s the details and little clauses and wondering if I said the right words to the right people.”

“Sounds noisy.” He stopped as they came to a spacious meadow at the top of a rise. “Looks like we’re here.”

Aelin’s throat tightened again as she drank in the familiar view. “This is my favorite spot out here,” she murmured. “Thank you, my love.”

“Anything for you, Fireheart.” Rowan tipped his head down and kissed her, slow and sweet. Then he swiped the blankets from her and shook them out before arranging them on the grass. He pulled out an impressive spread of food from the basket and set it all up nicely, turning to her with a big, dazzlingly proud grin. “Eat up.”

“What if I’m not hungry for food?” She tugged her lower lip between her teeth, tracking the slow bob of Rowan’s throat as he swallowed.

“You need real food first,” he rasped, hooded gaze trailing lazily down her throat.

She sighed delicately as she sat down, plucked a pair of cherries out of the bowl, and stared straight into his eyes as she sucked both cherries into her mouth and bit into the perfectly sweet-tart fruit, spitting out the pits. “I’ve had real food now.”

He closed his eyes and tipped his head back, clearly fighting his urge to lunge across the blanket and claim her. “Aelin,” he half-groaned. “You’re driving me wild, Fireheart.”

“You know I love to do that.” She smirked.

Very slowly, he picked up a skewer of grilled chicken and bit into the meat, holding her gaze the whole time. “Eat your lunch, love.”

Her smirk widened. “Enjoying your meat on a stick?”

Skewer almost to his mouth, Rowan spluttered out a string of coughs, his cheeks blazing with a bright crimson flush. “Aelin!”

She laughed, the gleefully bright sound echoing around the valley. “I couldn’t resist.”

He wiped off the corner of his mouth. “My gods, I’m in love with a wild woman.” He graced her with a brief, wicked grin before he took a handful of cherries and ate them, licking the juice off his fingers at a borderline explicit pace. “Two can play this game, love.”

“Oh, I do love a game,” she purred, picking up a skewer of chicken and dipping it into a small container of sauce. She lifted it to her lips and licked the sauce off of the meat, flicking her tongue against the first piece of chicken. “Delicious,” she hummed, her voice almost a moan.

Rowan’s knee banged into the picnic basket as he shifted in his seat, brazenly adjusting his erection in his pants. Aelin swore she heard the faint clink of metal in the basket, but dismissed it as probably some extra silverware or something her overprepared boyfriend had packed. He always brought extra stuff whenever they had a date outside the city, something for which she always teased him.

By the time they had finished lunch, Aelin knew her panties were ruined, and she was certain that Rowan’s dick was about to rip through his jeans. Still, he clung to his impressive control, carefully packing up the picnic and putting everything back into the basket. Aelin took advantage of the moment when his back was turned to lay down on the blankets with a contented hum. He laid down beside her, effortlessly tugging her into his arms so she laid atop his chest, and idly ran his fingers through her hair.

“I used to dream about being a princess,” she said, finding herself content to just relax in his arms, the heat in her blood dimming to pleasant warmth.

He chuckled softly, no doubt imagining little Aelin in her pink princess dress at a family picnic. “Did you?”

“Yeah.” She smiled, the memory old but still vivid. “Little Aelin wanted so badly to run off into the Oakwald and find the Little Fae Folk. I probably read way too many fairy tales.”

“And then you grew up and became a practical businesswoman,” Rowan teased.

She nudged him in the ribs with her elbow. “You mean business princess.”

His laughter cascaded over her like a summer shower. “I think little Aelin did read too many fairy tales, but it made her heart that much brighter.”

“And it made me believe I’d one day find my true love.” She rolled onto her side so she could meet his eyes. “It took a while, but I did.”

A suspiciously glassy gleam misted his eyes. “I love you,” he whispered.

She cupped the side of his face, running her thumb over his jaw. “I love you too.” Her lips brushed his, her kiss gentle at first but quickly growing deeper, all the love she had for him poured out into the stroke of her tongue against his.

They laid in each other’s arms until the sky began to darken, until Aelin shivered and Rowan helped her up and wrapped a blanket around her shoulders for the walk back to his car. As he loaded the picnic basket into the backseat, she heard that metallic clink again, and once again, she dismissed it as just the sound of the containers shifting against each other. She climbed into her seat, tucked the blanket around herself after she buckled her seatbelt, and kissed Rowan’s knuckles when he reached over to help adjust the blanket. She didn’t miss the soft, tender flicker of a smile that crossed his face.

Aelin drifted into sleep as Rowan drove back into Orynth, only waking when he pulled into the parking garage of her building, stopped the car, and kissed her awake. She let him walk her back to her apartment and kissed him goodnight at her door, giving him a sleepy wave as he headed back down the hallway, his figure illuminated in the soft yellow lighting.

She was snug in bed by the time he finally pulled out of the garage, having sat there in his car for a good half hour, head in his hands, agonizing over whether to pull the handcuffs he’d hidden in the picnic basket out and go back up to her apartment to face the inevitable arrest, or to just go home for the night and wait another few days before he had to arrest the love of his life.

In the end, he drove away.

He could delay the heartbreak for another few days.

“You needed to see me, ma’am?” Connall assumed his usual stance in front of Maeve’s desk.

Maeve nodded. “I have an assignment for you.”

“Where?”

She slid him a single sheet of paper. “Sardothien has a warehouse near the docks where she holds her shipments before distribution. I need you to find out what’s currently there and what’s coming next.” Her orders were silky-smooth and firm, despite the tremble in her hands that she couldn’t quite conceal and the sunken circles beneath her eyes, obvious signs of her body weakening.

Con glanced over the building’s details. “Looks like it’s got a few layers of security,” he observed in a neutral tone of voice. “How often does she visit it?”

“Practically never.” Maeve scoffed. “Unlike a proper leader, she lets some underling run it.”

“So it’ll be easy as fuck to break in,” Con remarked. He allowed a sharp-edged smirk to curl across his lips. “Damn, I was hoping for a challenge.”

The Queen of the Night chuckled softly, a sinister rasp that would have been far more villainous if it hadn’t broken into a hoarse cough after two seconds. “I believe the interior will be the challenge you want, Connall. Sardothien allegedly posts a rotating guard at the place, and I haven’t yet determined how much of the building is patrolled or how extensively.”

He grinned, his teeth a stark flash in the gloom of her office. “What should I do if I happen to run into the guard, ma’am?”

“I suppose you’ll be forced to subdue him,” Maeve said calmly. She gave Con a small, chillingly ruthless smile. “I don’t foresee you having any difficulties with that.”

“None at all, ma’am.” Con tucked the folded paper into the hidden pocket in his shirt, the same place where he kept the vials of Maeve’s poison.

“I look forward to your discoveries, Connall. Dismissed.”

Con bowed, turned sharply on his heel, and strode out of Maeve’s office. He returned to his room, where he laid out a small array of easily concealed weapons on his bed, took his Navy SEAL vest out of the closet, and began methodically loading each blade and dart into the multitude of slim pockets in the high-tech mesh material. He tucked a set of lockpicks into a front pocket, along with a generic employee ID card that Celaena’s tech guy—Nyx or Nox or something like that—had given him. The card would, in theory, work at the Boss’s properties.

With his weapons and devices ready, Con pulled off his plain gray long-sleeve shirt, threw it into the laundry basket, and changed from his jeans into black tactical pants, which were reinforced with a layer of the same material that made up his vest. He pulled on his boots, laced them up, and then he reached into the back of the drawer where he kept his socks and retrieved a small, slender chrome tube. He uncapped it and removed a roll of sterile blue paper, which he carefully unrolled and laid flat on the bare top of his dresser. Also in the tube was a pair of long, narrow tweezers and a small silicone spatula that looked like a bakery dough scraper. He went and washed his hands in his sink, patted them dry, and then removed the tweezers from their plastic packaging and, slowly and carefully, peeled back the top layer of blue paper.

Near-invisible atop the sterile paper laid a pristine pair of what looked like very, very, very thin, delicate latex gloves molded to the precise measurements of his hands.

Put this onto your hands if you’re ever going into my property, Celaena had said. I can’t tell you much, but it will ensure that you leave no fingerprints.

She’d called it “SecondSkin.”

Carefully, Con lifted the first glove, sliding the flat prongs of the tweezers between the layers that were almost too fine for him to see. He slipped his left hand into the glove, surprised at how the synthetic material didn’t cling to his skin like ordinary latex would. Once the glove was on all the way to his fingertips, he exchanged the tweezers for the scraper tool and pressed the synthetic against his skin in order to get every tiny centimeter flush against his skin.

By the time he was finished, he couldn’t even tell there was something over his skin.

He repeated the process with his right hand, carefully scraping every little bit of the synthetic material until it was molded seamlessly to his hands and wrists. Finished, he rolled the paper back up and tucked it and the tools back into the slender chrome tube, which he stashed back in his drawer. For good measure, he also put on a pair of flexible faux leather gloves, the same ones he wore whenever Maeve sent him out. He pulled on a close-fitting black thermal shirt, strapped on his vest, and tucked a black balaclava into his pocket.

If he did run into anyone at the warehouse, it would be best if nobody saw his face. He wasn’t yet ready for the entire military of Terrasen to know that he wasn’t actually missing or dead in action, as they all believed him to be.

It took roughly twenty minutes for Con to drive down to the edge of the industrial district, park his nondescript car innocently in a 24-hour grocery store parking lot, and weave through the dark, twisting tangle of alleys and unpaved roads that meandered through the district until he reached the Sardothien warehouse. He took a careful lap around the property, noting that the one guard posted by the west loading dock was apparently asleep on the job, and slipped around to the southeast doors.

The employee ID card worked, and the little sensor by the door flashed green as the steel door unlocked with a clank. Con winced at the sound but darted inside and slowly eased the door shut behind himself. He waited a full two minutes before he moved, both to let his vision adjust to the shadowed gloom of the warehouse interior and to listen for sounds of any other presence. Finding the place mostly silent except for the gentle mechanical hum of the overhead fan system, he slunk around the perimeter of the space, heading for a set of steel stairs that went up to a mezzanine level positioned about halfway up the wall.

A perfect height to observe the entire warehouse.

The steel walkway spanned the whole south wall and curved around the east wall as well, but Con had his sights set on the single office built into the mezzanine. He was surprised to find the door unlocked, but as he entered, the apparent lack of security made perfect sense. Because there was a rather sophisticated security camera system arranged on one wall of the office, allowing him to look around the floor without having to walk all over the place and potentially disrupt the tidy stacks of crates and pallets that stood in orderly, numbered rows.

It also required him to spend ten minutes editing the camera footage to wipe away his presence from four of the camera angles, but that was just the job.

Having learned from the camera feed and the printout taped to another wall that the warehouse was currently mostly full of ammunition, Con left the office and stealthily paced the length of the mezzanine floor before he crept down the other set of stairs. He’d set the cameras up to run on a loop for the next hour, giving himself that time to have a good look around the place and get himself out. The stacks of pallets and crates cast overlapping shadows on the concrete floor, hiding Con from the handful of dimmed lights that gave some illumination to the empty space. He hadn’t yet seen or heard anyone else inside the building, so he assumed that the outside guard probably had a view of the security cameras.

Not that it mattered, since the man was still sleeping soundly.

Con wove through the neatly organized stacks, mentally noting how each was marked with a date of arrival and a date of distribution and the distribution dates were spaced out across the span of a week. It would apparently be a few days before they were sent out, since the first date was the 27th and it was currently only the 23rd. Aside from the efficient cataloging system, he didn’t really notice anything unusual or worth reporting, so he headed for the south door and let himself out.

He was almost back in the safe cover of the warehouse’s shadows when he heard the faint but bone-chillingly recognizable scrape of footsteps.

Shit.

Con’s Navy SEAL instincts kicked in within split seconds, and he ducked around the closest corner of the warehouse, where a set of steel rungs bolted into the exterior wall led him up to the roof. He scaled the ladder in seconds and was crouched on the rooftop, mostly hidden in the deep shadows of the venting pipes, before he dared to look down at the ground. He tugged the balaclava over his head and tapped the special lenses that laid over his eyes, activating a highly secret and definitely experimental bit of vision-enhancing tech that allowed him to zoom in on the muscular male figure that was messing with the keypad of the south door.

The man was slightly taller than Con and was also dressed in tactical black, but the Kevlar vest and flexible-soled boots he wore, paired with the obvious expertise of the way he disarmed the door’s safety features, identified him as TSF.

Double shit. Just what Con needed—the goddamn Terrasen Special Forces on his ass.

They aren’t on your ass yet, idiot, he snapped at himself. He kept his vision trained on the TSF man, watching as he opened the door, stepped back, and ran a slow, analytical, sweeping gaze over the loading docks and the property. Con instinctively sank deeper into the shadows, holding his breath as the man’s dark green gaze flicked briefly over the warehouse itself. But the man was apparently satisfied that he was alone, because he ducked into the warehouse and closed the door.

Con tapped his lenses again, returning his vision to normal, and uncurled himself from his crouch. Slowly, keeping his boots silent against the roof, he swung himself around the pipes and slipped back down the ladder, barely breathing until he was back on the ground. He swept a look over the area, found it clear, and kept his tread as light as possible as he dashed towards the neighboring warehouse, which backed up into the headache-inducing tangle of the industrial district.

He was four feet from safe cover when the Boss’s warehouse door banged open and the TSF man sent a knife whizzing past Con’s head.

“STOP!” The barked command almost made Con’s own military training jerk him to an abrupt halt, but he ignored those instincts and instead took the last stride and a half into the shadows surrounding the closest warehouse building. The TSF soldier gave chase, and Con stifled a rather creative curse as he ducked around the corner of the building, found a ladder, and got himself onto the roof in under twenty seconds. Just in time for TSF Jackass to come into view and ah fuck.

That was Lieutenant Rowan Whitethorn, who was currently part of a joint TSF and Orynth Police investigation into Celaena Sardothien.

And also one of Fenrys's closest friends.

Don’t think, just move, idiot! Beyond thankful for the film of smoky fog that smeared the midnight sky over the industrial district, Con ran along the rooftop, his boots light as feathers atop the ridged metal plates, and launched himself across to the roof of a mossy brick building. He tucked and rolled, absorbing the impact of the landing, and kept going, darting from that rooftop across a series of other connected roofs. When he reached a brownstone building with a weathered tile roof, he crossed to the corner and swung himself down via the drainpipes.

Tucked into a dark, cramped alley that reeked of soot and garbage, Con waited with held breath for the sound of pursuit. After three minutes, he deemed it safe enough and ducked out of the alley, hiding himself in the shadows of the industrial district’s disorganized sprawl as he wove the most confusing path possible back towards where he’d left his car. He paused every few blocks to make sure there was nobody behind him, unaware that he’d left his would-be pursuer in the dust back at the warehouse.

And Rowan Whitethorn, who’d only just managed to pry his knife free from the steel wall that it had embedded into when it missed Con by an inch, grumbled under his breath about damned fucking criminals and returned to Sardothien’s warehouse to discover that it was full of neatly stacked crates of military-grade ammunition, all of them marked for distribution to decidedly non-military personnel.

Rowan’s house was quiet, peacefully removed from the noise and lights and general clamor that made up downtown Orynth. As much as Aelin loved her downtown apartment, she was drawn to the illusion of isolation that her love’s house offered, an oasis of calm amid the noisy sea of city life. She’d only been there a few other times, scattered throughout the whirlwind blur of their months together, and most of those visits had been spent either in his bedroom or on the spacious covered patio, lost in a haze of love and desire and him. His home was large but cozy, its dark wood paneling, plaster walls, and mismatched furniture giving it a comfortable, lived-in ambience. The fireplace in the living room burned brightly, recently re-ignited as the cool nip of early fall began to descend over Orynth.

Bourbon in hand, Rowan dropped into his comfortable armchair, legs automatically spreading into what she teased him was a typical man-pose. Aelin curled lazily on the couch opposite his armchair, tugging her sweater down so it artfully draped over her lean, muscled legs, hiding another lingerie set that would no doubt bring him to his knees, and set her mostly-full glass of wine down on the side table.

“I’ve missed this.” Her soft, open look radiated with warmth and trust, and he was torn between the desire to bottle up that look and keep it forever and the fear that it was all a façade. “Just us, some drinks, and a snatch of time to breathe.”

Despite the iron weighing down his blood, he smiled. “I’ve missed this too.”

“When was the last time we got a whole night to ourselves, maybe May?” Her soft laughter warmed his numbing heart. “I’m a little surprised you haven’t backed me into the wall yet, Ro.”

Fire sizzled down his spine, but Rowan calmly lifted his drink to his lips. “And what if I want you to be patient for me?”

Aelin tugged her bottom lip between her teeth, hooded gaze tracking the thick bob of his throat as he swallowed another mouthful of bourbon. “Seems an awful lot like you’re sitting there and doing nothing, buzzard.”

“Is that so?” With deliberate slowness, he set his drink down and uncrossed his legs. “Don’t give me ideas you don’t want me to have, darling.” How can I not want you? His internal echo was desperate, aching, filled with the emotion he stifled. One last time.

“Who said anything about not wanting you?”

“Not me.” The humidity of the room seemed to be increasing with every whispered word and hitch of breath.

“Good.” Languidly, she stood and stretched her arms over her head, sliding off her oversized sweater in the process. “Because I don’t wear gold for just anybody, Lieutenant Whitethorn.”

“What did I say about using my name, Aelin?” Warning crept into his words.

“I might need a reminder…Rowan.” She strolled across the plush carpet of his living room until she was inches away from where he sat. “And you need to stop brooding about your work.”

He sighed. “I’m not brooding.” He knew full well that he was—he couldn’t help it. Work currently meant the sudden, jarring end of their relationship, and he still questioned if he had the strength to do that. To either of them.

She snorted. “Look in a mirror and tell yourself that, if you can.”

“What have we discussed about the sass, love?” Abruptly, he rose to his feet and wrapped one strong arm around her waist, pulling her flush against his chest.

Her lips dropped into a soft O of surprise. “That it’s–hmmm.” Before she could properly answer, he kissed her, slowly at first and then deeper, more urging.

“Fine,” he murmured, pulling just an inch away. “Maybe I’m brooding. I’m sure you can help me forget why, though.” I wish I could forget why, he added, silently. Deep down, he wished she could erase that part of his mind—the part that knew this was the last time.

“I’m sure I can.” She looped her arms around his neck, the lace of her delicate lingerie brushing his bare chest, and pressed her lips to his, her kiss soft, sensual, tender. “I love you, Ro,” she breathed against his lips.

If only you did, his heart screamed. But he threaded his fingers into her hair and slid his tongue between her lips, losing himself in her kiss. “I love you too, Fireheart,” he whispered, his words thick. He slid his free hand down and lifted her into his arms, and her legs wrapped easily, fluidly, naturally around his waist, her panties notched against the fabric of his trousers. In a rushed, heated blur, they were in his bedroom, Aelin’s back flush against his sheets as he kissed her harder, toying with the string of her panties. Lingerie that was his favorite shade of gold.

She gasped, a soft whine breaking from her lips as he brushed his thumb a fraction away from her clit. “Rowan, please.”

“So good for me,” he smirked, though the words nearly killed him to utter. So good. Ironic, when the woman sprawled beneath his touch was anything but good. He shook his head, shoving those thoughts aside for the moment.

One more night. They could have one more night.

Always so clever, Aelin’s fingers flicked open the clasp of his trousers, and the tailored material pooled around his ankles. “Good girl,” he purred into her ear as he kicked off his pants, relishing the quiet moan his Fireheart let out at the praise.

“My gods,” Aelin rasped as Rowan stripped off his boxers. “I could never get used to the sight of you, love.” Her eyes were bright as she watched him, her figure a vision in scraps of gold sprawled upon his bed.

“Likewise.” He pounced, ripping those tiny golden panties right down the seam, and she’d barely gasped in shock before his tongue was on her cunt. “Fuuuuck,” he groaned, swiping his tongue in a long, lazy stroke, “so ready for me.” Her fingers knotted into his hair as he licked her, swirling his tongue indolently around her clit, and she released a garbled string of moans that could have been his name. He just smirked, his gaze lifting to sear into hers, as he devoured her, loving how quickly his love turned wordless and needy for him. Only for him.

“Rowan!” Aelin screamed as she came, her hips thrashing against his face, and she rode out the waves of her orgasm along his tongue and fingers, calming just in time for him to lift his glistening jaw, swipe a long, slow touch through her pussy, and kiss a deliciously indecent path from her cunt up to her throat, removing the lacy bra as he went.

When his lips claimed hers again, the taste of her thick and heady on his lips, she locked her leg around his and smoothly flipped them, landing him on his back with her astride him. One-armed, he pushed himself into a seated position, wrapped her hair around his fist, and tipped her head backwards, kissing her hard and sinful, a promise wrapped into the curling strokes of his tongue.

“Yes,” she breathed against his lips, her hand sliding down to wrap around his cock. Her grip was dangerously close to perfection, and she stroked the length of his dick with just enough pressure to ignite his blood. Her nails scraped lightly along the underside of his cock, and he groaned, pinching her tight little nipples in return. She smirked and tightened her grip, squeezing and twisting her wrist.

“Fireheart,” he growled, far too close to begging as she shot him a devious, cunning smirk and shifted just far back enough to lower her head, pressing kisses down his throat, his chest, his tattoo before he lifted her head back up. “N-not this time.” His words were shaky, uneven, laden with the urgency of his need to be fully inside of her and the weight of his knowledge that this was the last time. “I need you.”

She pushed herself back up, tracing the script of his tattoo. “I need you too,” she admitted, a gleam of vulnerability flickering briefly through her heated gaze.

Not trusting himself to reply, Rowan just kissed her neck, flicking his tongue along the tender spot he knew could make her tremble. “Ready, love?”

“Always.” Fuck, the word drove a knife straight through his fragile heart.

He lifted her hips up, and she positioned herself just right before she sat down, sliding onto his steel-hard dick, and both groaned at the utterly perfect sensation. Aelin’s head arched back with pleasure, but Rowan tipped her chin forwards, kissing her deep and slow as he rocked against her. She broke the kiss to drop her head to his shoulder, laying kisses and tiny bites on his tattoos, and he brushed her hair over her shoulder so he could drag his hands down her dragon tattoo, feeling the seemingly delicate ridges of her spine and the solid firmness of the muscle lining her back. The dragon on her spine coiled and shifted with the pattern of his thrusts, its flames almost alive, if only for an illusory moment.

The kiss he laid atop those flames was both a claiming of her whole self as his and a final confirmation that the flames licking out of the dragon’s screaming maw matched the one image he’d caught of Celaena Sardothien. Gently, in stark contrast to the roughness of his thrusts, he kissed those inked flames.

A gesture of farewell.

Aelin choked out his name as she flew closer and closer to orgasm, and Rowan breathed hers as he drove his pace faster, pushing them both into silent, unending bliss. He held her close as she came down, as the shaking of her body calmed, as his movements beside hers slowed. Carefully, he lifted them off the bed, not pulling out until they were in the shower, Aelin languid and relaxed as he lathered her lavender body wash over her skin.

He carried her sleepy form back to bed and tucked her between the sheets, then slipped into bed behind her, curling into her warmth as he’d grown so used to doing. His breathing deepened with hers as she fell into dreams, and he kissed her forehead, tucking her soft hair away from her face.

Aelin slumbered peacefully beside Rowan, her golden hair strewn messily over his pillows. Her face tucked downwards, the hint of tension that always lined it softened with sleep, and the moonlight that slanted through his bedroom window cast the splattering of freckles on her cheeks in pale silver. She looked so vulnerable there, asleep in his bed, so soft and sweet. But he knew full well what lurked under that innocent face—a ruthless, cold-blooded killer.

The jarring juxtaposition of images haunted his restless sleep.

Aelin blinked awake to moody gray light filtering in through Rowan’s curtains, the sky dimmed by a thick blanket of clouds that promised rain. She stretched, feeling the delicious ache in her body, and rolled out of bed, throwing on one of Rowan’s worn old t-shirts before she went into the master bathroom to brush her teeth and do her morning skincare. She came back out to get dressed, changing into the clean trousers and silk blouse that she’d brought, and went back to put on makeup and brush out her hair. She tied the golden waves into a thick braid, put in a pair of pearl drop earrings, and paused to check for stray hairs or mascara smudges before she left the bathroom.

The scent of fresh coffee floated down the hallway, and she smiled. Rowan had probably been up for at least a couple of hours, enough time to get in his morning run and brew fresh coffee before she even dragged herself out of bed. She followed that enticing scent out into the kitchen, rose onto her tiptoes to get a mug from the cabinet, and turned around with a smile that instantly froze.

Because Rowan’s gun was trained on her.

Handcuffs dangled from his tattooed hand, glinting in the kitchen lighting. His voice shook and his eyes were shattered pools of tormented grief, but his aim was rock-solid and locked between her eyes as he said, “Celaena Sardothien, you are under arrest for more crimes than I can possibly enumerate.”

She simply, slowly, raised her arms and placed her hands in the air in front of her. “There’s no need for the gun, Lieutenant Whitethorn. I am not going to resist.”

“Put down the mug and bring your hands back up,” Rowan commanded. The coldness in his voice was one hundred percent TSF.

Aelin obeyed.

Rowan holstered his gun—the safety had been on the whole time—stepped forwards, and locked the cuffs around Aelin’s wrists. He didn’t speak, but the pain carved into his features spoke louder, screamed louder, than any words ever could. Betrayal, regret, and a thousand other emotions flickered across his face, but he locked his jaw, guided her hands down, and turned her so her back was against the kitchen counter.

“I loved you,” he breathed, hoarsely. “I loved you so goddamn much, Aelin Galathynius.” He refused to let the tears glossing his eyes fall. “Why?”

The past tense—loved—drove an iron spike through her heart. Tears of her own sprang to her eyes, and she didn’t have the strength to keep them from falling. She looked into Rowan’s gaze, meeting the eyes that seared her soul, and stayed silent.

No words could ever describe what she felt for him.

He breathed deeply, steeling himself, and she watched as the investigator’s mask descended back upon his face. “I’m going to go collect your things. Don’t move.” Abruptly, he turned on his heel and stalked out of the kitchen, his boots thudding hollowly on the hardwood floors. He returned a few moments later with her purse and work tote slung over his arm. “Everything’s here. Let’s go.”

She followed him out to his TSF-logoed vehicle, grateful that his home was secluded enough from the city that there weren’t any neighbors around to snatch photos of the CEO of Galathynius, Inc. being escorted to a TSF car in handcuffs at seven in the morning. She could deal with her arrest—hell, she’d been planning to be arrested for months. She couldn’t deal with the media storm until it became unavoidable.

Ever a gentleman, Rowan opened the passenger door, helped her up into the seat, got her buckled, and set her bags at her feet. He closed her door and walked around to the driver’s side, and he only spared her a glance after he was on the road, driving towards the city. “I’m not going to hold any of your things for inspection.”

Aelin nodded. “Thank you.” The first words she’d spoken since acquiescing to her arrest.

His jaw ticked, a clear sign that he had questions begging to be released. “Why…” He took a sharp breath. “How are you so calm right now?”

“This was inevitable,” she replied, masking the quiver of her shattering heart with her cool, professional, CEO voice. “Lieutenant, you’re the best in the TSF for a reason. I knew as soon as you were assigned to the investigation that you would discover me. I suppose I’m both surprised and grateful that it took you this long.”

“Grateful?”

She turned her head, staring out the window to avoid his penetrating gaze. “For…for you.”

They were silent for the rest of the drive.

When they arrived at Orynth PD, Rowan pulled around to the private parking lot, parked, and helped Aelin out of the car. To her surprise, he unlocked the handcuffs and removed them from her wrists, but he replaced them with a single black cuff around her left wrist. She glanced at the smooth silicone and instantly recognized it as an alternative, more technologically advanced, version of an ankle monitor. Her team had spent over a year developing it before they sold it to Orynth PD, and the irony of her own damn tech being used on her was almost enough to make her laugh.

It was called a Wyrd cuff.

“Come with me.” Rowan led Aelin into the building through a side door, escorting her past a row of offices and down some hallways until they reached his office. He opened the door for her, drew the blinds over the window, and stepped back out of the office. He locked the door from the outside.

“Fucking hell,” she heard him whisper, a faint, broken rasp, before he collected himself and strode off down the hall. He was back in a couple of minutes with at least three others, judging from their silhouettes in the hallway, and she listened as best as she could to the rumble of their conversation.

“B-but we can’t just toss her in jail!” That sounded like a younger voice, probably a junior cop.

“What choice do we have?” Rowan. “She’s been arrested.”

“She’s probably able to post bail and just leave,” the younger man argued. “I bet she’s filthy rich from all the exports she does.” So Rowan hadn’t revealed who Celaena Sardothien really was. Interesting.

The voices continued in a hushed flurry, and Aelin was only able to pick up scraps from their conversation. There were four of them—Rowan, the younger one, a middle-aged one, and one about Rowan’s age, and each of them seemed to have a different opinion on what to do with the highly dangerous criminal currently locked in Lieutenant Whitethorn’s office.

Rowan grunted with frustration, and Aelin’s ears honed in on his voice. “There’s also the fact that the goddamn media will be up our ass as soon as they find out who she is.”

“A murderer?” That was the older one.

“Not just a murderer,” the younger one piped up. “A crime boss.”

“A criminal.”

“A killer.”

“Someone who knew exactly what she was doing.”

“A mastermind.” That one made her smile.

“And one of the most famous women in Orynth.” That was Rowan, and her blood chilled at the resignation in his words. He raised his voice. “Sardothien, open the blinds.”

With a deep, steadying exhale, Aelin pulled up the blinds on the office door.

Three absolutely stunned faces stared back at her.

The younger cop pointed a shaky finger at her through the glass. “Th-th-that…that’s Aelin Galathynius, sir.”

“Alias Celaena Sardothien,” Rowan said.

Unable to resist the opportunity, Aelin gave the cops a little finger wave and a wicked little grin.

The young one, whose wild, curly hair matched his goggle-eyed shock, gaped openly at her with wide, deep brown eyes. “I…we thought they were two people.” He ran his fingers through his frizzy curls, astonished. “Holy shit, sir! She’s had us fooled for gods know how long.”

Rowan’s jaw was set in a tense line. “Thank you for your astute observation, Luca,” he ground out, flicking Aelin a bare hint of a glance before he turned his irritation onto the young cop.

Luca shrugged, totally unfazed by Rowan’s famously icy attitude. “Is it too much to ask for an autograph?” he quipped, muffling what was probably a shit-eating grin.

The older cop pressed his hands to his eyes in fatherly exasperation. “What have we discussed about not pushing Lieutenant Whitethorn’s buttons, Luca?”

“Sorry, Brullo.” Luca didn’t appear particularly sorry—he looked like he had both the means and the camaraderie to needle Rowan incessantly. A small part of Aelin’s heart was deeply glad that Rowan had found that kind of friendship with a few of the cops.

“Everyone out.” Rowan pinched the bridge of his nose. “Don’t know why I even bothered to ask for anyone’s opinion if the only thing you were going to do was stare googly-eyed at the most infamous crime boss in Orynth.” His tone was authoritative, but edged with a faint undertone of humor.

“I wouldn’t call her the most infamous,” Brullo commented. “What about the Queen of the Night?” Luca snickered.

“That bitch,” Aelin muttered, turning away from the cops, wrath flickering briefly across her face before she smoothed her expression back into careful neutrality. It wasn’t the right time for the police to find out that she knew something about Maeve the Fucking Bitch Queen.

“Good god,” Rowan mumbled. “Alright, here’s what’s happening, since apparently I have to do everything around here.” He waited for the others to quiet down before he continued. “I’m calling the TSF. Yes, I know this is a joint case, and it was me who brought Sardothien in, so I get to decide who’s gonna keep an eye on her while she awaits trial.”

“Actually, I was just about to ask if TSF was going to get involved again,” Luca said.

“Good.” Rowan tipped his chin at the other cops. “You can go, then. I’ll make the call.” As the other cops headed away, he pivoted slowly towards his office, taking a deep breath and squaring his shoulders before he unlocked the door and came in.

“Luca seems like a bright kid,” Aelin remarked, casually.

Rowan paused next to his desk, posture stiff. “If that’s a threat…” The coldness of his voice cut Aelin through to the bone, but she heard the protectiveness hidden beneath the ice.

“It’s completely genuine,” she said softly. “I only threaten the kind of scum that deserves it,” she added, letting some of the Boss’s notorious darkness edge her words.

“And the list of your kills will prove it.” He picked up his phone, clearly unwilling to speak with her any longer before he contacted the TSF. Aelin relaxed herself in her chair as he spoke on the phone, his words terse and clipped.

“Whitethorn.” A short pause. “Yes, I have her in custody. She’s fitted with a Wyrd cuff.” Another brief silence. “I understand that, sir, but with all due respect, I don’t really think prison is the right move. We’ve seen how effortlessly she was able to pull Allsbrook, and my instincts tell me that it’d be better to have her in TSF custody.” A longer pause, during which he pinched the bridge of his nose, indicating his muffled frustration. “Yes, but still. We can’t take that risk now that we finally—fine. Yes, sir.” He hung up with a click and braced his hands on his desk.

“Allow me to reiterate that I am not going to resist, Lieutenant.” Aelin broke the thick silence. “I gave you my word.”

Rowan was quiet for a handful of seconds before he turned to face her. “I believe you. Gods only know why, but I’ll take your word. So. TSF is sending a squad to escort you to your home, where you will be placed on house arrest. There will be a special forces guard assigned to your door as well as a pair of soldiers stationed in the lobby of your building lest you try to stage an escape.”

“Should I expect a guard in my home?”

He shook his head. “No. At this time, we don’t believe that an in-home monitor is necessary, particularly because you’re wearing a Wyrd cuff. The device is similar to an ankle monitor, but—”

“But lighter-weight, much better protected against involuntary removal, and specially outfitted with tracking and monitoring technology that connects via satellite receiver to the person or people who placed and activated the device. Additionally, once placed, the Wyrd cuff can only be removed by the person who closed and locked it, as it has both fingerprint and DNA sensor locks to ensure that the criminal is unable to remove it. Despite these features, the Wyrd cuff is currently the most humane piece of monitoring technology.” Aelin lifted her chin, professional smile tugging at her lips. “The Wyrd cuff was developed and sold exclusively to Orynth PD by Galathynius, Inc.”

“I…ah, I was unaware.” An uncharacteristic flush dusted Rowan’s cheeks. “It’s an impressive piece of engineering.”

“And I’m glad to see that it’s being used precisely as we hoped it would be.”

Rowan looked like he was on the verge of saying something else, but he was interrupted by a rapid knock on his door. Luca stuck his head into the office. “TSF is here, sir.”

“Thanks, Luca.” Rowan stood up. “Ae—Sardothien, you ready?”

Aelin swallowed the tears that sprang up at Rowan’s use of her alias. “I am.” She allowed him to lead her out of his office and down the rows of hallways into the bullpen, his hand just barely touching her back as if he was hiding his lingering desire to touch her one last time behind the pretense of keeping a safeguard on the dangerous criminal.

“Luca, where the hell are the TSF?”

“Right—”

Commander Gavriel Ashryver strode into the room…and jerked to an abrupt halt as he took in the sight of his niece in a Wyrd cuff.

“Um, here, sir,” Luca finished, sheepish. “I tried to time their arrival into the bullpen with yours.”

Gav hadn’t moved a muscle. His keen, assessing gaze swept over Aelin, who was the portrait of neutral professionalism with her tote slung over her shoulder, and Rowan, who stood stiff-backed and tense at her side with a stony mask over his features. Six TSF soldiers were arranged in neat pairs behind Gav, having stumbled but rearranged to a military stop when their commander unexpectedly halted.

“Aelin?” Gav whispered, half incredulous. The shock in his voice stabbed Aelin right in the heart.

She nodded. “As well as Celaena Sardothien.” She felt more than saw the collective gasp of astonishment that rippled through the bullpen as she confirmed her double identity.

Ever the master of soldierly stoicism, Gav came forwards and settled one protective hand around her elbow. “I’ll take it from here, Whitethorn. Good work.” He escorted Aelin forwards, and the other soldiers promptly stepped out of the way and re-formed themselves into a short column behind Gav and Aelin as they went out to the waiting TSF vehicles. “She’s with me,” was all that Gav said as he helped her into his black SUV, its tinted windows able to obscure her from sight. The other soldiers climbed into the TSF-logoed van beside Gav’s car, and they drove away together.

As they navigated the crush of downtown Orynth during the morning commuter hours, Gav flicked Aelin a look in the rearview mirror, his glance laden with heavy sorrow. “I didn’t want to believe it was you, Aelin.”

She met his sorrow with resignation. “We both knew my crimes would catch up with me someday, Gav. Thank you for protecting me while you could.”

He nodded, a tight dip of his head. “How bad is the media going to get?”

“Awful, once the news drops. I’m hoping it won’t break until I go to court, but I’m afraid PD will want to inform the whole world that they caught the Shadow Assassin.”

“Leave that to me.”

Aelin’s throat tightened for the thousandth time that morning. “I can’t ask you to keep shielding me, Gav.”

Her uncle reached over and squeezed her hand. “I’m not keeping you unknown, Aelin. I’m simply making sure that my men aren’t stormed by rabid paparazzi.”

She huffed a soft wisp of a laugh. “Thank you.”

The rest of the drive passed in silence, and Gav was able to get Aelin as well as the three TSF men assigned to guard her into the building and up to her apartment without attracting much notice. Her apartment building catered primarily to wealthy executives, so private security guards were a common sight, and nobody paid much attention to her new patrol.

Alone in her apartment, Aelin set down her tote, stepped out of her heels, and walked quietly to her bedroom, heading through the cozy space into the master bathroom. She closed and locked the door behind herself and, suddenly, she slumped to the floor, her body curling into a protective ball. Head in her hands, Aelin Galathynius loosed the tears that she’d been holding at bay all morning, wracked with grief not at her arrest, but at the heartbreak that accompanied it. She cried for herself, for the woman that Rowan’s love had allowed her to become.

And she cried for the lost dream of the future she would never have with him.

~~~

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