Page 18 of The Lasso Master

They didn’t stay long at the Iron Spur. Just long enough to let the right eyes see them. To let rumors bloom. Then they slipped away and headed across town to the other club—the one that lived in shadows, ran on whispers, and didn’t flinch at the word 'no.'

There was no name on the door. Just steel, shadow, and a line of dark, silent cars. The inside was colder—hard edges, exposed metal, no lounge, no pretense of elegance. Nothing to make a submissive feel safe. It gave Harper the willies the second she stepped through the threshold.

She aimed for nonchalance, but tension lay in wait just under her skin. This was no longer just surveillance or setup—this was stepping into something darker, colder. A place where rules blurred and monsters like the Curator moved unchecked. She wasn’t sure if the adrenaline in her blood came from fear, defiance, or the charged thrill of going back into the shadows on someone else’s terms. Maybe all three.

Reed didn’t have to say anything. She felt the tension spread through him like a drawn wire, pulled taut and ready to snap. His body was a study in barely leashed control—shoulders tight, jaw set, every step he took measured like he was counting threats with each breath. Harper could feel the change in him, the way his presence expanded in a place like this. Dangerous. Watchful. Deadly. It wasn’t fear that prickled down her spine—it wasinstinct, alert and alive. She pressed in a little closer, her hand tightening around his arm.

“Stay close,” he said.

She nodded and slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow, the tension in her spine easing just enough to let her lean into his warmth. The movement was subtle, but it grounded her. His presence always did—steady, solid, a quiet shield against the rising chaos inside her. Her fingers flexed against his arm, needing the contact more than she wanted to admit, needing the reassurance that he was real, that he was choosing to stand beside her even now, in a place thick with threat and ghosts.

Twenty minutes later, the ambush hit.

The power cut. Lights died. Then two black SUVs screeched into the alley behind the club as Harper and Reed slipped out of a side exit.

Reed moved first. One hand on her waist, pulling her behind a shattered valet booth, the other going for his sidearm. The first shot cracked the air a second later.

Just before everything went to hell, Reed pressed a compact pistol into her palm. “Do you know how to handle a gun?”

She nodded, looking it over. “Safety off, two-stage trigger. Don’t hesitate.”

“Good,” he said. “Aim center mass. Stay behind me.”

They fought their way out. Reed led, brutal and efficient, every move that of a SEAL in his element. She kept up the best she could, laying cover fire, her body thrumming with adrenaline and the edge of panic.

When it was done, Reed stood in the alley, chest heaving, blood on his shirt—none of it his. “Clear,” he said.

Her whole body shook. Not from fear. The sheer velocity of what had just happened was evident in the aftershock. Reed had moved like a predator born for war, calm and lethal while she’dstruggled to keep up, to survive. It wasn’t just that he’d pulled her from the crosshairs. It was the fact that he hadn’t hesitated.

And she had tried to keep him at a distance. Told herself he was a mission partner. Temporary. A tool she could use and walk away from when it was done. Now, he was permanently etched into her bones. She could still feel his hands on her waist, the way he'd moved without hesitation, the way he'd shielded her with his body. Not just protection. Possession. She didn’t know when that line had blurred—only that it had. And somewhere in the middle of gunfire and grit, he had stopped being a risk and started being hers.

Reed pulled his phone from his back pocket and stepped a few feet away, voice low but tight. "Hawke. It's me. We were ambushed outside the second club—coordinated, clean. Four down, one dead."

He paused, listening. Harper watched the way his hand flexed at his side.

"No, she's fine. Shaken, but fine. We're heading back to the estate. I need the team to handle the local PD. No noise, no leaks. Quiet cleanup. Think you can manage that?"

Another pause. Then a grim smile. "Knew I could count on you."

He ended the call and turned back to her. "They’ll handle the rest. We’re going home."

Back at Reed’s estate, they said little.

Harper paced, her bare feet whispering across the polished floor, body still humming with tension.

Her phone buzzed...

STAY OUT OF THIS, SPECTER. OR HE DIES.

The words sliced through her like a blade. Her breath caught, her spine going rigid as ice spread through her veins. The room spun slightly, the burn of adrenaline slamming through herchest. She stared at the message, disbelief warring with fury, until her thumb trembled and finally hit delete.

The rage that followed wasn’t clean. It was messy, molten, a mixture of fear and fury that twisted low in her gut. Her vision blurred at the edges as memories of a voice from the past—cool, calculating, too damn familiar—whispered over the edge of her mind.

Rage pulsed behind her ribs. The first message had used a name she hadn’t heard in years—Specter. Stuart had hung that moniker on her. The man she’d trusted more than anyone who had taught her the art of slipping through shadows, of stealing without a trace. He was alive and the one behind this... it meant everything was worse than she thought. It meant she was the bait in a game where only he knew the rules.

Reed came up behind her. “Talk to me.”

“I need to leave.”

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