Page 103 of The Viper
"Don't know yet. But it's real. We're rolling."
Every instinct in my body screamed to run—to get back to her, to make sure she was safe, to put myself between her and whatever the hell had just happened. My heart hammered against my ribs, adrenaline spiking through my veins.
But I didn't move.
I looked around the condo again—the clothes, the pizza boxes, the uniform draped over the chair like a trophy. These guys had left, but they were coming back. And if I walked out now, we'd lose them.
"Lucas?" Noah's voice cut through the static in my head. "You coming?"
I swallowed hard, forcing my breathing to slow. "No."
Silence on the other end.
"I'm staying," I said, my voice steady despite the storm raging inside me. "By the looks of this place, they left but they're coming back. I need to be here when they do."
"Lucas—"
"I trust you to take care of her," I said, cutting him off. "Take care of them. All of them."
Another pause, longer this time. Then Noah said, "Of course."
No argument. No orders to get my ass back to the car. Just trust.
I appreciated that he didn't try to pull rank or tell me what to do. He knew this was the right call, even if it was the hardest one.
"Be careful," he said.
"You, too."
The line went dead.
I moved to the window, pulling the curtain back just enough to see the parking lot below. The SUV sat there for a moment, then pulled out smoothly, no urgency in the movement that would draw attention. Professional. Clean. Noah and the team disappeared down the street like they'd never been there.
The silence that followed pressed in like a physical weight.
I stood there, my hand still on the curtain, watching the empty space where the SUV had been. Every fiber of my being wanted to be in that vehicle, racing back to Lexi. But I'd made my call. And in this line of work, you lived with your calls—good or bad.
I turned back to the room, my eyes landing on the uniform again.
Whoever these guys were, they'd just made a mistake. They'd left a trail, and I was standing right in the middle of it.
I pulled out a chair and settled in to wait for the assholes.
35
LEXI
The house-turned-film-set was chaos.
Sirens blared somewhere in the distance, a piercing echo of everything that had gone wrong. The light rig had been cleared, but the smell of scorched metal still lingered in the air, sharp and metallic, clinging to my skin. People were talking in frantic bursts—producers, security, medics—but it all sounded far away, muffled, like I was underwater.
I couldn’t stop staring at the red rose on the floor.
Someone had bagged it now, tucked it into evidence with the note that saidYou should have stayed at Dominion Hall. But I could still see it in my mind—the deep, velvet petals, the wet ink bleeding into the paper. A threat dressed up as something beautiful.
It was meant for me.
Carrie was the one who found me frozen by the doorway, fingers pressed to my lips like I could somehow keep the scream in. “Lexi,” she said, her voice shaking, “come sit down.”
