Page 81 of Red Flagged
I threw him a dirty look as he pulled back out onto the road, one hand loose on the wheel, fingers flexing over the leather, veins bulging in a way that made my stomach flutter, while the other raked through his soaked hair like a goddamn shampoo commercial come to life.
“We’re on our way,” I said by way of answering—then remembered my current state and let my head fall back against the seat with a groan. My eyes fell shut.What the fuck wasI going to do?Apologize? Tell her I was going to be late? Bleeding? Emotionally feral?
“Ivy, I?—”
“Forget about it,” she cut in breezily. “Apparently, about an hour and a half ago, the entire GPDA board got an email pushing the meeting until after Belgium. Don’t know if it has anything to do with the fact that you might be there just as an investigation into Morel kicks off, but they’re blaming the storm. All flights grounded. Half the board can’t make it. ‘Unforeseen travel disruptions.’ Blah blah.”
Relief hit me like a freight train. My spine sank deeper into the leather seat, tension bleeding out of me in slow drips.
“But… what about what Reinhardt gave us?” I asked, voice low. “What now?”
“Like he said—we leak it,” Ivy replied without hesitation. “It’s probably more powerful that way anyway. Controlled narrative. Timed release. All that shit. Let people start putting the pieces together themselves. You just keep playing it cool, Frenchie.”
A pause.
“Also, thankGodthis meeting is cancelled because I’ve been having a panic attack about how late you two were. Poor Marco and Kimi have been telling me to chill the fuck out, but we all saw the argument you were having before you left the hotel valet. Do I even want toknowhow you look right now?”
Callum choked beside me.
I snorted, wiping at my face, no longer worried about further ruining it. “We’re alive.”
“Debatable,” she muttered. “Do you need us to come for backup? Do we need a smoke grenade and an exorcist?”
“Not yet.”
“You’re on thin fucking ice.”
“Me?” I protested.
But she steamrolled right over me. “Get some rest, Frenchie. We’ll strategize more once you’re settled in yournew house,” she added, tone pointed enough to make my pulse stutter.
The line went dead.
I stared at the screen, letting the silence wash over me like a wave. It wasn’t until my shoulders slumped and the tension eased from my spine that I realized I’d been holding my breath.
It was over.
For now.
The meeting. The panic. The emotional wreckage of the last twenty-four hours.
“...Well, that worked out,” Callum said softly, one brow raised as he glanced at me from the driver’s seat.
I rolled my head toward him, my limbs too heavy to lift. “It somehow always does,mon amour.”
He didn’t respond right away. Just reached over, rested a hand on my thigh—sticky with drying blood—and gave it the gentlest squeeze. No questions. No recoiling.
“Let’s go shower,” he murmured. “Get some rest.”
Tomorrow, I’d drive to Paris to meet the movers. Pack up my Luminis-provided flat—a sterile box downtown that had never felt like mine. It was more like a prison made of four walls and unmet promises.
I was mostly still packed anyway. I’d never been there long enough to bother unpacking.
Then I would drive down to the Southern French countryside. To the house I’d bought on a whim, my new home. The very first home that I’d earned for myself.
The thought exhausted me. I wasn’t ready for any of it, but for now, at least, I didn’t have to be.
He drove, and for once, I didn’t let myself worry about the past, present, or the future. We were still moving forward, with the storm, despite the storm,asthe storm.
