Rain had followed Brine longer than usual.
It slicked the streets into mirrors, bent neon into something bruised and breathing. By the time he stopped the car, the city had gone quiet in that way it only did when something important had just happened and the world was deciding how to react.
Lena stood under the awning of a closed bookstore, arms folded, eyes lifted to the sky like she was measuring the distance between thunder and consequence.
She didn't turn when he approached.
"You're late," she said.
"So are you," Brine replied.
That made her smile—just a little. She looked at him then, really looked, as if she hadn't finished cataloguing the man yet. Most people tried to understand Brine by studying what he owned, where he stood, who feared him.
Lena did none of that.
She studied his silences.
They walked without direction at first. No guards. No cars crawling behind them. Just two people moving through a city that didn't know what to make of them yet.
"Tell me your real name," she said suddenly.
Brine didn't slow. "You already know it."
"I know what people call you," she corrected. "That's different."
He considered lying. It would have been easy.
"Brine," he said finally. "It's not a title. It's what my mother named me."
Lena nodded, accepting it like a secret handed carefully. "Lena," she offered in return. "No surnames. Not tonight."
"Fair," he said.
They stopped at the edge of a pedestrian bridge overlooking the river. The water below moved fast, dark, carrying fragments of light like it was stealing pieces of the city and refusing to give them back.
"I don't usually talk like this," Brine said.
"Neither do I," Lena replied. "That's how I know it matters."
Something unspoken stretched between them—recognition without explanation. The strange gravity of two people who weren't supposed to meet, who knew better than to trust, and yet found themselves standing closer than planned.
"You scare people," Lena said quietly.
"I protect people," Brine countered.
"Both can be true."
He glanced at her then, a sharp look that softened almost immediately. "You don't flinch."
"No," she said. "I listen."
That unsettled him more than gunfire ever had.
They talked—not about work, not about the city's underworld or power plays—but about smaller things that somehow carried more weight. Childhood fragments. Books remembered more for how they felt than how they ended. The strange loneliness of being watched all the time and truly seen almost never.
Neither of them said this feels dangerous.
They didn't need to.
Eventually, Lena spoke again. "Moody."
Brine's shoulders didn't tense. His expression didn't change.
But something behind his eyes closed—just a fraction.
"You know him," she continued. "Don't deny it. I've seen the way you look when his name comes up."
"I know of him," Brine said carefully.
"That's not what I asked."
Lena turned fully toward him now. "Where is he?"
"Safe," Brine replied.
"How safe?"
"As safe as a man like him can be."
She searched his face. "How long have you known him?"
"Long enough," he said.
There were a hundred follow-up questions pressing at her lips. She felt them. He felt them too.
But Brine didn't give her the truth.
Not all of it.
He didn't tell her that Moody was blood. That the man she worried about shared his childhood scars, his father's expectations, his mother's stubborn silence. That the line between protection and destruction had been drawn between them long before either of them had a choice.
"You trust him?" Lena asked.
Brine hesitated. "I trust him to be who he is."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only honest one I can give."
She didn't push further.
Instead, she said, "Take me somewhere."
He raised an eyebrow. "That's vague."
"Somewhere I don't feel alone."
Brine nodded once and led her back to the car.
They didn't announce themselves.
That was deliberate.
The building was low, unmarked, tucked between two defunct businesses like it was embarrassed to exist. Brine knocked once. Then twice. A pause. Then the door opened just wide enough for eyes to confirm what the heart already knew.
Sela froze.
Then she screamed.
"LENA?!"
Bena nearly dropped the bag in her hands.
In seconds, Lena was surrounded—arms tight, voices overlapping, tears coming without permission.
"You disappeared," Sela said into her shoulder. "We thought—"
"I know," Lena whispered. "I'm sorry."
Bena pulled back just enough to cup her face. "You look different."
"So do you," Lena smiled. "Stronger."
They laughed through it. The kind of laughter that only comes from surviving something no one else fully understands.
Brine stayed back, watching. Not intruding. Not claiming.
Sela glanced at him. "You brought her."
"Yes."
"Then you're either very brave," Bena said, "or very stupid."
Brine smiled faintly. "I've been called both."
Lena looked between them, warmth settling in her chest. For the first time in too long, something inside her loosened.
She belonged somewhere again.
Across the city, Nicky Cory stared at her phone like it might confess if she looked hard enough.
"A woman," she said aloud. "A ghost woman."
Mrs. Cory sat beside her, tapping manicured nails against a leather folder. "We'll find her."
"We have to," Nicky replied sharply. "That place he holds—it's meant for one person. I know it."
Her father stood by the window, quiet, calculating. "People like Brine don't fall accidentally. Someone made themselves indispensable."
Nicky's eyes hardened. "Then I'll remove her."
Not violently. Not yet.
But thoroughly.
"I won't rest," she said softly, "until I know her name."
Elsewhere, far from family dinners and broken engagements, Mr. Luke poured two glasses of whiskey and slid one across the table.
Finley didn't touch it.
"You're sending me into a snake pit," she said.
"Yes."
She smiled thinly. "At least you're honest."
Luke leaned back. "Rafferty Rampanda doesn't build circles. He builds traps disguised as loyalty. Silver Mark isn't a group—it's a filter. Only the useful get through."
"How do I get useful?" Finley asked.
"You listen more than you speak. You fail small. You let them underestimate you."
"And when they don't?"
Luke's eyes darkened. "Then you disappear before they decide what to do with you."
Finley finally picked up the glass. "What do you want?"
"Everything," Luke said calmly. "Names. Routes. Pressure points. And most importantly—how Silver Mark recruits."
She nodded once. "I'll find a way in."
Luke watched her closely. "This isn't a rescue mission."
"I know," Finley replied. "It's a reckoning."
She stood, already shifting into someone else—someone forgettable, adaptable, dangerous in silence.
As she left, Luke murmured to the empty room, "Be careful, Rafferty."
Because Hellfire was awake. Families were fracturing. And somewhere between truth and omission, Brine and Lena were standing too close to something that could either save them—or burn everything down.