The sound of Killian shouting from inside the room was muffled by the thick metal.

Aries turned back to me, his eyes looking tired but focused.

“We need to leave,” he said. “The Marcones will be looking for their men soon.”

“Where are we going?” I asked, grabbing my coat from the back of the chair.

“Back to the penthouse,” Aries said. “It’s the only place we can secure until tomorrow.”

We walked out of the office into the cool, wet night.

The rain felt like needles on my skin.

We climbed into Aries’s black sedan, the leather seats cold and smelling of rain.

He started the engine, the headlights cutting through the darkness of the empty shipyard.

I sat in the passenger seat, my hands still smelling of pencil graphite and old paper.

As we drove onto the West Side Highway, the city lights blurred through the rain on the windshield.

I looked at Aries’s profile in the dim light of the dashboard.

He looked like a man carrying the weight of an empire, but for the first time, his posture was straight.