“Then you better make it good enough to stop me.”
The room changes.
Oaks shifts, not toward me exactly, but ready. Royal’s gaze sharpens. Whiskey goes still with the note in his hand. Wildcat looks up from the box.
Legend doesn’t move.
He doesn’t have to.
He is my president. My brother. My king in every way that counts. I have bled for him, fought for him, followed him into rooms where death was already waiting with a chair pulled out.
But Jeremy Vale put his hand inside my house.
He put it toward August.
He put it toward Amelia.
I ain’t built to stand still under that.
Legend’s voice lowers. “You take one swing without a plan, you give Vale exactly what he wants.”
“I got a plan.”
“Beating him until he stops breathing isn’t a plan.”
“Sounds like a good start.”
Amelia makes a sound then.
Small.
Barely there.
But it pulls me harder than Legend’s order.
I look at her.
She looks back.
Her face is pale. Her eyes are too bright. Her hands are clenched against her ribs like she is holding herself together with fingernails and fury.
“Don’t,” she says.
One word.
It lands where everything else missed.
“Amelia.”
“Don’t go after him like this.”
“He sent something to August.”
“I know.”
“He came close enough to my porch to leave a bow.”
“I know.”