The ride back was silent.
Ava sat in the back of Liam’s car, her body still thrumming with the echoes of gunfire, her ears ringing from every bullet that had split the air in the warehouse. The city lights blurred past the tinted windows, reflections skimming across Liam’s unreadable face. His jaw was tight, hands steady on the wheel, but she saw it—saw the way his eyes kept flicking to the rearview mirror, not just checking for tails but weighing something he hadn’t yet said.
She hated the silence more than she’d hated the violence.
“You’re not going to tell me, are you?” Ava finally said, her voice low but sharp. “What he meant. What I’m the key to.”
Liam didn’t answer immediately. He drove another block before pulling into the underground garage of one of his safehouses—a building A
