Chapter 19 · Black Market Blues

"Hands off the case, princess. You don't touch till I see credit."

My fingers froze an inch above the chrome case. The guy across the table didn't blink. Tattooed throat, gold tooth, a pistol already half-drawn under the table where he thought I couldn't see it.

"You got a lot of rules for a guy in a basement," I said.

"And you got a lot of nerve walking in here with Olympus heat on your head," he said. "Price just doubled."

Jax stepped in hard against my shoulder. Warm. Solid. Annoyingly close. "We had a deal, Rook. Ten k. Chip, no questions."

Rook laughed and the sound scraped. "Deals change when your girl starts glitching on my floor. Look at her eyes. She's ticking, hacker."

My vision stuttered. Red static crawled across the left side. The timer in the corner of my eye jumped: 00:47:12 and then 00:46:58 in one blink. Too fast. My hand twitched without permission.

"I'm fine," I snapped.

"You're not," Jax said, low, just for me. "Kaelen, sit down before you fall down."

"Don't tell me to sit."

He grabbed my wrist anyway. Not hard. Just enough to stop the shake.