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"Sign it or I walk, Cole."
Eve slammed the black ledger down between us and the table jumped. Dust shot up. The deck sitting next to it twitched like it felt it.
"You said no more contracts," I said. "You said we were done bleeding for tonight."
"I said we were done bleeding for Silas." She flipped the ledger open. Pages thick as skin. Names crawling. Ink that moved when you weren't looking. "This isn't his. It's mine."
The back room was too small for this. One bulb, one door, and she was standing way too close. Knee to my knee. Her coat still damp from the street. She smelled like rain and cheap coffee and that weird copper smell the cards give off.
"Your ledger?" I said. "That's supposed to make me feel better?"
"It should terrify you." She put her palm flat on the page. "Council ledgers own brokers. My ledger owns you. One signature, one drop of blood, and Silas can't touch you without going through me. You want that or you want to wait for his dogs to kick the door in?"
Someone pounded on the hallway door outside. Once. Hard.
We both froze.
"Eve Vane," a guy called from the hall. Flat voice. Council voice. "Arbiter Quinn wants a word. Open up."
"Busy," she called back, sweet as poison. "Tell Silas I'm closing a private contract."
"Now, Ms. Vane."
She looked at me. Eyes hard. "Decide. Right now. You want to be my problem or his?"
"That's not a choice," I said. "That's you putting a leash on me."
"It's a leash that keeps you alive." She leaned in. Her hand shot out and grabbed my wrist. Fingers cold, nails short, grip like a vice. "You think I want a pawn? You think I need another broke ex-cop with a cursed deck who doesn't know how to shuffle?"
"Then why pick me?" I said. "Why not any other sucker on the floor?"
"Because you don't fold." Her breath hit my face. Close. Too close. "Even when you should. Even when it costs you. That's rare. And it's stupid. And I can use it."
"Use it," I said. "There it is."
"Or trust it." She let go like my skin burned her. "God, you want me to lie to you? Fine. I need you, Cole. I need someone Silas doesn't already own. Is that better? Does that make your pride feel good?"
The pounding came again. Louder.
"Thirty seconds, Ms. Vane."
My wrist was still tingling where she grabbed me. The deck on the table was humming. Low. Angry.
Eve pulled a thin silver knife from her sleeve. No hesitation. She sliced her own palm. Blood welled fast, dark.
"Jesus —" I grabbed her hand without thinking.
"Don't," she hissed, but she didn't pull away. Her blood was hot against my fingers. "If we do this half-assed it rips us both apart. You have to mean it. You have to give it something real."
"What does that even mean?"
"It means it takes a memory. A piece. Not chips. Not cash." She pressed her bleeding palm to the open page and the paper drank it. Sizzled. "It sees you. All of you. And you see me. No hiding. You still want in?"
I stared at that page. My name was already half-formed there, like it knew.
My sister's face flashed in my head. Maya, in that hospital bed, telling me not to do anything stupid. The debt they put on her soul. The reason I took the damn deck in the first place.
"If I do this," I said, "you don't get to sell me. Not to Silas. Not to anyone."
"I don't sell what I own," she said, and her voice dropped. Softer. Rougher. "I protect it. Even when it's an asshole."
"Swear it."
"I swear on my ledger." She held the knife out to me, handle first. Her hand was shaking. Just a little. "Now bleed, Mercer. Or walk out there and let Quinn peel you."
I took the knife. It was warm from her hand.
"This is a terrible idea," I said.
"Worst you've had all week," she said. "Do it."
I cut. Quick, shallow across the meat of my palm. Hissed through my teeth. Blood came fast.
She grabbed my hand with her bleeding one and slammed both our hands down onto the page together.
Heat shot up my arm like I'd grabbed a live wire.
"Ah — fuck —" I tried to pull back and couldn't. Her fingers locked with mine. Blood mixing. The ledger glowed.
"Don't fight it," she breathed, right against my mouth. Her eyes were blown wide. "Let it —"
And then it hit.
Not pain. Pictures.
I was somewhere else. Small room. Cold. Eve, but younger. Like sixteen. Hair hacked short. Knees to her chest on a concrete floor. A brand on her wrist, fresh, smoking. Men in Council coats standing over her, flipping through a ledger just like this one. One of them — Silas, younger, smiling — said, "You belong to us now, love. That's the price of breathing."
She didn't cry. She just stared at the brand and said, "Watch me burn it off."
The fury in her chest — god, I felt it. Like it was mine. Years of being owned. Being rented out. Being told smile, sign, shut up.
Then it snapped and I was seeing my own hell through her eyes.
Maya. Hospital. I was in uniform still, cop uniform, and I was late. Again. She was asking me where I was when they came for her. Why I didn't pick up. My gun on the table. My hands shaking. The night I froze on a call and someone else paid for it. The exact second I knew I was never gonna be the guy who saves anyone.
"No," I choked. "Get out —"
Eve gasped and her grip on me tightened. Nails digging in. "Cole —"
We slammed back into the room like we'd been dropped. Both breathing hard. Foreheads almost touching. Her blood on my blood on that page. The ledger was quiet now. The glow fading. A new line had written itself across the bottom in wet red ink: COLE MERCER — BOUND TO EVE VANE.
"You saw —" she said, voice raw.
"Yeah," I said. My throat was wrecked. "Yeah, I saw."
She didn't let go of my hand. Her palm was hot, slick. Her breathing was shallow and fast against my chin.
"You were a kid," I said.
"Don't," she said. "Don't do that."
"Silas branded you?"
"Silas owns every broker who doesn't own herself." She finally looked up at me. Eyes wet but hard. No tears falling. "Now you get why I need you. I need someone he can't just call in. Someone who —"
"Who what?"
"Who looks at me and doesn't see a price tag." She swallowed. Her thumb moved, just a fraction, against my wrist. Skin on skin. Blood and heat. "Even when you're being a pain in my ass."
I should've pulled away. I didn't.
"Maya," she whispered. "Your sister. That's who you're doing this for?"
"Yeah," I said.
"You didn't freeze because you're weak," she said. Quiet. Only for me. "You froze because you knew if you shot, you'd kill a kid. That's not — that's not what they said about you."
My chest caved. No one had ever said that out loud.
The hallway door rattled. Someone tried the handle.
Eve's head snapped toward it. Her hand was still in mine.
"Eve!" Silas's voice now. Smooth, amused. Right outside. "Don't be rude, darling. We just want to congratulate your new holder."
The deck on the table jumped.
Not a twitch. A full jump. Cards shuffling themselves with no hands on them. Fast, violent, like something was rifling through them.
"What the hell —" I let go of Eve and grabbed for it.
"Don't touch it!" she snapped and grabbed my forearm, holding me back. Her fingers were tight, cold now. "It's feeding on the pact. It's —"
The deck cut itself. One card shot halfway out and hung there, vibrating.
We both stared at it.
Slowly, it flipped over on its own.
Black border. Red wax seal. Old Council script. And a name written in fresh, wet ink that hadn't been there before.
SILAS QUINN — CONTRACT OF BETRAYAL.
My wrist — the one Eve had cut — seared white-hot. I hissed and doubled over. The cut was glowing. Like the ink was moving under my skin.
"Cole?" Eve grabbed my arm, turned it over. Her eyes went wide. "No, no, no — that's not possible, the deck can't write a Council contract without —"
The card pulsed once. Loud as a heartbeat.
Silas knocked again, slower this time. "Eve? Cole? Everything alright in there?"
Eve's hand locked on my burning wrist, her body pressed to mine, and she said, low and fast, "If that card is what I think it is —"