Chapter 27 · Stitched in Shadows

Blood kept pushing up through my fingers.

I pressed harder. Lucian made a wet, ugly sound in his throat. It wasn't a word.

"Don't you dare," I told him. "You don't get to die on me. Not after that."

The vault was black except for the weak yellow beam of a tactical flashlight I'd ripped off a rack. I'd wedged it between two ammo crates. It lit his face from the side. Gray lips. Wet lashes. A smear of red across his jaw like somebody had dragged a thumb through paint.

The door was shut behind us. Iron, three bolts, and I'd thrown every one with shaking hands.

The code had been six digits. He'd breathed them against my knuckles right before he went limp. It was the date his brother went into the water. I'd read that date in a file once, and my brain never lets anything go. So I punched it in and the lock clicked.

Lucian Corvo had just trusted me with the only door that mattered. I hated that. I hated it almost as much as I hated how hard my hands were shaking.

The round had gone in under his collarbone.