Chapter 271
Lance
"Save it," I said flatly. "Because without the law protecting you, you and your son are going to discover that there are worse things than prison."
His smile returned, sharp and knowing. "Funny. I was going to say the same thing to you." He took a step backward, toward freedom, toward whatever protection Stone's masters could provide. "You think you're safe now? You think your little girlfriend is safe?" He practically spat the word. "I've been holding back, Lance. Playing by rules that don't exist anymore. But now?"
His eyes found Serena, and I felt her flinch.
"Now I'm going to teach you what it really means to be a Lawson. Sleep with one eye open, nephew. Both of you."
He laughed then, a sound like breaking glass, and walked out into the night with Stone's men surrounding him like a honor guard for the damned.
The silence he left behind was deafening.
"Jesus Christ," Serena breathed. "He's—"
"Insane," Eleanor finished. "Dangerous. And now he's free."
Diana was staring at the empty doorway like she could will Thomas back into custody through sheer force of rage. "I don't understand," she said finally. "Stone. Garrett Stone. Why would DHS—"
"Isn't it obvious?" Eleanor's voice was desert-dry. "Thomas has been laundering money for someone powerful. Someone in Stone's chain of command. And that someone just decided Thomas's secrets are more valuable than justice."
Serena's face had gone pale. "He threatened us. He threatened us, and they just let him walk."
I pulled her against my side, felt her trembling despite the fury in her voice. "I know."
"Lance." Diana turned to me, and there was something raw in her expression. "I can arrange protection. Federal marshals. Witness security. You don't have to—"
"No." I kept my voice gentle, but firm. "Thank you. But I have my own security arrangements." I met her eyes. "I have money, Diana. Enough to hire the best protection in the country. Serena will be safe. I promise you that."
Something flickered across her face—hurt, maybe, or jealousy, or just the sting of being dismissed when she'd offered help. But she covered it quickly, arranged her features into something approaching professional detachment.
"Of course," she said. "Your girlfriend. Wouldn't want anything to happen to her." She looked at Serena then, and her smile was knife-sharp. "You'd better survive this, Vance. Because if you don't, I'm not sure your boyfriend would bother coming to me for comfort. He'd probably just build a shrine and die on it."
"Diana—"
"I'm kidding." But her eyes said she wasn't. Not entirely. "Mostly."
Eleanor stepped in smoothly, linking her arm through Diana's with the ease of someone defusing bombs for a living. "Agent Rivers, let me give you a ride. I think we could both use a drink, and I happen to know an excellent bar that doesn't ask questions."
Diana let herself be led away, but she paused at the door, looked back at me one more time.
"Be careful, Lance," she said quietly. "Thomas is right about one thing—you're not safe anymore. None of you are."
"I know." I squeezed Serena's hand. "But we will be. After I finish this."
Diana studied me for a long moment, and I wondered what she saw. The man she'd almost married? Or the one I'd become—harder, colder, willing to cross lines I'd once thought were uncrossable?
Finally, she nodded. "When this is over," she said, "you owe me that drink you promised. Both of you." Her gaze flicked to Serena. "I want to hear the whole story. How you managed to make him smile again."
Then she was gone, Eleanor guiding her out into the night, and I was alone with Serena and Vincent in a hallway that suddenly felt too quiet, too empty, like the calm before an apocalypse.
"Lance." Serena's voice was small. "What are we going to do?"
I looked down at her—this woman who'd walked into my life like a hurricane and refused to leave even when staying meant facing down monsters—and felt something settle in my chest. Something that might have been certainty or might have been acceptance.
"We're going to win," I told her. "Whatever it takes."