After a few hours of heavy coordination and planning that involved significantly more shouting than I'd anticipated, several heated debates about optimal weight distribution, and one near-fistfight over whether we should take the main streets or the back alleys, we finally assembled our convoy.

Ten men from Atticus and Dregan's crew volunteered—or were voluntold, the distinction was murky—to accompany us on our journey back to the brothel, each one assigned a crate of gold to transport through the city streets like we were some kind of extremely valuable, extremely illegal caravan making a pilgrimage to the temple of poor financial decisions.

Atticus stood near the warehouse entrance with his arms crossed, his silver hair catching what little light filtered into the room, his expression settling into that particular combination of fond exasperation and genuine concern that seemed to be his default setting when dealing with me.

"Try not to get robbed," he said dryly. "Or arrested. Or involved in any situations that require me to organize a rescue mission, because my schedule is quite full and I'd prefer not to add 'breaking you out of jail' to my list of recurring tasks."

"Your faith in my ability to avoid disaster is touching," I replied, placing my hand over my heart with theatrical sincerity. "Truly, I'm moved. Almost to tears."

Dregan appeared at Atticus's shoulder then, his wild orange hair looking even more chaotic than usual, his beard decorated with what appeared to be small bits of... I didn't want to know. Better not to ask. Plausible deniability was a gift we gave ourselves.

"You take care of yourself, lad," he said, his voice carrying that gravel-rough quality that suggested either genuine emotion or the early-stages of throat disease. "And if anyone gives you shit on the way back, you just flash 'em those pretty thighs and promise 'em a good time. Works better than any weapon I've ever seen, and I've seen a lot of weapons. Intimately. Some of them inside people who didn't appreciate the gesture."

"I'll keep that in mind," I assured him.

From then, we exchanged our goodbyes—handshakes that lingered slightly too long, promises to meet again by the end of the week that carried the weight of genuine intent rather than empty pleasantries, and one final round of creative profanity from Dregan that I'm fairly certain violated at least three public decency laws and possibly invented a new one.

Then I spun around to face our assembled convoy, clapping my hands together with enough force to make the sound echo off the warehouse walls, announcing with all the authority of someone who had absolutely no idea what they were doing but was committed to the bit regardless, "Alright everyone, let's get moving before the universe remembers we exist and decides to make this difficult!"

The sight of our procession was, objectively speaking, absolutely ridiculous.

Each person carried their assigned crate of gold with varying degrees of competence and creativity, creating a tableau that looked less like professional smuggling and more like a confused theater troupe that had gotten lost on their way to rehearsal.

Julius hoisted his crate with relative ease, his acrobat-trained muscles making the weight look manageable despite the obvious strain in his shoulders. He walked with the kind of determined grace that suggested he was pretending this was a normal evening activity rather than grand larceny facilitated by prison connections.

Willow had taken a completely different approach and was sitting cross-legged atop her crate like it was a palanquin, her wine-dark skin gleaming in the scattered streetlight while two unfortunate men carried her weight, their faces twisted into expressions that suggested they were reconsidering several life choices but were too polite—or too intimidated—to actually complain.

Nara had somehow summoned a small swarm of those white murder-bunnies that appeared earlier, their crimson eyes glowing softly in the darkness as they collectively gripped the edges of her crate and carried it like industrious little demons performing community service as punishment for past crimes.

Meanwhile, Felix carried his crate with surprising strength for someone with such a slender frame, the muscles in his arms standing out in sharp relief against his pale skin as he hefted the weight with barely a grimace—a reminder that beneath all that delicate beauty was a fighter who'd survived the prison's secret arena, someone who understood violence intimately even if he chose silence over showcasing it.

Brutus carried his crate with one arm, the entire thing resting on his massive shoulder like it weighed nothing to him at all, his eyes scanning our surroundings with the constant vigilance of someone who'd learned that relaxing your guard usually preceded something terrible happening to your face.

And Grisha—saints above, Grisha—was carrying four crates, two balanced on either side of her like she was some kind of jade-skinned pack mule who'd decided that the concept of "reasonable load limits" was for people with less impressive musculature.

The men walking near her kept shooting impressed—and slightly terrified—glances at her frame, clearly recalculating their understanding of what constituted normal bodily strength and finding their previous estimates woefully inadequate.

Dregan appeared beside her as we prepared to depart, and with the casual audacity that defined his entire existence, gave her a soft slap on the ass.

"You take care now, you magnificent mountain of a woman," he said with genuine fondness. "Come back and visit when you're not busy revolutionizing the concept of manual labor. I'll be here, probably doing something inadvisable and thoroughly enjoyable."

Grisha growled, a sound that rumbled up from somewhere deep in her chest, her tusked grin widening with obvious satisfaction. "Count on it, you short-stacked fuck. Next time I'll bring proper stamina and show you what happens when someone my size decides foreplay is optional."

I rolled my eyes hard enough to sprain something before raising my voice to cut through their flirtation before it evolved into public indecency... again.

"As touching as it is to say goodbye, we really need to leave before someone notices we're transporting enough gold to fund a small army and decides that maybe they'd like to fund their own small army using our small army's funding."

Grisha snorted but eventually fell into line.

From then, I led the charge out of the warehouse and into the city streets.

The journey back through the slums were an exercise in controlled paranoia and occasional violence. The streets were darker here, the lampposts either broken or never installed in the first place, shadows pooling in doorways and alleys like living things waiting for opportunities.

We encountered the usual cast of characters you'd expect in this part of town—desperate people with hungry eyes, opportunistic thieves weighing risk versus reward, and the occasional drunkard who stumbled into our path with no awareness of their surroundings whatsoever.

Most of them took one look at our group and decided that attempting robbery would be significantly more effort than it was worth, their survival instincts apparently functional enough to recognize a bad idea when it was carrying multiple crates of gold and walking with purpose.

But a few—a very special few blessed with more courage than sense—decided to try their luck anyway.

The first group that approached us did so with the kind of swagger that suggested they'd successfully mugged people before and had developed an inflated sense of their own capabilities.

Five of them, arranged in a loose semicircle, blocking our path with bodies that were more bone than muscle and weapons that looked like they'd been assembled from scrap metal and optimism.

Their apparent leader—a rail-thin man with a face like a kicked dog and teeth that had given up on dentistry as a lost cause—opened his mouth to demand our valuables, probably planning some theatrical speech about how this was a robbery and how we should cooperate if we valued our lives.

He got approximately three words into his spiel before I activated Grisha's stolen ability.

The primal energy burst outward from me in an invisible wave—that same pressure, that same presence that bypassed conscious thought and went straight to the hindbrain where instinct lived and civilization was just a thin veneer over ancient impulses.

It crashed over the would-be muggers like a physical force, and I watched their expressions transform from confident aggression to primal terror in the span of a heartbeat.

Their weapons clattered to the ground. Two of them actually whimpered. And then they were running, fleeing down the nearest alley with the desperate speed of prey who'd just realized they'd tried to corner a predator instead of a victim.

Grisha, walking several paces behind me, raised one heavy eyebrow in a gesture that was equal parts impressed and curious. "That's... that's my power," she observed, her voice carrying just enough question to make it an accusation without quite committing to confrontation.

"Is it?" I replied innocently, continuing to walk without breaking stride. "How strange. Must be a coincidence. Lots of people can probably do that. Very common ability. Happens all the time."

"Loona—"

"I refuse to elaborate further on this topic and any attempts to make me will be met with strategic subject changes and interpretive dance."

Grisha snorted but let the matter drop. For now.

The remaining encounters were similarly brief—a few more groups that approached, felt the wave of primal pressure, and immediately began to reconsider their career choices. By the time we reached the theater, I was actually feeling almost optimistic about our chances of making it through the evening without catastrophic disaster.

Which should have been my first warning that the universe was about to prove me wrong, but hubris is one hell of a drug and I was riding high on it.

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