Liam was sitting sideways in the open gateway of the basketball court, his back against one side of the chain link fence post, his legs stretched out across the entrance.

The dagger was in his hand, resting across his palm, the blade facing up.

He turned it slowly.

The etched goblin face caught the floodlight every time the angle was right, the snarling teeth and narrow eyes picking up the white light and throwing it back.

He kept turning it. Watching the light move across the metal.

’I’ve seen things like this before,’ he thought. ’Custom blades. Etched. Acid work on steel. But it was only at his visit at the underground fighting arena.’ He turned it one more time. ’This is the first time I’ve actually held one up close.’

The weight of it was different from what he’d expected. Heavier at the guard than the tip, the balance point sitting further back than a standard blade, which would make the swing feel different.

The cord wrapping on the handle was tight and old, worn smooth in the places where a grip would naturally sit. This wasn’t a display piece. Someone had used this a lot.

He kept looking at it.

The court behind him was quiet.

The three bodies were where they had landed, spread across the cracked asphalt in the flat white light of the floodlight.

The green substance had stopped making its sound a few minutes ago. He hadn’t looked back since.

Then he heard it.

A car engine.

Coming from the far end of the block, the sound low and expensive, the kind of engine that doesn’t need to announce itself but does anyway just by the quality of the noise it makes.

Not a regular car.

Liam’s hand on the dagger relaxed.

He let his shoulders drop slightly and looked up from the blade.

The headlights appeared at the end of the street first, wide set and low to the ground, moving at an unhurried pace.

Then the body of the car followed the headlights into the stretch of street in front of the court and Liam recognized the shape immediately.

Black Range Rover. Current model.

The paint was so dark it absorbed the streetlight rather than reflecting it, the chrome trim the only thing that gave the body any definition against the night.

It rolled to a stop directly in front of the court entrance and sat there idling for a moment, the engine barely audible from outside.

Then the passenger window came down.

Liam stood up from where he’d been sitting and walked toward it.

Elena was in the driver’s seat.

She was wearing a top that stopped well above her midriff, she was wearing a fabric a deep blue gown, thin enough that the black of her bra showed through it clearly in the places where the material pulled tight.

The neckline sat low and the fit left nothing particularly ambiguous about what was underneath it.

Her brown hair was loose around her shoulders, her gold eyes catching the streetlight as she looked at him through the open window.

Liam stopped at the window. "I didn’t know you had a Range Rover."

Elena looked at him. "Among other things."

He nodded slowly. The kind of nod that means noted and respected.

The driver’s door opened and Elena stepped out.

Her gown was short enough that the bottom edge of her underwear showed below the hem when she moved, black against the pale skin of her upper thigh, shifting in and out of view with each step.

She walked around the front of the Range Rover without adjusting anything, completely unbothered by the hour or the location or the fact that she’d been called to a basketball court in the middle of the night with no explanation.

She came around to where Liam was standing.

And before he could say a single word she kissed him.

Both hands came up to the sides of his face and she kissed him fully, no hesitation, no buildup, just her mouth on his like she had been planning it since the moment she got the message.

Liam’s eyes opened wide for a second.

He looked up.

Three pink hearts floated above her head. Full. Glowing. All three of them pulsing slightly in the night air like they had their own light source.

He looked back down at her.

Then he kissed her back, one hand moving to her waist and the other finding the curve of her ass and pulling her closer, and they stayed like that for a while.

She pulled back eventually.

She kept her hands where they were, her fingers still light against his jaw, and looked at him.

Then one hand dropped and she pressed her palm flat against the front of his trousers and started rubbing slowly.

"I knew you’d want to try this eventually," she said.

"That’s not why I called you," Liam said. His voice came out completely even despite what her hand was doing.

She tilted her head. "Then why?"

"I was about to tell you before you kissed me."

She looked at him for a moment. Her hand kept moving. "Knowing you, I figure whatever it is can wait. I just want to keep doing this and then have sex outside here."

Liam looked at her hand. Then up at her face. "That’s not something we can do right now. That’s specifically why you’re here."

Elena stopped. She looked at him properly now, reading his face. Then she looked past him toward the open gate of the basketball court behind him. "What’s in there?"

Liam stepped to the side and gestured.

They walked in together.

Elena’s heels clicked against the cracked asphalt of the court, the sound carrying in the empty space.

She walked beside Liam without any particular urgency, her eyes moving across the court as they entered, taking in the floodlight, the fence, the faded lines on the ground.

Then she saw the bodies.

She kept walking.

Her pace didn’t change.

Her expression didn’t change.

She looked at each one the same way you look at furniture in a room you’re assessing, taking in the information without reacting to it.

The quiet one against the fence. The second one face down near the center. The last one on his side near the far baseline.

Then she looked at the dark stain spreading out from the second one, the green substance having done its work and dried to something darker at the edges.

"Okay," she said. "You killed some people." She looked at Liam. "I’ll handle it." A beat. "Can we it now?"

Liam looked at her.

’She didn’t ask a single question,’ he thought. ’Not one. No what happened, no how many, no why. Just okay and I’ll handle it.’ He knew she was capable of it.

He’d always known that. But hearing it said that simply still does something.’

"How?" he said.

"Don’t worry about it." She was already on her phone, her thumbs moving across the screen with the same efficiency she brought to everything else. She didn’t look up while she typed.

A minute passed.

"Done," she said. She put the phone away and looked at him. "Can we leave now?"

"In a second." Liam looked at her. "I want to show you something first."

She looked at him for a moment. Then she nodded. "Alright."

They walked together to where the quiet one was still propped against the fence at the far end of the court, his back against the chain link, his head dropped forward.

Liam crouched down beside him. He reached over and pulled the collar of the man’s shirt to the side, exposing the upper chest.

The goblin face tattoo was there. Sharp lines. Dark ink. Chinese style, the teeth bared in a jagged snarl, the narrow eyes carrying that same twisted expression that matched the one etched into the blade.

Elena looked at it.

Then she let all the air out of her lungs in one long slow breath. Not surprise.

More like the sound someone makes when they hear something they were hoping not to hear confirmed.

Liam stood back up. "You know them."

She looked at him. "Know them." She said the words back at him like he’d said something mildly funny. "Liam. They work for the seven families."

Liam put his hand over his face.

His palm pressed flat against his forehead and he dragged it slowly downward, pulling his expression with it. "Of course," he said. His voice came out muffled behind his hand. "Of course I got mixed up with them again."

Elena looked at him with something that was almost sympathy but had too much amusement underneath it to fully qualify. "You really are a magnet for this."

He dropped his hand. "What if I told you I didn’t do anything to start it."

"Doesn’t matter," she said simply. "You’re involved now. That’s the only thing that counts from this point." She looked back at the tattoo on the quiet one’s chest for a moment, then back at Liam. "And I know I’m not showing it right now but I need you to actually understand what I’m saying." Her gold eyes held steady on his face. "These aren’t street people. They’re not freelancers. They’re organized they’re controlled directly by the oldest of the seven families."

She paused.

"The Blade Family," Elena said.

The name sat in the empty court between them like something physical.

Liam looked at her.

Then he looked back down at the goblin face on the dead man’s chest, the snarling teeth catching the flat white light, and he stayed there looking at it for a long moment without saying anything.

The floodlight hummed.

The Range Rover idled softly on the street outside.

Liam straightened up slowly.

"Right," he said.