Page 5 of Spring L.A.W.
Payne didn’t smile.
She sighed. “We keep people safe. We’ve got procedures. Paperwork. PowerPoints.”
Daniel muttered, “So many PowerPoints.”
“I don’t need your jokes,” Payne said, voice low. “I need the truth.”
Michael held up a hand. “Major, we respect you. You protected us. But the truth is... complicated.”
Rayna nodded. “It’s not the kind of thing we can explain without diagrams. And possibly incense.”
For a long moment, Payne just stared. Then he sat back.
“I don’t buy half of what you’ve said, but I buy the part that says this goes deeper than I thought. I’ll be watching.”
Rayna sipped her drink. “Wouldn’t expect anything less.”
He stood, adjusted his cuffs like he was prepping for a trial, and walked out.
The bell jingled as the door closed.
Then Daniel said what they were all thinking: “Well, that wasn’t terrifying at all.”
Michael leaned forward. “Think he bought it?”
Rayna didn’t answer.
Her eyes were fixed on the window. Across the street, under the awning of a boutique, a figure in a long gray coat stood perfectly still.
Watching.
They wore sunglasses despite the overcast sky, and something about the stillness was wrong. Not casual, loitering, or neighborly interest. Statue still. Predatory.
Rayna’s fingers tightened around her cup.
“We’ve got company,” she said quietly.
Michael followed her gaze. “You know him?”
“Or what he wants?” Daniel added.
“No,” she said. “And that’s what bothers me.”
2
The Long Island L.A.W. mansion looked like a British billionaire's country estate, if said billionaire had a thing for Victorian-Gothic mash-up and way too many wards disguised as trees. Rayna parked her sports car beside Daniel’s Jeep and took a moment to inhale the scent of evergreens and wild magic that clung to the place.
Inside, the lights were already on, the security spells humming faintly beneath the floorboards. Michael had dumped his gear by the grand staircase like a teenager who didn’t care that some of the furniture was 17th-century and named after French Royals. Daniel had disappeared into the kitchen for snacks. “Counterproductive calories,” he called them.
Rayna strode into the war room, now cluttered with monitors, maps, whiteboards, and a suspicious number of throw pillows. No one could say Joell didn’t like to be organized. Dumping her tote onto the central table, Rayna spun one of the leather chairs around before flopping into it.
“So,” she said. “That was fun.”
Michael leaned against the fireplace like a disappointed dad in a Hallmark movie and folded his arms. “Major Payne has not mellowed with age.”
Daniel walked in holding a bowl of something that looked like popcorn dipped in glitter. “Yeah, he was all ‘you have sixty seconds to tell me the truth,’ and I was like, sir, this is a Starbucks.”
Rayna rubbed her temples. “We danced around the truth like we were auditioning forSo You Think You Can Lie.”
