Page 79 of Mane Rival in Store

Dekel’s voice came through Rune’s phone—still on speaker from the council debrief.

“Did she just give the alpha operational orders?”

“She did.” Rune’s mouth twitched.

“I like her. She’s my favorite.”

“She’s everyone’s favorite.” Lark popped a piece of edamame. “It’s why I pay her.”

“You don’t pay me enough.” Breezy didn’t look up from the board.

“Nobody could,” Lark agreed.

They ate. They planned. Breezy’s whiteboard grew in complexity—a web of names, locations, and timing that looked like a conspiracy theorist’s fever dream and was, in fact, a precisely calibrated takedown.

The trap was set. Seventy-two hours. One buy. One recording. One forger who thought he was meeting a buyer and was about to discover that the villain-themed lipstick empire had teeth.

Outside, the summer sun pressed against the windows. The shared wall hummed between the stores—his silence, her music, the open door between. Rune reached across the desk and straightened a stack of Breezy’s papers that were already straight.

Lark watched him do it. Watched his hands—precise, careful, the same hands that held first editions under examination lights and held her face in the dark and defended her in a lion council chamber. She added a new entry to her private tally. Not a hair observation this time.

Category: Things He Does That Make Her Chest Ache. Subcategory: unconscious gestures of care.

Running count: uncountable.

THIRTY-FIVE

LARK

The warehouse smelled like paper and solvent and the meticulous industrial cleanliness of a space maintained by a man who considered crime a craft.

Lark adjusted the mic taped beneath her collarbone—a flesh-toned adhesive strip that Breezy had applied with surgical precision in the van forty minutes ago while running through the operational checklist for the third time. The wire was invisible under her silk blouse. The recording device in her bag was running. The earpiece in her left ear was small enough to hide behind her hair, which she’d worn down for exactly this reason.

You are a businesswoman placing a legitimate order. You are not terrified. You are not wearing a wire. Your hands are not sweating.

Her hands were sweating.

“Audio check.” Breezy’s voice arrived in her ear. Flat. Steady. Crisis-mode Breezy—same tone she used for vendor negotiations, late shipments, and apparently active field operations.

Lark touched her right earring—the signal for I hear you, I’m good.

“Dekel’s team has the perimeter. Four exits, all covered. Rune is in the second vehicle, northwest corner of the lot. He’s asked for a status update three times in the last six minutes. I’ve stopped responding.”

Lark almost laughed. She converted it to a cough.

The space was a converted industrial loft in the Navy Yard—second floor, climate-controlled, accessible by a freight elevator that opened into a workshop that made Rune’s authentication lab look like a school science fair. Long tables under examination lights. A letterpress that belonged in a museum, retrofitted with modern precision tools. Paper stock in humidity-sealed cabinets lining one wall, organized by era. Reference materials—original editions, printing manuals, chemical formulations—arranged on shelving with the care of a library’s rare collection.

In her pocket, her phone buzzed. Her heart leaped into her throat. Who was calling now? She pulled it out and glanced at the screen. Aspen. Lark breathed out a sigh and tucked the phone back into her pocket. Aspen would have to wait.

Leif Cross stood at the central table with three editions laid out for display. He was exactly what his photograph had promised: medium height, thinning hair, wire-rimmed glasses, the kind of face that slid off your memory the moment you looked away. Khaki trousers. Beige button-down. He dressed like a filing cabinet.

“Ms. Coleman.” His voice was quiet, precise, the cadence of a man who treated every conversation like a restoration job—slow, careful, never rushing. “Thank you for meeting in person. I prefer to introduce my work directly. Photographs don’t capture the craftsmanship.”

His work. He calls them his work.

“Of course.” She extended her hand. His grip was firm but brief—calloused fingers worn smooth by decades of handling delicate materials. “My acquisition team flagged your editions through a broker in Red Hook. The grading seemed aggressive for the market, so I wanted to verify before committing to a larger order.”

She was performing. She was terrified. The terror made her sharper, the way it always did—her brain clicking into the high-speed mode that other people mistook for fearlessness and was actually the neurological equivalent of her fight-or-flight response choosing comedy.