Page 84 of Bloom in Darkness

We make it to the front steps before Astra stops, rubbing his thumb over the folder’s edge. I turn back while Bryn pauses one step behind him.

“You okay?”

“Yeah.” Astra looks down at the folder again. “I just thought finding out she lied about that much money would feel bigger.” He glances between us, lifting it slightly. “It mostly just feels like paperwork.”

I move closer. “Paperwork can be terrifying.”

That gets a tired little look out of him. “You would say that.”

I smile and let Bryn put one hand at his back, steering him toward the car.

My knee aches as I follow them, Forrest already sending another document to my phone while Rourke’s threats are still sitting there unanswered. Astra shifts the thick folder beneath his arm before climbing in. For the first time since I met him, he has actual records in his hands instead of whatever number Sabine decided to put in front of him.

Bryn

Fight night’s over, but the Forge is still loud in the way it always is after the last match. Somebody’s dragging a mop bucket across the concrete near the locker rooms while two fighters argue over takeout by the far wall. Forrest is upstairs finishing closeout, Caelan’s sitting on the edge of the ring with his bad leg stretched straight, and Astra is drawing on the back of an old fight sheet beside him. I’m wrapping the last of the tape off my hands when one of the front guards comes down the stairs too fast.

“Bryn.” The guard stops three steps from the bottom, breathing harder than he should be from one flight of stairs. “We have a problem.”

I’m already stripping the last of the tape from my hand, feeling Astra’s attention shift through the bond before I even turn toward him. His pencil has stopped moving beside Caelan, who’s already getting to his feet with one hand braced against the ring post while his knee catches up. “What happened?”

He glances at Astra before answering. “Silas and Rourke. They came through the front. Theo tried to stop them. Rourke shoved past him.”

Astra closes his sketchbook. “Of course he fucking did.”

I’m halfway toward the stairs when footsteps hit above us, heavy and fast enough that nobody up there is waiting to be escorted anywhere. Caelan comes off the ring behind me as Astra stands too.

I point at Astra without thinking. “Stay—”

“Don’t.” The look he gives me cuts the word off before I can finish it. “Do not start that right now.”

I shut my mouth. He’s still nervous, the fear sitting under the bond with anger layered over it now, hot and steady. Instead of moving behind either of us, he comes to stand beside Caelan.

Silas appears first at the top of the stairs, Rourke directly behind him with one shoulder clipping the wall as he comes down. Neither looks surprised to find all three of us together. Silas is dressed like he came from dinner somewhere expensive. Rourke looks like he came ready to break something.

Caelan steps forward before either man reaches the bottom. “You were told not to come here.”

Silas keeps his attention on Astra. “We need to speak to you.”

Astra moves around Caelan before either of us can stop him, folding his arms once he’s standing in the open. “No. I answered for myself the first time.”

Silas finally looks at Caelan. “This is exactly the problem. Every time we try to speak to him, one of you gets between us.”

Rourke comes down another step. “You don’t understand what’s been done to you.”

Astra laughs once, but there’s nothing amused in it. “You came to my house. You threatened me after Night of Scarlet. You keep telling me I don’t understand my own decisions because I didn’t pick you. I understand plenty.”

Silas lifts one hand. “Astra, nobody is trying to hurt you.”

“Then leave,” Astra says.

Rourke takes another step down instead. “You think mating them fixes everything? You think that debt disappears because they put marks on your neck?”

My hands curl before I catch myself. Astra notices, his attention flicking down before he looks back at me.

“I know the debt is bullshit,” he says. “We’re already going through it. So if that’s the last thing you have, congratulations. You wasted a trip.”

Silas looks toward Rourke before answering, the first crack in his composure since he walked in. Rourke doesn’t bother trying.