Page 59 of Problematic

My stomach tightened.

I didn’t like that sentence.

“Maybe I miscalculated,” I admitted.

Vale’s mouth twitched.

“You think.”

He looked past me at the screens, at Liv’s apartment, at Kalon’s shoulder angled toward her, at the small domestic picture that should have reassured me and instead made my patience fray.

“You are treating this like a mission,” Vale said, “not courtship.”

A short laugh left me, harsh and humorless. “Maybe missions are all I know.”

Vale gave a quiet laugh back, the sound a little too familiar for a man who had watched me dismantle enemies for sport.

“Learn something else,” he said. “Try saying hi. Try being a person. Try not breaking into her home like you’re collecting evidence for a trial.”

My hand hit the desk with a sharp slap, papers fluttering off the desk, and I finally spun to face him. “And what,” I snapped, “I walk in there and show my face and let the bond finish in her living room while her friend sleeps on the couch and Kalon stands guard like he owns the block?”

Vale held my gaze.

“She needs a choice,” I said, jaw tight, because it was the only argument that didn’t make me sound like a monster even to myself, “and she doesn’t get one if I drop a demon lord into her lap and call it fate.”

Kalon shifted, leaning in just enough that his knee brushed hers, and the camera caught the small movement smugly, and my jaw popped again.

Vale watched my face like he was tracking the weather.

“You’re doing it,” he said.

“Doing what,” I snapped without looking away.

“That thing where you pretend you’re calm while your brain is designing a murder,” he replied, too casual for the accusation.

I blinked once, slow.

On the screen Liv smiled at something Kalon said, small and tired, but real.

The kind of smile she hadn’t given anyone in that coffee shop earlier. My throat went tight. “I’m not designing a murder,” I said.

Vale’s brows lifted.

“I’m designing a conversation.”

Vale snorted.

“With what, a knife to his throat?”

I leaned back in my chair, palms flat on the desk, because if I clenched them again I was going to crack something expensive.

“Kalon is useful,” I said, as if saying it like a boardroom fact would stop my body from reacting like a feral animal. “I want him on our payroll.”

Vale went still. “On our payroll,” he repeated.

“Yes,” I said, eyes still on the feed, because Kalon had shifted again, because his hand hovered too close to her hair, because he was filling the space around Liv like he’d been invited. “If he’s going to guard her anyway, he can do it with my money in his pocket instead of someone else’s, and he can do it knowing exactly what lines not to cross.”

Vale’s mouth twitched. “Lux.”