The SUV rolled to a stop outside The Ivy, where overpriced salads and underpriced morals met daily under sun-drenched umbrellas. Paparazzi lingered like vultures waiting for something shiny to die.
Kade shifted the car into park, then leaned back in his seat with a long, steady exhale — the kind of sound a man makes when he's seen too much and expects to see more.
"Before we go in," Kade said, finally breaking the silence, "let the boy talk and listen."
Lex arched a brow. "Boy?"
Kade tilted his sunglasses down just enough to reveal eyes that were cold, tired, and razor-aware.
"You," Kade said. "Seventeen or not, you talk like a man who's played this game before. But Harrow's got decades on you. He's won. He's lost. He's buried stuff he doesn't even remember burying."
Lex studied him.
This wasn't bravado.
This wasn't ego.
This was a soldier warning a commander he chose to follow.
Kade continued, voice rough like gravel dragged across old scars:
"I've worked for guys like him. Studio sharks. Politicians. Money-men who walk into a room and make everybody forget the oxygen was free."
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, hands loose but ready.
"You go in loud? He'll crush you quietly. You go in proud? He'll flip you by dessert. Guys like Harrow don't like making scenes — they like making examples."
Lex's jaw tightened.
"Kade—"
But Kade lifted a single finger — commanding silence without raising his voice.
"Let.
The.
Boy.
Talk.
And listen."
Lex frowned. "What do you mean, listen?"
"You hear the words men like Harrow say," Kade murmured. "I hear the ones they don't."
Lex hesitated.
That…
that wasn't something he had in his first life.
Or his second.
A man who read danger by instinct, not strategy.
Kade sighed, rubbing the scar along his jaw — a habit, Lex realized, of someone remembering the moment he earned it.
"I've been hired by tyrants," Kade said. "Protected monsters. Carried the weight of bad decisions on my back until it almost broke me."
He met Lex's eyes squarely.
"But I've also protected kids who thought they were immortal. And most of those kids are dead."
Lex stilled.
Kade leaned in closer, lowering his voice.
"You're not immortal, Latham. You're hurt. You're angry. And this Harrow guy? He'll smell all of that on you before you sit down."
Lex swallowed.
"So what do you suggest?"
Kade leaned back, one arm draped casually over the seat — looking relaxed in the way only very dangerous men knew how to fake.
"You talk," Kade said. "You keep that sharp little brain of yours moving. And I'll be the one listening for when he lies, when he stalls, when he tries to push fear into your lungs."
Lex was silent.
Kade wasn't done.
"And kid…"
He smirked — tired, bitter, almost fond.
"I've won fights and I've lost fights. But I've never lost a read on a man."
Lex studied him — really studied him.
Kade wasn't just a bodyguard.
He was a man built from rebuilt bones and bad nights.
A man carved out of battles he never asked for.
"Kade," Lex said quietly, "why take this job?"
Kade shrugged one shoulder.
"Because Elinor pays well," he said.
Then, after a beat:
"And because you remind me of someone I didn't save."
Lex's breath caught.
But Kade lifted his sunglasses again, masking everything.
"No more talking," he said. "Time to go meet the devil."
Lex stepped out of the car.
Kade followed with the easy, heavy tread of a man who'd kicked in doors on three continents and walked out every time—bloodied, maybe, but always breathing.
He scanned the street the way soldiers scanned rooftops in unfriendly territory. Not frantically. Not nervously.
Just… aware. Aware in a way that came from surviving rooms that were supposed to end him.
His steps were slow, deliberate, a quiet reminder to anyone watching:
I've been in worse places.And I won't die here.
Kade's hand hovered near his hip—not on a weapon, just close enough that you understood he didn't need one to break someone in half.
He moved like a man who had:
lost fights that mattered,
won fights that shouldn't have been winnable,
buried friends,
and learned exactly how far he could push death before it snapped back.
And right now?
He was choosing to walk beside Lex.
"Deep breath," Kade muttered, sunglasses lowering as he scanned the entrance to The Ivy.
Lex tilted his head. "You nervous?"
Kade snorted. "Kid, I only get nervous around ex-wives and grenades, and only one of those explodes twice."
Lex almost smiled. Almost.
Kade jerked his chin toward the door, tone flattening back into that controlled, battle-hardened calm.
"Let me do the seeing. You do the talking. Harrow's expecting a prodigy. Don't disappoint him by acting your age."
Lex nodded.
Kade added quietly—almost gently:"And kid… stay behind my left shoulder if anything goes sideways. I've lost enough boys in my lifetime."
Lex's eyes flicked to him.
"What happened to the last one?" he asked.
Kade didn't break stride.
"He didn't listen."
The Ivy's doors opened automatically, sunlight spilling across the polished entryway like a stage spotlight.
Lex walked in first.
But this time, he didn't walk like a seventeen-year-old. He walked like someone who had already lived an entire lifetime being hunted.
Every instinct sharpened.
Every footstep calculated.
He remembered—
Barnie's men following him through Manhattan streets.
Political fixers whispering about him behind boardrooms.
The two weeks he spent in his penthouse wondering which night he'd die.
The moment a gun pressed into his ribs in a dark parking lot.
He didn't forget any of it.
And now he used it.
He scanned The Ivy the way a man scans exits before anyone realizes danger exists:
Hostess stand: two employees, distracted, no threat.
Patio: crowded, noisy, too many cameras — ideal for someone who wanted witnesses but anonymity.
Upper deck: quiet, shaded, blinds angled for privacy — studio executives liked that table.
Harrow would choose somewhere he could watch Lex arrive.
Lex followed the currents the way prey learns to follow wind—
not to escape,
but to assess which direction the hunter is coming from.
Kade watched him, approving silently.
Most kids walked into danger blind.
Lex walked in like he'd already mapped the traps.
They stepped deeper into the restaurant.
Lex kept his posture relaxed — not casual, but controlled, the kind of calm that came from accepting death once already and refusing to repeat it.
His eyes swept the room again — quickly, covertly — picking out everything that didn't fit:
A man in a suit pretending to read the menu without ordering.
A woman alone with a handbag too large for a lunch date — likely carrying equipment.
A server glancing at Lex then immediately looking away.
And in the far corner, under a half-drawn shade…
Lex's breath didn't change, but everything inside him coiled.
Eli Harrow.
Perfectly still.
Perfectly composed.
A hand resting over a glass of water like the king of a kingdom nobody asked for.
His eyes lifted the moment Lex spotted him — crisp, pale, unreadable.
Predator eyes.
The kind Lex had seen before,
the kind he had once begged for mercy,
the kind responsible for the last night of his first life.
He no longer begged.
Lex adjusted his cuff once — a gesture smooth enough to be confidence, sharp enough to be a warning — and stepped forward.
Kade moved with him, just half a step behind and slightly to the left, exactly where a shield belonged.
Lex felt the shadow of his past walking beside him.
Not haunting him.
Armoring him.
Because this time, the hunted wasn't running.
This time, the hunted had returned with teeth.
And Eli Harrow was about to learn
that Lexington Latham had already died once —
and came back with nothing left to fear.