They should have stayed in. Ezra said as much twice, standing at the penthouse door the following evening, both of them still faintly bruised from the day before in ways that had nothing to do with the parking garage. But Lucien had said, with a quiet, uncharacteristic stubbornness that surprised them both, that he was tired of being careful, and Ezra, who understood exactly how rare a sentence like that was coming from this particular man, hadn’t argued a third time.

They walked without any particular destination, the evening air still warm and heavy with the promise of rain neither of them had bothered checking the forecast for, past storefronts...