The neon lights of the Place de la Bastille blurred into long, electric streaks of violet and blue as the Triumph roared through the Parisian night. Ren Laurent didn't look back at the Palais Garnier. He didn't want to see the blue and red flashes of the police sirens or the silhouette of the building where his old life had finally burned to the ground.
He kept his face pressed into the rough leather of Jace's jacket, his fingers locked so tightly around Jace's waist that they had gone numb. Every bump in the road, every sharp lean into a turn, felt like a heartbeat. He was alive. For the first time in eighteen years, he wasn't a "Laurent." He was just a boy on the back of a bike, fleeing into the unknown.
Jace didn't head for the main hotels or the tourist traps. He wove through narrow, cobblestone alleys in the Marais, killing the engine two blocks away from a nondescript, graffiti-covered door tucked between a bakery and a closed bookstore.
"Off," Jace commanded, his voice tight with adrenaline.
Ren climbed down, his legs shaking so violently he had to lean against the brick wall. Jace grabbed two small bags from the bike—Ren's only belongings—and pulled him inside.
The "safehouse" was a single, cramped room that smelled of old paper and damp stone. There was no gold leaf here. No velvet. Just a narrow bed, a cracked sink, and a single window that looked out onto a dark courtyard.
Jace slammed the door and locked it, leaning his forehead against the wood. His chest was heaving, his breath coming in ragged gasps. He stayed like that for a long time, the silence of the room pressing in on them.
"Jace?" Ren whispered, stepping toward him.
Jace turned around, and the look in his eyes was terrifying. It wasn't the victory Ren had seen on the stage; it was raw, unadulterated fear. He grabbed Ren by the shoulders, his grip desperate.
"Do you have any idea what we just did?" Jace rasped. "You didn't just walk off a stage, Ren. You humiliated a man who owns half the banks in Europe. He's going to come for us. He's going to use every cop, every lawyer, and every shadow he has to find you."
"I don't care," Ren said, his voice gaining a strength he didn't know he possessed. He reached up, cupping Jace's face, forcing those dark, haunted eyes to look at him. "Let him come. He can take the name. He can take the money. But he can't take the music, Jace. And he can't take you."
Jace let out a broken sound—half-laugh, half-sob—and pulled Ren into a kiss that tasted of salt and the cold Paris wind. It was different from their night in the East End. There was a frantic, "end of the world" energy to it. They fumbled for each other in the dark, shedding the damp clothes, their skin clashing in the shadows.
They collapsed onto the narrow bed, the springs groaning in protest. Ren clung to him, his legs tangling with Jace's, his heart beating a frantic staccato against Jace's ribs.
"Stay with me," Ren murmured against Jace's lips as the world outside began to hunt for them. "Just stay."
"Always," Jace vowed, his voice a low, vibrating promise. "To the last beat."
As the first light of a fugitive dawn began to creep through the cracked window, Ren Laurent realized that he had lost everything. And as he watched Jace sleep, he realized he had never been richer.