0:05.
0:04.
0:03.
0:02.
0:01.
A sharp siren split the air, echoing through the mansion.
Thomas raised the mic one final time, his smile serene, his voice the calm before violence.
“Let the hunt begin.”
And with that, the house came alive, doors unlocking, lights dimming, the night itself shifting to accommodate the blood that was about to be spilled.
Noah had coordinated dozens of operations for the family. Pedophile rings. Human traffickers. Serial killers. Mass murderers. They were all the same to him. His job required a certain level of emotional distance, not from the targets, but from the assets. His family. Every organized takedown meant sending someone he loved to go head-to-head with a monster.
Except tonight. Tonight, the odds were so stacked in their favor it felt almost like overkill. Literally.
The air in the war room hummed with low, mechanical life, the steady vibration of cooling fans and monitors, the faint tick of the timer on the far wall. The glow from thirty screens painted everyone in flickering shades of blue and white. Every sound carried through the comms: footsteps crunching on tile, muffled breathing, the crackle of distant static. It was part orchestra, part execution.
Some people might have found it ghoulish, hunting an old woman through the corridors of a home they all knew like the backs of their hands. But those people didn’t know Beverly Scott, or the years of psychological torture she’d inflicted on her own son simply because he’d had the audacity to live.
Anyone who did know Bev might say she was getting off easy. Noah had no idea what lay waiting for her at the end of this hunt—the hunt that would lead her to Aiden’s workshop—but he knew her death would be gruesome. And he knew he wouldn’t shed a single tear.
The same couldn’t be said for Zane. The man looked like he was trying not to come apart at the seams, grief sitting on him like a weighted vest. He paced tight circles around the war room while Felix hovered nearby like a human security blanket, steady, quiet, grounding.
Even tense, Zane moved like a caged animal, sharp shoulders, jaw flexing, hands clasped behind his neck as though physically holding himself together. His eyes never strayed far from the main monitor, the red tracking dot that represented his mother creeping through the east wing. Every time it shifted, his whole body went still. Like he was waiting for the moment the dot stopped moving altogether.
Noah had never coordinated a hunt with over fifty people in such close quarters. The mansion’s lower levels looked like something out ofPanic Room, all reinforced steel and overlapping security grids. The whole house felt sentient tonight, like it was holding its breath. He was grateful that he had Calliope and Lola by his side tonight.
Calliope sat beside him, fingers flying over the keys like a concert pianist on a caffeine bender, her headset tilted just enough that he could hear the faint clatter of her gum chewing between keystrokes.
The main screen displayed the mansion’s blueprint, a grid of hallways and rooms rendered in stark digital blue. A single floating red dot moved from hall to hall, Bev. Thomas had tagged her earlier, slipping the tracker onto her when he’d oh-so-gently guided her into the ballroom. Classic Thomas , smiling benevolence masking razor-sharp intent. Even if she slippedthrough a camera blind spot, they’d still know exactly where she was.
“Where’s Dad?” Noah asked, never looking away from the monitors.
Calliope’s expression was equal parts dry and amused. “Where do you think?”
“In the nursery with his grandchildren and grandanimals?” he guessed, smirking.
“Affirmative,” Calliope said, a short laugh escaping her. “Shiloh and Arlo are in there too, keeping Ever, Cricket, and Charlie company.”
Noah could picture it, the chaos of toys, storybooks, and tiny monsters now in their Halloween pajamas. The stark contrast made his stomach twist. There was something obscene about innocence existing in the same house as a hunt.
“Dimitri’s hunting?” Noah asked Calliope.
“Of course,” she said. “Do you think he’d miss a chance to hunt with my permission? He’s with the murder muppets.”
“Are they all hunting in a pack?” Noah asked, leaning closer to the monitor, scanning for movement. He counted them off one by one. Arsen. Nico. Levi. Mal. Blips of motion flickered across the feeds like fireflies in the dark. “Where are the others?”
“Enzo and Seven are keeping watch in the workshop. Which I’m assuming is code for fucking on Aiden’s workbench,” Zane said, voice wobbling between humor and heartbreak.
“Okay, but where are Lake and Cree? Silas?” Noah asked.
Felix shrugged. “Silas said he couldn’t leave the shelter for Halloween weekend—things got too out of hand. I last saw Cree was deep in conversation with someone dressed as Deadpool and?—”
