I opened it. The brothers were already arriving. Loyal first, silent as breath, laptop under one arm, his hair damp like he hadn’t bothered to dry it.
Then Royal, shirt half-buttoned, cigarette tucked behind his ear, eyes sharp. Barron last. Always last. Always deliberate. He closed the door behind him. None of them asked what we were doing. They knew. They felt it in the floor.
I stood at the head of the table and flipped the journal open to the red-marked page. If I disappear, it wasn’t an accident. Royal moved first. Took his seat. Crossed one leg over the other like this was a boardroom.
Loyal sat next, fingers already flying across keys. Barron stood. Didn’t need to sit. He leaned one hand on the corner of the table and stared at Camille’s handwriting like it might unwrite the last five years.
I traced my thumb across her ink. Her pen had bled at the edge. She must have written it fast. Maybe afraid. Maybe not. She was never the type to run. Only to kneel when she was ready to kill something.
“They knew about her long before we did,” I said.
No one interrupted.
“She left this for us. Not just names. Not just accounts.”
I flipped the page. There it was. A signature. Not Camille’s. The name of a man we’d buried years ago. Or thought we had. Barron’s voice was rough.
“That’s the broker who handled our first offshore pivot.”
Loyal nodded.
“He disappeared right after Camille.”
Royal leaned forward.
“Guess he didn’t disappear far enough.”
I turned another page. It was a map. Sketched by hand. No street names. Just lines. Arrows. A warehouse circled twice in black.
“She was watching them,” I said.
“And they found out,” Loyal added.
I tapped the map.
“This is where they took her.”
No one argued. Because we all felt it. In our chests. That pull. That fire. I closed the book. Not to end it. To contain it. Royal reached for a pen. Circled the warehouse with a red marker.
“I want the fucking floor plan,” he said.
Loyal was already pulling it up. Barron stepped back. Crossed his arms. He didn’t speak. Didn’t have to. He looked at me. Like he was ready. Like he was asking if I was.
I met his stare. And I didn’t blink. Because ready was a lie. I was made for this. Built in the dark.
Born in the silence between grief and revenge. Camille had handed me the end of something that never should have started. And Cloe?She had screamed for me.
So now I’d make sure no one could ever scream again without remembering what I sounded like when I answered.
I opened the cabinet like it was confession.
The key turned slow. The click echoed in my skull like a trigger pulled back but not released. The door creaked. Not from rust—from restraint. I hadn’t opened it in years. Not sinceCamille. Not since we put the blades away and agreed to pretend we could build something clean.
The hinges held their breath. Inside was steel. Cold. Clean. Familiar. The first thing I touched was the knife.
Black hilt. Matte edge. No polish. No shine. A weapon meant for darkness. I picked it up and turned it in my palm. The balance hadn’t changed. Neither had I. Not really.
I strapped it to my thigh. The weight felt right. The second was the pistol. Sleek. Heavy. My fingers curled around the grip like they remembered.
