Sterling glares at me. “I said?—”
“I heard you.”
Sterling slams a hand on the table. “You think this is a fucking game? They were hunting you! You, the Trinity, and every goddamn heir in the North Section. Do you even understand what that means?”
“The Sovereign’s bleeding. Someone’s cutting off the head.”
His face tightens. “And if we lose the heirs, we lose everything. This isn’t just a hit. It’s a declaration.”
“And you think this is new?” I snap. “Enemies have been circling like vultures for years. You’re just too fucking busy playing politics to notice.”
Sterling bristles.
“You forget who raised this organization,” he says.
“No. I just never saw it.”
The silence that follows is thick with the kind of truth no one wants to say out loud.
Because I didn’t see shit.
From the age of four to twenty, I was buried alive in hell. And the man who sent me there never once looked back.
Sterling leans forward, eyes burning. “Tell me what happened tonight. All of it.”
“We got ambushed,” Raze answers, his voice clipped. “First at the fight ring. Then at the Safehouse. They were ready. We were outnumbered, outgunned, boxed in from the start.”
Sterling’s eyes narrow, “Who were they?”
“We don’t know,” I bite out. “Nothing identifiable. No tags, no colors. Could be foreign. Too clean for street trash. Maybe mercenaries. Whoever they are, they’re trained.”
“Same profile the North Section gave,” Mercer, Dalton’s old man, cuts in. “They’re sending over their reports. We’ll piece it together.”
“Sir.” Alistair finds his voice, stiff and formal. “Any attacks on the East or West Coasts? International? Any word from them?”
“No.” Sterling’s glare sharpens. “It’s isolated. North and South Sections only. They’re targeting original Sovereign legacy heirs.”
Raze speaks up. “Whoever they are, they’re organized. Trained and knew our patterns.”
Dalton cuts in, “Or someone fed them our patterns.”
I glare at him. “You volunteering as the rat, golden boy?”
His smirk fades. “I’m just saying,yourRussian cunt seems a little too convenient.”
“Say that again.”
Alistair arches a brow. “Didn’t think you got sentimental, Priest.”
I slam my hand on the table hard enough to rattle glass. “Keep talking. I fucking dare you.”
Sterling’s voice cuts through. “Raze—get a team on the footage. Analyze every second. Somewhere tonight, they fucked up. Find it.”
Raze nods once.
“Everyone else—stay armed. You’re on Vault lockdown until further notice.”
Not happening.
