Both dead before their fingers touched metal.
Four shots in less than two seconds, the suppressed reports overlapping like drumbeats. Ellsworth was only a split second behind my shots, his accuracy just as precise.
And there, on a worn leather sofa in the center of the room, was Merrick.
A woman knelt between his legs, the wet sounds obscene in the sudden silence left by gunfire.
Merrick's eyes met mine over her shoulder.
They went cold. Flat. Empty of anything resembling humanity.
It was the same look he'd had when we were kids. The same look he'd worn when he was about to do something that would leave scars. The look of someone who genuinely enjoyed causing pain.
He pushed the woman away roughly, not even looking at her as she stumbled and fell. He stood, pulling up his pants with deliberate slowness.
"Connor fucking Ward," he said, zipping up like we'd just run into each other at a bar. "You have no idea what you're doing."
"Yes," I said, my voice steady despite the rage building in my chest like pressure behind a dam. "I very much do."
He laughed, the sound echoing off concrete.
"The old gang got bigger, brother. A lot bigger than you remember. They're going to come after you with everything they've got. You and your half-wit friends who thought they could just walk away."
He stepped closer, hands spread wide like he was being reasonable. Like we were negotiating instead of standing in a room with two fresh corpses cooling on the floor.
"You can either come along, reintegrate like good little soldiers, or get an early burial. Your choice. But those are the only two options on the table."
"That's not going to happen," I said.
The emotions were getting the best of me. I could feel it happening—the careful control I'd spent years building, the professional detachment that had kept me alive through dozens of operations, starting to crack like ice under weight.
I was a professional. A SEAL. The tip of the goddamn spear. I'd operated in conditions that would break most men. Had done things that still woke me up some nights.
But seeing Merrick—the one who'd tormented me, who'd held a loaded gun to my head when we were sixteen and laughed while I shook, who'd made every day at St. Paul's its own special hell—sent everything cascading back decades.
I felt like that kid again. Small. Powerless. Afraid.
I shook it off. Forced the training to override the trauma. Compartmentalized like I'd been taught.
But it lingered.
God, it lingered like smoke in my lungs.
"You took everything from me," I said, and my voice came out rougher than I intended. "And I'm going to find every last motherfucker in your organization and do what I should've done before. Put them in the ground where they belong."
Merrick's smile widened, showing teeth. "You don't have the balls."
I shot him in the shoulder.
The suppressed round made a soft cough. Merrick grunted with the impact, stumbling back, clutching his arm as blood immediately started seeping between his fingers.
The girl in the corner—I'd almost forgotten she was there—stifled a scream, her hand pressed to her mouth, eyes wide with terror.
"Ellsworth," I said calmly, not taking my eyes off Merrick. "Take her."
The butler moved immediately, holstering his weapon and approaching the terrified woman with gentle firmness. I could hear him speaking in low, soothing French, coaxing her toward the door with words I couldn't quite make out over the roaring that had started in my ears.
The door closed behind them.
