Rip, Memphis, and Syx moving through the estate with quiet efficiency.
No shouting. No chaos. Just the low hum of a site that had already been breached, but still slept.
“Sage discovered the estate is owned by Lawrence Radcliffe,” Law said, falling into step beside him. “The guy let his nephew use it while he was out of the country.”
Viper frowned. Radcliffe was a conglomerate. Old money. “Is he in on it?”
“No. Radcliffe’s clean. But the nephew is knee-deep in this shit.”
Viper nodded and turned toward the service corridor.
The door to the room was already ajar—Viper pushed it the rest of the way open.
The smell hit first—iron and antiseptic, blood scrubbed but never erased. It lived in the grout, the concrete, the corners where light didn’t quite reach.
Viper stopped just inside the threshold.
The scene spoke fast.
Blood—but not sprayed. No panic patterns. No wild angles. Bodies neutralized where they stood. Clean gunshots. Minimal waste. No unnecessary damage.
Precision.
A reckoning.
“This was deliberate,” Law said quietly.
Viper’s gaze stayed on the bodies. “This was a decision.”
Law crouched beside one of the dead men, eyes tracking angles, distances, timing. “He was in control.”
“Always seems to be,” Viper replied.
That was the part people missed. They saw Titus’s temper and mistook it for volatility. They never looked close enough to see the restraint underneath—the discipline it took to hold the line when crossing it would have been easier.
Law straightened, his gaze flicking to Viper. “You know he’s standing on an edge.”
Viper didn’t answer right away.
What could he say? That he hoped to God Titus hadn’t finally lost it? With his past—with his brothers—and now little girls and monsters wearing human faces, Viper wouldn’t blame him if the line had blurred.
But blame wasn’t the same as permission.
Viper moved on. Thank fuck the girls were already gone—safe, extracted, wrapped in someone else’s care. Vale had handled that cleanly. Professional. No loose ends.
The phone came next.
Viper scrolled through it. Burner numbers. Dead ends stacked on purpose.
Then a name surfaced.
A city official.
Paper-clean. Untouchable. The kind of man who smiled for cameras and never set foot in rooms like this.
Viper cross-referenced without a word, then handed the phone to Law. “Look at this.”
“I’ll get Sage on it.”
