This was the call he’d been putting off. Titus had reported to Savage, and Viper had no update at all to give him.
He held out a hand for Law’s phone—his was still in pieces back at the disintegrated safe house.
“Viper?” Savage answered on the first ring.
He stopped walking. “I don’t have an update. I can’t find him.” His voice came out rougher than it ever had, but he couldn’t fix it.
“You can stand down.” A pause. “Titus surfaced. He’s on his way to Erebus.”
For a second, Viper didn’t move—couldn’t. The wind shifted, dragging the last of the smoke east. He looked out across the empty flats, at the tracks already half-buried in sand.
Relief hit like a punch, made breathing hard.
“Copy,” he said finally, the word barely audible.
He handed the phone back to Law and stood there, gazing at the dark desert, until the silence swallowed everything again.
Erebus Headquarters—Undisclosed Location
The warehouse didn’t look like much from the outside—just another forgotten industrial shell baked by California sun, but the inside told a different story. Reinforced beams. Sound-dampening walls. Corridors framed in steel and shadow. Everything about it carried the quiet weight of men who’d done the kind of work no one admitted existed.
It had been three days since the desert. Long enough for the bruise to settle.
Long enough to pretend he didn’t care.
Titus climbed the metal stairs to the second floor, boots ringing once against the grated treads before the sound vanished into the concrete hush. Savage’s office sat at the end of the hall—frosted glass, heavy door, a place built for conversations that never made paper.
The door was cracked.
He heard Savage from inside, muttering low and sharp:
“I hate lying to Kensington.”
That stopped Titus on the threshold.
Kensington.
Viper’s real name.
Titus had picked it up the same way he learned everything else—quietly, through connections.
Savage didn’t mutter. And he sure as hell didn’t lie to Viper unless the ground was already shifting under all of them.
Titus pushed the door open with two fingers.
After a quick glance, Savage’s attention returned to the document in his hand. Papers covered the desk—surveillance stills, financial printouts, and something that looked like a transfer ledger. A storm lived in the man’s posture: shoulders taut, brow drawn, jaw flexing like he was grinding down a bad decision.
“Come inside and close the door,” Savage said.
Titus booted it shut behind him.
He stayed standing. Watching. Waiting. His blood still carried the hum of the Nevada op—the memory of the dust still in his throat, gunfire in his bones, command voices echoing where they didn’t belong. Being left out there had sunk deep—in unexpected ways.
For one hot second, the truth slipped past all the armor: it had fucking hurt.
More than it should have.
More than he’d ever admit out loud.
