The smell hits me then. Copper and gunpowder, diesel and death. The loading dock looks like a war zone. Blood pools dark on concrete, spreading in patterns that will haunt my dreams. Dimitri lies where he fell, the violence of his death written in the stillness of his body.
"Catriona." His voice sharpens. "We need to move. Now.” His hand tightens on my arm. "They're all dead. But when they don't report back, the syndicate will know something went wrong. We need to disappear before they send reinforcements."
The warehouse district sits silent around us. No sirens, no help coming. Just us and the bodies and the line we crossed. In a city, someone would have heard the gunfire, called it in. But thisis Skara. Remote, isolated, and the nearest response would come from the mainland if it came at all.
"Come on." Kian pulls me toward the truck. "We disappear now, sort it out later."
I follow because this is what I chose. Bodies on the concrete, blood under my boots.
The truck's engine roars to life. Kian drives without lights, navigating by memory through back streets I didn't know existed. The island stays dark and quiet around us.
My phone sits silent in my pocket. No alerts yet. If anyone heard the gunfire, they haven't reported it. But it's only a matter of time.
"Where are we going?" My voice sounds hollow.
"Safe house." Kian's eyes never leave the road. "The brotherhood maintains secure locations. We'll regroup there."
"And then?" I just provided tactical cover for a shootout that ended with multiple casualties. "What happens when the syndicate investigates?"
"Survival." He glances at me, and my tiger looks out through human eyes. "We document everything we learned tonight. We build the case against the syndicate. We make sure those selkies get home safely. And we stay alive long enough to see it through."
"Good." The selkies will see their families again. Lives salvaged from darkness, finally heading home because we chose to act.
Everything else can burn.
Kian navigates through roads that grow progressively rougher, the pavement giving way to gravel, then dirt tracks barely wide enough for the truck. Trees press close on either side, branches scraping against metal. The headlights cut through darkness that feels absolute, miles from the nearest streetlight or house.
My hands shake. I press them against my thighs, but the tremors won't stop. The camera is still clipped to my collar, its small weight suddenly feeling massive. Inside its memory sits proof of crimes the syndicate thought they'd hidden, documentation of exactly what they're willing to do to protect their operations.
"We need to get this to someone who can use it." I remove the camera, hold it carefully. "Someone outside the syndicate's reach."
"I know people." Kian's voice carries the weight of years in the shadows. "Contacts who specialize in making evidence disappear into the right hands. We'll get it where it needs to go."
The drive winds through roads that barely qualify as paths. Eventually we arrive at the safe house. The location is remote, defensible, invisible from the main road. The brotherhood's vehicles are already there when we pull up.
Finn meets us at the door. "The selkies are stable. Weak, traumatized, but they're moving. Rafe's getting them home."
"Casualties?" Kian asks.
"On our side? None. On theirs?" Finn's expression stays neutral. "Total."
I walk into the cottage and sink onto the nearest chair. Adrenaline crashes through my system, leaving exhaustion in its wake.
The safe house is smaller than Kian's cottage, more spartan. Functional furniture, minimal decoration, the kind of place that exists solely for emergency use. Declan stands near the fireplace, arms crossed. Grayson sits at the small table, cleaning a weapon with methodical precision.
Declan approaches. "You held it together back there. That matters."
"I provided tactical cover for an extraction that ended in a shootout." I don't soften it. "I knew what I was signing up for."
"You helped save innocent lives." His voice carries absolute certainty. "The syndicate made their choice when they decided trafficking was acceptable. You made yours when you decided stopping them mattered more than following rules designed to protect monsters."
I think about the camera in my jacket. The evidence I gathered. The case I can build if I survive long enough to testify.
"Dimitri's crew won't check in." I look at Kian. "The syndicate will investigate. They'll find the bodies. They'll put together that something went wrong."
"They will." His certainty is absolute. "And they'll come looking for answers."
My phone buzzes. I pull it out, read the message from an unknown number that makes my blood run cold.
