Good.
We hit a metal door and Saint’s there, propping it with his shoulder, one hand already outstretched like this is nothing more than walking me into brunch. “Little lamb,” he murmurs. “Right on time.”
“Not now,” Wraith snarls, ushering me through. Saint laughs under his breath, follows, lets the door fall shut behind all of us.
We hit the stairs. Cold concrete. Emergency lighting. The sound of our footsteps ricocheting tight in the shaft. By the time we hit ground level, my lungs are on fire. My legs are trembling, pulse is still too high to count.
We spill out into a side exit, into cold air and fine rain and the reek of city — wet stone, petrol, metal. The cars are already there. Vale’s in the driver’s seat of the first, one hand casually draped over the wheel, like he’s just been out for a smoke and not acting as our exfil. He grins when he sees me. “There she is.”
Wraith practically shoves me into the backseat and climbs in after me, crowding me into his chest, using his body to cover mine as if anyone’s still aiming. Saint slides in the passenger side after him. The door slams. Tires scream.
We’re gone. The whole thing — from walking into that conference room to peeling off the curb — can’t have been more than eight minutes, but it felt like a lifetime.
No one talks for the first fifteen blocks.
I can hear my own breathing loud in my ears. I can feel Wraith’s heart hammering against my back like he’s still running. Saint’s on the phone, calm and clinical, letting Rook know we’re out, confirming routes, rerouting us twice just in case anyone tailed. Vale is humming under his breath,completely unbothered, like adrenaline is his favorite drug and he’s riding the high.
I stare down at my hands, and they’re shaking.There’s a smear of someone else’s blood on my knuckle. I don’t know whose or even how it got there.
I curl my fingers into fists until the tremor stops.
We reach the manor, and enter through the main security gate, heading up the long drive. The kind of quiet you only get when money is old enough to stop announcing itself.
The second the car stops, and Wraith is out and hauling me with him. Saint is already on comms. Vale kills the engine and whistles low, pleased. “Well,” he says, stretching his arms over his head like a cat. “That escalated.”
Wraith doesn’t laugh, and we’re ushered inside.
The manor feels… different. Not like this morning, this is heavier. This isfallout.
Rook is already there when we step into the main hall, jacket off, sleeves rolled, hands braced on the edge of a console table like he needed something solid to touch. His knuckles are scraped. There’s a smear of blood on his collar that isn’t his, and something dark in his eyes I’ve never seen before.
Rook in aftermath is colder than Rook in motion. That should scare me more than it does.
His gaze finds me first, and it’s like being hit.
He moves in quick, scanning — hands at my jaw, my shoulders, my ribs, my arms — cataloguing injuries, checking for blood, for pain-responses. When his hand brushes the spot under my jacket where the gun sits, he exhales. Something in him eases. “You’re not hit,” he says.
“I’m fine,” I answer.
Wraith lets out a low sound. “She nearly—”
“I’mfine,” I repeat, sharper this time tho both ignore me.
Rook’s gaze flicks to Wraith. “Report.”
“Three hostiles in the room, two more on approach,” Wraith says. “One neutralized. Two down with nonlethal. Syndicate presence on the floor. They didn’t fire in the corridor.”
Saint steps in, rolling his shoulders. “I looped the cameras. If anyone pulls footage, they’ll see us come in and leave. No show.”
Ash enters a beat after, calm but wired. He doesn’t go for me first. He goes for Rook. That says a lot about the situation. “Damien’s face when he saw her?” he says, voice clipped. “Not shock, or even grief. It was fucking triage. He was already calculating how to either recover her or erase her. You were right.”
Rook’s jaw ticks. “And Owen?”
My throat tightens. Wraith answers, voice rough. “He said Owen sold Syndicate intel and got himself clipped.”
Saint lets out a soft, disbelieving laugh. “Blasphemy.”
“It’s cover,” Ash says. “He’s using Owen as the fall guy for his own trade. He’s moving something he shouldn’t be able to move,andhe’s doing it through Syndicate muscle. Now, we’ve let him know we see it.”
