“So he’ll panic,” Vale says, strolling in like he didn’t just joyride our getaway car through Canary Wharf traffic. He sounds overly pleased with himself. “And when men like Damien panic, they get sloppy. And when they get sloppy—”
“They make mistakes,” I finish.
Rook looks at me. Not like I’m fragile. Or like I almost got shot. Not even like I’m his. He looks at me like… I’m sitting at his side again at that table, equal weight. “You see it, then,” he says quietly.
“I saw it in his face the second he looked at me,” I say. “He didn’t react like a handler who thought an asset was dead. He reacted like a man whose liability just walked back into the room. He didn’t mourn Owen. He repurposed him. That means Owen really wasn’t sloppy. Owen was fucking clean.” I swallow.My voice doesn’t break. That feels like victory and loss in the same breath. “He set my brother up—sold him out. And now he’s selling something even bigger, and he’s been using Syndicate muscle to do it under everyone’s nose. Hiding it, even fromyou.”
Silence—deafening silence. Ash exhales slowly, like he’s been holding that in his lungs this whole drive. Wraith’s hand tightens on my hip. Saint mutters, “Little lamb,” too soft to call it pity. It sounds like a vow.
Mateo whistles a low note that’s almost admiration. “Well then,” he says. “That’s treason.”
Rook’s eyes never leave mine. “It is.” Something shifts in his face then. The cold slides back. The rage stays. “Listen,” he says, voice even. “Everyone listen.”
The room quiets.
“This is the point where we stop pretending this is contained,” he says. “Damien knows we’re onto him. He’s already going to ground. He’ll pull strings. He’ll move money. He’ll call in favors. He’ll hire muscle that doesn’t care who bleeds. And he will come for her first.”
The room pulses in warning. No one argues. Rook turns his head slightly, gaze cutting to each of them in turn. “Saint,” he says. “We lock down the manor in layers. I don’t want a ghost getting onto these grounds without us knowing.”
Saint nods once. “Consider it done.”
“Vale,” Rook says. “We start applying pressure. Syndicate first. Nothing loud yet. Just enough so they feel watched. I want rumors in their ranks by midnight that the Riders aredoneletting people eat out of our mouth.”
Mateo’s grin is pure sin. “With absolute pleasureKing.”
“Wraith,” Rook says. “You don’t leave her.”
Wraith gives a single, blunt nod. “Obviously.”
“Ash,” Rook continues. “You’re onDamien. I wanteveryconnection. Every fucking shell company he’s touched. Everygoddamned offshore ghost he’s winked at. Every contract he’s whispered over. I want his map by morning. Do I make myself clear?”
Ash simply says, “Yes.”
“And me?” I ask.
Rook’s gaze snaps back to mine like a tether. “You,” he says softly, “are not leverage anymore. You’re motive.”
Something cracks in my chest. I didn’t realize how much I needed to hear that until I hear it. He steps in, and lifts his hand to my face, brushing his thumb along my jaw. It’s slow, possessive, devoted. “You asked for the keys,” he murmurs. “Now you have them. This is your war as much as it is ours.”
My throat feels tight. “And if I say I want him dead?”
Wraith rumbles low. “Then we put him in the ground.”
“And if I say I want him ruined first?” I whisper. “Stripped… Exposed… Alone… Scared...Begging.”
Vale lets out a soft, delighted sound. “God,I love her.”
Saint murmurs, almost smiling, “Mercy dressed as cruelty. Fitting.”
Ash’s eyes flick between me and Rook, sharp and hungry with thought. “That buys us time,” he says. “We use him before we end him.”
Rook’s thumb drifts to the corner of my mouth. “Then that’s what we’ll do, my disobedience.”
We’ve crossed a line we don’t get to uncross. They all know it. I know it.
We’re not circling anymore. Or posturing. We’re not waiting to see who moves first.
We walked into Damien’s den and looked him in the eye and said we see you.
