Because it’s done now, the decision is made. No more waiting to see what that fucker Damien does next.
We’re dictating, because we have to. And we all know why.
It’s not empire this time. It’s not territory. It’s not shipment lanes, or influence, or respect.
It’sfamily.
I didn’t use that word before her.
Not for us. We were crew. Riders. Kings, if you wanted to be poetic and stupid in equal measure. Bound by money and reputation and shared scars.
Now?
Now Saint jokes like we’re altar and congregation. Vale fights like he’s starving and we’re the last thing in this world that tastes of anything. Now Ash looks at her like a man looks at air. Wraith sleeps with a gun in one hand and her in the other and calls that peace.
Now I’m standing in my own house, looking at bodies cooling on my gravel, knowing somebody tried to take what’s mine out from under my roof while she was sleeping in one of my shirts, and I feel—not rage.
Rage is too clean. I feel…Violation.
Something black and steady moves through me, slow like oil spill, coating everything.
I turn back to the window.
Outside, the mist is lifting. You can see the gate clearer now. Iron. Blood on gravel, already going dark. Our land, our stone, our rules.
“They’re not ripping this apart,” I say quietly.
Saint goes still.
Vale’s grin fades, goes sharp.
Ash stops tapping.
“They are not,” I say, and I can hear my own voice now, calm and lethal, the one that makes people listen whether they mean to or not, “breaking what we built. They are not touching what’s ours. They are not laying hands on our queen. They are not taking what finally feels like more than survival out of our fucking hands because some washed-out handler decided he’s God in a suit.”
No one speaks.
They don’t have to.
It’s already decided.
“We move in three hours,” I say. “Get me everything. Then we take Damien.”
And this time, we don’t give him the chance to send anyone to our door ever again.
Chapter 45
Rook
London doesn’t breathe in daylight, it bares its teeth.
Shoreditch at midafternoon is noise and grit and wet brick. Graffiti layered over graffiti. Council scaffolding that’s been “temporary” for eight months. Food steam and petrol and the kind of sweat that clings to city glass.
Our car rolls in casual.
Saint’s behind the wheel. Vale’s in the passenger seat, humming something filthy and cheerful under his breath, tapping a rhythm on his thigh like he’s bored. I’m in the back, hood pulled up, collar high, hands loose.
From the outside we read like three men on an errand. From the inside it’s a loaded weapon. Ash’s voice is in my ear, low and surgical. “Alright. Listen up. I started the fire.”
