Vince chuckled, the sound rumbling low in his chest. For one fleeting moment, even standing on the brink of war, we weren’t enemies. We were just broken people holding onto scraps of our humanity in a world full of darkness. But Nolan only rolled his eyes, digging deeper into his fortress of denial. “You both don’t know what you’re talking about. Astoria and I are just friends. That’s all we’ll ever be.”
“Friends don’t look at each other the way you two do.” Vince clapped him on the back as he strode past, hair whipping in the wind. “But fine, keep lying to yourself.”
When Vince turned back to me, the humor drained from his face, replaced with the grim steel I was used to. “What’s the plan?”
“Logan came to visit me after—” I inhaled sharply, my throat closed on Kaius’s name, grief and longing choking me. I forced myself to continue on. “He was waiting in my kitchen. I…I agreed to a trade with him.”
“For Astoria?” Vince’s brow rose, skepticism heavy in his stare. “What could he possibly want more than her? She’s leverage enough to bring the Knights to their knees. Especially Kaius.”
“Her,” Nolan said, his voice low and bitter as he pointed directly at me.
The words stabbed through me, sharp and merciless. My gaze fell, shame clawing at my insides. They thought Kaius would save me, but I didn’t deserve saving. Not after my betrayal. Not after Oscar. Not after everything.
Vince swore under his breath, dragging a hand over his jaw. “So Logan uses you as bait. And then what? We’re supposed to kill him for you? Clean up your mess even though you stabbed the Knights in the back?”
“No.” My voice cracked like a whip. “Logan is mine.”
Nolan tried to reach for me, his voice gentling. “Ace?—”
“No.” I recoiled, fire rising in me, refusing comfort. “He doesn’t get to haunt me for years, crawl out of the grave to torment me, take Astoria from you, and then die at someone else’s hands. I want to be the one to end him. I want him to look in my eyes and know it’s me who sends him to hell, where he’s always belonged.”
My chest heaved as panic surged, my vision tilting, the storm spinning above me like it had crawled inside my ribcage. My hand clawed at my chest, nails raking over skin already raw from too many nights doing the same. Vince stepped in, grounding me with both hands on my shoulders. His stare locked onto mine, hard and unyielding. “The shot is yours, Acelynn.”
His words cut through the storm, steady as steel. “And we’ll be there every step of the way.”
Something inside me loosened, the panic ebbing like the tide. For a moment, I wondered if Vince had always been the quiet voice of reason in the Knights, or if this rare glimpse of humanity was something he gave sparingly, like a precious gift.
“I betrayed you all,” I whispered, shame rising again.
Vince only shrugged, dropping his hands. “We all fuck up once or twice, Ace. All you really did was stir the pot. You weren’t a very good informant, if we’re being honest.”
“I got Oscar killed.”
“No.” Nolan’s voice, solid and sure, pulled me toward him. His gaze was steady, if tired. “Oscar was feeding the feds information long before you gave the tip about the Muze to whoever you were being blackmailed by, and you weren’t the first source who told them there would be a drop that night. Kaius and Vince found the documentation of everything he was letting slip. You didn’t get that boy killed.”
The weight that had been festering in my chest for weeks lifted, just enough for me to stand straighter. Oscar had been his own breed of snake in the Knights. He had dug his own grave.
“Then it’s time,” I said, voice firm again. “We get Astoria back. And we put Logan in the ground where he belongs.”
As the three of us faced the storm together, I could feel it—the shift. Nolan and Vince weren’t just men anymore. They were Knights, dangerous and resolute, their presence rolling off them like the wrath of the sea. And me? I wasn’t running anymore. If the Knights fell tonight, it wouldn’t be because of my hand. It would be because fate had finally come calling.
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
acelynn
My judge,jury, and executioner stared me down from the swinging tarps of the red barn. The storm broke over the countryside like a verdict. Thunder rolled low across the sandy stretch, and every flash of lightning illuminated the sagging red barn I once used as the stage for my greatest betrayal. It loomed in the distance, tarps flapping like gallows cloth in the wind. My chest tightened because I knew if ever there was a place to meet my reckoning, it was here.
The man in the doorway stood utterly still, black clothing swallowing the light around him. Combat boots grounded him, a cavalier tactical vest strapped across his chest, every detail precise and lethal. The skull-shaped mask he wore caught the flash of lightning, its bone-white grin smeared with grime and rust, as if death itself had stained it. His eyes, hidden behind blacked-out lenses, still seemed to glimmer with a predatorysharpness. A gloved hand lifted. Two fingers curled toward me in a slow, deliberate beckon.
My pulse thudded in my throat, but I forced in one last gulp of night air before stepping forward. The gun Vince had pressed into my hand earlier dug into the bone of my hip with each step, an iron reminder that violence was the only language I had left. The masked figure retreated with a single step, melting into the darkness as if the storm had swallowed him whole. I reached the barn doors. Every nerve in me screamed to run, but instead, I pushed forward, eyes darting into the yawning black inside.
“You made it.” The voice snapped the tension like a whip.
I jerked left, coming nose to nose with Logan. He stood with his arms crossed, a maroon shirt clinging to him like it had absorbed the storm’s humidity. My gaze snapped back into the barn. Emptiness was the only thing left where the masked man had just been.
“Did you deliver the message?” Logan’s tone was bored, almost lazy.
“Yes.” My voice wavered, betraying me. “Where is Astoria?”
