The gates of Decadence don’t shake. They don’t rattle. They don’t bow. They stand tall and black and brutal against the daylight. Iron bars sharpened to a point, a promise to the world that this place is not meant to be taken.
And still… They come anyway.
The Preacher’s men push through the trees in packs, running up the long drive like a tide of bodies, rifles raised, faces hard with belief and adrenaline and the kind of blind devotion that makes men think dying for a lie is noble.
They want in. They want blood. And I’m standing between them and everything I love. I have to come through for my baby.
The air is hot with smoke and sirens and burning fuel. It clings to the back of my throat, thick enough to taste. The ground is scarred where the last explosion hit, chunks of dirt blown up into craters like the earth itself has been punched.
And just beyond the perimeter—off to the left, past the trees—Inferno is smoldering.
The club he built to lure monsters out of their hiding places.
Now it’s burning like a signal fire.
A gutted carcass of steel and glass, smoke pouring from the broken roof, flames licking along the frame. It looks like the underworld is exhaling.
A warning.
A sacrifice.
A goddamn prophecy.
Enzo’s voice crackles through my comms, clipped and cold. “They’re at the tree line. Ten minimum. More behind. They’ve got vests. They’re moving fast.”
“Let them come,” Declan says beside me, voice calm, eyes dead. He’s not shouting. He doesn’t need to.
He’s the storm before it hits.
Conan is on my left, gun braced, grin sharp and feral like this is the only thing that makes him feel alive. Reggie and Rowan are somewhere close but not in sight, moving through the chaos with that twin instinct that makes them unpredictable as hell.
Frankie’s at the front flank with his men, tattooed and ruthless, bodies carved into weapons, all of them ready to die before they let this gate fall. Mikhail Volkov stands like a tank beside them, huge shoulders squared, face set in stone. Jax is posted slightly back, eyes scanning, finger steady on the trigger like he’s waiting for the exact second someone makes a mistake.
Grayson is right of the gates, ex-military precision in every movement. He isn’t panicking. He isn’t even breathing hard.
He’s commanding. He’s controlling.
“Hold the line,” Grayson orders, voice low but carrying. “Wait for the gap. Don’t waste rounds.”
Because none of us are here to warn them.
We’re here to erase them.
The first wave breaks from the trees.
They sprint, boots chewing up gravel, rifles up, mouths moving like they’re praying as they charge toward the gates of Decadence.
One of them screams something about salvation. Another screams something about surrender.
They think they’re warriors.
They’re not.
They’re lambs running toward slaughter.
“Now,” Declan says.
And the world becomes gunfire. Bullets tear through the air in vicious, controlled bursts—sharp cracks that echo off iron, stone, and the glass of shattered vehicles. The sound is constant, relentless, like thunder that refuses to stop.
