But there was a reason this mission was strictly recon. Acting on instinct could get me killed, which would leave Maren vulnerable, something I would never willingly do.
On the way out, something grabbed my attention—no reason, just instinct. A black contractor bag leaned half-open near the exit. I crouched, pushed it open, and found shreds of paper. They were small and precise, the cuts following a pattern. Shredded documents that looked too clean to be routine disposal.
I didn’t think, just grabbed the whole damn bag.
Back at the clubhouse, we handed everything over. Wizard and Cruze ran digital recovery, but we gave the analog shit to the prospects. Let them dig through shredded paper that needed to be manually pieced together.
They stayed up all night, bent over card tables with tape, tweezers, and probably cursing fits that got more creative with each hour.
I crashed for a while, but it was barely after sunrise before someone was pounding on my door.
“Hold up!” I called out.
Maren bolted up in bed, but I kissed her softly and urged her to lie down and go back to sleep.
When I opened the door, with every intention of beating the shit out of whoever it was for waking Maren, I stopped short. Blaze stood there with a hard expression and a paper in his hand. “Get dressed. Now.”
Without a question, I quickly dressed, kissed Maren’s forehead, and followed Blaze downstairs.
King, Wizard, and Ace were already waiting at the table when we walked into my office, which sometimes doubled as a war room, in no small part because it was next to the armory. Knowing our inventory was vital to our plans.
Blaze handed me the memo without a word, and I read it twice before I really understood what was on the page.
It was a kill order. For Maren.
Issued after the failed grab. DirectedtoDunbar, not from him.
He wasn’t the first link in the chain. I’d assumed this was his operation because he’d always worked alone in the past. But this was proof that he answered to someone. Before we even touched the syndicates selling and buying the merchandise, we had to deal with whoever Dunbar was in bed with.
He had obviously tried to pass the failure off by requesting permission for the "elimination" of Maren Whitlock instead. And whoever sat higher in the chain gave him one answer.
Elimination request granted.
Maren wasn’t just a loose end to Dunbar; she was a loose end to whoever he answered to.
King’s face was a mask of steel. “This isn’t about a weapons pipeline anymore. It’s a territorial incursion from a syndicate that thought we wouldn’t notice until it was too late.”
Rebel’s knuckles cracked. Tomcat said nothing, but his eyes had gone dead cold.
“We find out who gave the order,” King added. “Then we burn their whole fucking operation to the ground.”
He didn’t need to tell us what to do next. We all knew.
Prep for war.
When I got back to my room, the adrenaline was still pumping. I stepped inside and saw Maren curled up on the bed, wearing my shirt, and something in my chest locked tight.
Maren blinked awake as I crouched beside her. “Hey, you okay?”
“No,” I murmured. “But I will be when you’re safe.”
“What’s happened?” she asked, sounding more alert now.
She didn’t need to know the full truth. “There’s more to this than we thought.”
Her brows furrowed, but she didn’t press.
I smoothed her hair back from her face and kissed her once.
