I shove up fast, the world tilting for a second before it rights itself. Declan sits on a metal chair across the dim room, spine straight even though his face is chalk-pale. The doctor’s fingers press against his carotid, counting. Declan’s chest rises and falls shallowly, the black ink of his Celtic skull stark against skin still too cold. His knuckles are white where he grips the chair arms, biceps flexing hard enough the veins stand out like cables.
“I’m fine,” he mutters before I can ask.
“Fuck…” I drop back for half a second, eyes closed, riding out another wave of vertigo. My ribs ache where the squib bags detonated, with bruises blooming under the fake blood.
The new burner in my pocket buzzes against my thigh. I fish it out with fingers that still tremble, thumb smearing red across the screen.
One word from Kaden:
Done.
Air leaves my lungs in a rush that hurts. “It’s done,” I say, voice rough. “They told the girls.”
My stomach knots so hard I almost double over. Viviana can play a corpse in her sleep; she’s done it before. But Autumn… Autumn saw Kaden drenched head to toe in blood. Even knowing the plan, some part of her must have believed for one second that I was really gone.
I can’t think about that yet, or I’ll lose it.
Declan’s eyes flick to mine, sharp green even through the haze. “Did he buy it?”
Kylie, posted by the door, gives a short nod. “Flanagan leaned over Kian himself. Checked for breath. Smiled like he’d just won the lottery.”
“Motherfucker,” Kian snarls, ripping his ruined shirt over his head. The motion makes every muscle across his chest and back jump, fake blood cracking and flaking off in sheets.
Logan steps forward, calm as ever. “We moved fast. Threw you in the van before any of his men got a second look. They think we took the bodies to the fishing warehouse freezer. By now half the city believes the kings are on ice.”
Liam drops three black duffel bags and kicks them across the floor. “Clean clothes. Boots. Gloves.” He pries open a crate of neon energy drinks, the kind that taste like battery acid and lightning. “Doc said these’ll shock your systems awake.”
I crack one open and chug. The burn hits my throat, spreads like fire through my chest, races down my arms. My pulse stutters, then slams back to life. Veins flood hot; feeling rushes into my fingers, my legs, the heavy muscle of my thighs.
“Christ, Flynn,” Declan laughs, low and ragged, watching me down it like water.
We strip fast. Ruined shirts hit the floor in wet slaps. I drag on black combat pants that settle low on my hips, the fabric pulling tight across my quads. Hoodie next, soft, worn, smelling like gun oil and safe-house dust. I roll my shoulders; the ache is already fading, replaced by that familiar coiled violence I’ve been holding back for weeks.
Another burner vibrates against my palm.
Unknown number. Two words:
Thirty minutes.
A slow, vicious grin splits my face.
“Showtime.”
The room moves as one. Four men rising in perfect sync, in all black, all muscle and ink and barely leashed rage. Kian cracks his neck, shoulders rolling like a fighter stepping into the ring. Connor checks the slide on his Glock, veins standing out along his forearms. Declan stands last, steady now, the tattoo on his back flexing as he pulls the hoodie over his head.
“Let’s move.” He grunts.
It’s past two in the morning, and we lie perfectly still beneath heavy black shrouds, the kind they use for bodies at a crime scene. The fabric is coarse against my lips; every breath tastes like dust and death. My heart is a slow, deliberate drum, thanks to the last dregs of the damn poison, but my finger rests steady on the trigger guard.
Footsteps echo off steel beams.
“Rurik Vastrikov,” John Flanagan’s voice rings out, smug and oily.
“John.” Rurik’s reply is flat, amused.
“It was bloodier than I expected,” John says. I hear the soft scuff of his shoes on concrete as he walks the line of shrouded shapes. His foot nudges my ribs, hard, testing. I don’t flinch. Don’t breathe louder. Don’t move a single muscle.
“You said you needed them gone,” Rurik answers, thick with humour. “You never specified how pretty.”
