It’s people that complicate things.
We’ve done this before. Not often, but enough that everyone knows their lane.
Weapons first.
Anything that can’t be justified, logged, or explained disappears. Crates cracked open, contents split and redistributed. Serial-heavy pieces get stripped, boxed, walked out the back in pairs. No one runs. Running gets noticed.
Wren should be downstairs.
She should stay down there.
I don’t go check. That’s not my job. That’s how you start thinking about the wrong things.
Saint’s already issuing orders, calm as a man who knows exactly how much blood he’s willing to spill today. Judge is on the phone. Doc is clearing civilians from the bar with that soft voice that makes people listen before they realize they’re obeying.
Good.
I head out back to help clear inventory when I hear it: Wren’s name.
I catch it out of the corner of my eye: one of ours posted too far from where he’s useful, back turned, phone angled low like he thinks the dark hides him. Everyone else is loud with purpose—boots, crates, voices. He’s still.
Still is dangerous.
I don’t confront him yet. I circle, slow, like I’m just another body in motion. Rook murmurs into the phone, voice tight, urgent. Idon’t catch all of it—just static and greed and the sound of a man selling something that isn’t his.
“Yeah, the princess? She’s here with Saint’s crew. Club’s got her hidden away like a fucking prize. You tell Knox he can stop sniffing around, I’ll feed him what he needs.”
My vision narrows.
I snap, closing the distance. My fist connects with Rook’s jaw hard enough to make teeth click. The phone skitters across the dirt. He goes down, scrambling, already begging.
I drag him by the collar, boots carving lines in the dirt as I haul him out front where everyone can see. Where there’s no hiding what happens next.
Men stop to gather. To watch.
Rook tries to crawl once I drop him. Gets two hands down before my boot comes down on his shoulder and folds him back into the dirt.
“Say it again.” My voice is steady. Too steady. “Say her name.”
He spits blood, grinning through it like he thinks this is still a negotiation.
“Princess,” he says. “Wren. Worth more than all of you?—”
I kick him in the ribs hard enough to knock the air out of him. He folds, gasping, hands clawing at nothing. I let him breathe just long enough to understand that I’m allowing it.
“You don’t get to call her that.” My voice doesn’t sound like mine. “No one does.”
Rook laughs. Actually laughs. Blood in his mouth, confidence leaking out of him in pieces. “Relax, man. I was just talking. Knox wants her. Grant wants her. I’m just?—”
I hit him again, harder.
He cries then. Ugly, panicked, the sound of a man realizing too late that he picked the wrong currency. The words spill after that. Ugly ones. Names. Promises. How much she’s worth. How easy it was going to be once the warrant landed. Grant’s offer, Knox’s timeline, how he figured we’d trade her out once things got hot.
Trade her.
That’s when my control actually snaps.
Red. Everything goes red.
