“What the fuck happened?” Rip asked, coming in from another room. His gaze swept once over the sliced shirt.
“He’s damned good,” Winter muttered.
“Rook?” Boston piped up.
Winter’s attention shifted. “That’s his name?”
“That’s what Sage just told us.” Boston nodded, and Winter’s gaze moved to Sage.
“Yeah. I know of him. He ran with a different group—same circles, just older.” Sage gave a small shrug.
Winter angled his chin toward the chalk line. “And that guy?”
“That was Cain. One of the lost boys.”
Winter’s gaze flicked back to Law, something sharper there now. “So, assassins killing assassins.”
“And Sage knows all the victims,” Micah added quietly.
The room went still.
“Well, the suspect got away.”
Winter didn’t raise his voice. Didn’t dress it up. Just dropped it into the room like a fact.
“Where’d you lose him?” Rip swore under his breath, a hand dragging through his hair as he started pacing off the space.
“Hold still,” Memphis said, stepping in closer, eyes tracking Winter’s open shirt. He reached out and eased open the cut shirt, checking the wound. “Not too deep. Won’t even need stitches.”
Winter’s icy blue eyes settled on Memphis but he answered Rip.
“Back exit of a convenience store,” Winter said. “I think he knows the owner.”
Boston let out a low whistle. “Then we have a lead.”
Black didn’t say anything. He shifted slightly, weight settling, eyes moving once through the room—Sage, the body, the door—taking it all in without comment.
Law stayed where he was.
He’d already logged Winter’s injury. The angle. The control behind it. The slice was precise. Not wild.
This wasn’t luck.
This was someone who knew exactly what they were doing—and exactly how not to kill.
He shifted his attention back to Sage.
Didn’t move much. Just enough to close the space again, subtle and deliberate, creating a pocket between them that didn’t break the flow of the room.
Close enough that everything else dulled at the edges.
“Walk me through this,” Law said, voice low enough it didn’t carry past Sage.
Sage’s gaze flicked up to him then, sharp for a second—aware. Not just of the question.
Law didn’t move.
He held it there.
