“Yes.” I move past him to the laptop, opening a new browser and typing in an IP address that only exists in my head. The screen floods with lines of code. “And while he waits for me to beg, we dig up every skeleton he’s ever buried. We find where he’s keeping them. And when I finally answer his call…” I look over my shoulder at Sterling. He’s watching me like I’m a storm he’s chosen to walk into. “I won’t be negotiating,” I finish. “I’ll be giving coordinates to a cleanup crew.”
Sterling’s phone buzzes. He pulls it out, glances at the screen, and his jaw tightens. “Wade just sent another email. He’s getting anxious.”
“Let him,” I say, turning back to the screen, fingers already flying across the keys. “Wade thinks he’s the client. Asher thinks he’s the architect. They’re both so busy looking at the blueprint…they haven’t noticed the foundation is cracking beneath them.”
Sterling pockets his phone and walks over, stopping just behind me. Not touching, but close enough that I feel the solid wall of his presence at my back—steady, unwavering, exactly what I didn’t know I needed. “How long?” he asks.
I hit enter. The screen blinks, loading. “To find them? Eight minutes. Maybe three if Cam left one of his backdoors in the system.”
“And if he didn’t?” Sterling asks, his tone sharpening.
“Then we do it the hard way,” I say, fingers still moving across the keys. “We make him realize the only way he gets what he wants is by facing me directly.”
The laptop dings. A location marker blinks on the screen, fuzzy but unmistakable. An industrial district on the edge of the city. Abandoned. Isolated. The kind of place a man like Asher would choose when he wants privacy for his punishments. “There,” I say, tapping the screen. “He’s there. Or he was three hours ago.”
Sterling leans in, his shoulder brushing mine. “That’s his move,” he says, his voice low. “He wanted you to find him.”
“Of course he did.” I close the laptop. The click echoes in the small room. “But he thinks I’ll come alone and sentimental.” I look up at Sterling,at the dangerous man who’s chosen to stand with me instead of against me. “He doesn’t know I’ve already replaced my heart with a weapon.”
Sterling studies me for a long moment. Then he reaches out, not to touch my face, not to comfort—but to lay his hand over mine on the closed laptop. Warm. Solid. Grounding. “Let’s go get our people back,” he says. And for the first time since I walked into that apartment and felt the silence where Cam and Lila should have been, I breathe. Not because I’m safe. Not because I’m saved. But because I finally have a blade sharp enough to cut through the dark.
Chapter Twenty
The safe house smells like ozone and old concrete. The kind of scent that lingers, like in a father’s garage. I watch her from the doorway, shoulder braced against the jamb, arms crossed over my chest as I can physically hold myself back from going to her. She’s been typing for three hours straight, her fingers a blur over the keyboard, her eyes reflecting the blue glow of the screen. She hasn’t moved except to sip the water I set beside her. Hasn’t eaten. Has barely blinked. She’s beautiful like this. Terrifying. A blade sharpened down to nothing but edge. I should be planning the extraction. Checking weapons. Scouting the industrial district. Calling in favors from people I swore I’d never contact again. Instead, I’m standing here memorizing the way her jaw tightens when she finds something, the slight flare of her nostrils when she’s angry, the absolute stillness that settles over her when she’s plotting violence. The girl I watched on camera—crying in her shower, hanging dead flowers over her bed—is gone. In her place is the woman who whispered threats to her dying mother at eight years old. The one who’s been planning a fucking war while the world thought she was planning parties. My phone vibrates against my thigh. I pull it out, glancing at the screen.
Cam: Tell Kiera I’ve been waiting
for her to come home.
I stare at the message until the words blur. Then I look up at Kiera. She’s still lost in the code, fingers flying, completely unaware that the game has already changed.Fuck.I step into the room, boots loud against the concrete floor. She doesn’t look up, but her fingers pause mid-keystroke. “What?”
“We have a problem,” I say.
Her head snaps toward me, grey eyes narrowing. “Define problem.” I turn the phone so she can see the screen. Her face goes parchment-white, then flushed with rage. She stands so fast the chair topples backward, crashing against the concrete. “He’s playing us,” she says, her voice dangerously soft. “He’s been playing us since we left the apartment.”
“Looks like it,” I say quietly.
She snatches the phone from my hand, fingers shaking as she scrolls through the message history. “This came through five minutes ago,” she says, voice sharp. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you were busy being a shadow,” I snap, the frustration I’ve been swallowing for hours finally breaking free. “Because you’ve been sitting there calculating variables and probabilities while I’ve been watching you disappear into your own head. I wasn’t sure if dragging you back out was going to help…or hurt when we’re twenty minutes from walking into a kill box.”
She goes still. Not the predatory stillness from before. Something else. Something younger. More fragile. “You should have told me,” she says quietly.
“I know.” I step closer, close enough to catch the faint scent of lavender shampoo she used at my place yesterday—before everything went to hell. “But Kiera, if we’re going to do this, if we’re really going to get them back, you need to remember that you’re not alone in this anymore. You don’t have to carry the weight of every decision by yourself. You can let someone else watch your back without it making you weak.”
Kiera’s eyes search mine, looking for any trace of deceit. I’ve spent ten years being a weapon for men like her father. Ten years of being empty. But standing here, watching her hold herself together with nothing but rage and duct tape, something dangerous flickers to life in my chest.Hope. Or maybejust hunger. “I don’t know how,” she admits. The confession costs her. I can see it in the way her shoulders drop, just a fraction.
I reach out, my hand hovering near her cheek. I don’t touch her. Not yet. “Then I’ll teach you,” I say, voice low. “But first, we need to get our friends back.
She nods, stepping back and shaking off the vulnerability like water from her skin. “Okay. Let’s check the location again.”
I pull up the map on my phone and zoom in on the industrial district. After memorizing the layout, I pocket the phone, my hand lingering near hers for a beat too long. “Gear up. If Asher thinks we’re playing checkers while he’s playing chess, we’re about to flip the board.”
Her smile turns small, sharp, and dangerous. “I need a gun.”
“You need three,” I reply, already moving toward the go-bag I dropped by the door. I unzip it, pulling out the Glock 19 I keep for emergencies, plus a smaller Ruger LC9 that fits her hand better. I check the magazines, rack the slides, and turn. She’s already right beside me.
She takes the Glock, testing its weight and balance with practiced ease. She moves like she was born holding steel. “You’re not going to tell me to stay in the car, are you?”
