Page 338 of Eight of Swords, Part Two

The other end of the line is quiet, but not dead.

‘Who is this?’ he demands. ‘Where are they? Huh? Answer me, you fucking piece of shit! There is nowhere on earth you can take them that I won’t find them, I swear to God,’ he pants furiously. ‘They’re mine and I’ll rip apart every single one of you cunts to get them back!’

One of Penhalyx’s security team says, ‘Tase him!’

‘If you hurt them,’ Lachlan goes on, ‘if you hurt her—!’

The taser cuts off his speech, but his fury seems to absorb the voltage.

‘Shit, it’s not working.’

The energy seems to be building inside him.

It feels like it’s feeding him.

Like lightning itself is building inside.

Something explodes.

Something bursts.

Fire. Electricity.

He doesn’t care.

His team are gearing up.

They all ignored Penhalyx’s orders.

They’re going with Lachlan.

No one really knows where Iron Star are located. They’ve made themselves impossible to pin down, but Danya buried a tracker in the employee database Harker requested. The moment Iron Star imported the file, it called home.

When Lachlan checks, the callback has resolved to a precise location.

‘We’re going,’ he tells them, turning to give Danya more explicit instructions because he’s his number two, but of course, Danya is dead.

Danya’s dead.

Gone.

Lachlan sits in the back with a rifle between his knees.

Carbine.

Sidearm.

Kestrel blade.

Breach charges.

Flashbangs. Smoke.

Ammunition packed tight across his chest.

The tracker leads them north through Varrow City.

Twenty-eight minutes.