Текст книги "Daggermouth"

Автор книги: H. M. Wolfe

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Текущая страница: 23 (всего у книги 33 страниц)

Greyson’s fingers hooked around the fabric, her hips rising as two things fell from her pocket.

They both froze.

Greyson’s eyes locked on the photograph. Him and Brooker, unmasked, smiling. The photograph from his bedroom. The one he’d hidden. The one no one else should have.

He pulled back, his hands leaving her body as he bent to retrieve the items.

“Where did you get this?” His voice had gone cold, all heat evaporating in an instant.

She slid off the island, adjusting her clothes. “Does it matter?”

“Where did you get this?” He repeated, anger replacing every other emotion.

She met his gaze steadily. “Who is he?”

Greyson stepped back, the distance between them growing with each heartbeat. The reminder of what she was, of who she was, hit him with excruciating force as he stared at the picture then looked up at her.

Without another word, he turned and walked toward his bedroom, the photograph clutched in his hand. He could feel her eyes on his back, as he left the bodies and the wreckage behind, but she didn’t follow, didn’t call after him.

The door slammed behind him as he drove his fist into the wall hard enough to puncture the plaster. Pain lanced up his arm, grounding him, clearing his head from the desire, the alcohol.

He leaned his forehead against the wood, breathing hard, the taste of her still on his lips, the memory of her body against his burned into his skin. What had he been thinking? What had he almost done?

What the fuck was wrong with him?

The patrol vehicle rattled beneath Jameson. His body was present—clothed in enemy fabric, surrounded by his team, crossing back into the Boundary—but his mind remained in that blue-lit room. The stolen Veyra helmet felt heavier than before, the armor more restrictive.

No one spoke. The mission’s failure hung in the compartment like poison gas, seeping into his lungs, clouding his mind. Eight of them had entered the Heart. Eight were returning. The numbers should have been a success—no casualties, no injuries beyond minor scrapes. But the empty space where Shadera should have been rendered the statistics meaningless.

Jameson stared through the reflective faceplate of his helmet at his team. Scout cleaned blood from beneath her fingernails with mechanical precision. Breach stared at his hands, palms up, as if reading a future that no longer included Shadera. Comms monitored Veyra frequencies, his fingers tapping an anxious rhythm against his thigh. Sniper, Trace, and Medic sat with the perfect stillness of assassins, conserving energy, processing failure. And Jaeger . . . Jaeger watched him from behind his own faceplate, waiting.

Through the partition, Jameson could see the rigid line of Captain Mikel’s shoulders as he navigated the empty maintenance tunnels that would lead them back to the checkpoint. Mikel’s betrayal of the Heart should have felt like victory. Instead, it made his stomach churn—one more complication in a world already fractured beyond recognition.

“Did you know?” The words broke through the silence like a gunshot, his voice amplified inside the helmet.

No one moved, but he felt the collective tension rise. Jaeger’s helmet tilted toward him.

“Did you know,” Jameson repeated, each word carved from ice, “that she was vowed to Serel?”

Jaeger didn’t answer immediately. Instead, his head turned toward the partition, toward Mikel, who remained focused on the road ahead. A silent calculation passed between them, visible only in the subtle shift of posture.

“Yes.” The single word fell between them, heavy and final.

The rage that surged through Jameson’s veins was so potent, he had to clench his fists to keep from reaching for his weapon. The metal wall beside him suddenly seemed the perfect target for his fury, but he kept himself still, contained, dangerous.

“You knew.” His voice had dropped to a whisper. “You knew, and you sent me in there anyway. You let me walk into the Heart believing I could bring her home.”

“I thought—”

“You thought what?” Jameson snapped, cutting him off. “That she’d see me and magically decide to come with us? That she’d break the arrangement they forced on her because I showed up?”

He reached up, yanking off his helmet in a single violent motion. The recycled air hit his face, cooling the sweat that had gathered along his hairline. He wanted Jaeger to see his face, to see every ounce of the betrayal carved into it.

“Put that back on,” Mikel hissed from the front seat, his eyes finding Jameson’s in the rearview mirror. “We’re still in Heart territory.”

“Fuck your territory,” Jameson snarled, but he kept his voice low enough not to carry outside the vehicle.

Jaeger removed his own helmet, his gray eyes meeting Jameson’s without flinching. The old man’s face was impassive, his mouth set in a grim line.

“I believed that seeing you might remind her of where she belongs,” Jaeger said, his voice steady. “I believed that given the choice between the Boundary and the Heart, between you and the Executioner, she would choose correctly.”

“There was no choice.” Jameson’s words were raw, stripped of pretense. “Do you understand that? She can’t leave because Maximus has threatened to bomb the Boundary if she doesn’t go through with it.”

The silence that followed was absolute. Even the vehicle’s hum seemed to fade away as the words sank in. Jameson watched the information ripple through the team—Scout’s fingers stilling on her blade, Breach’s head snapping up, Comms’s hands freezing over his equipment.

Jaeger’s expression didn’t change, but something shifted behind his eyes. “Explain.”

“The drones that were following me.” Jameson leaned forward, his voice dropping lower. “He’s learned everything with them. The President knows where our clinics are, the camps, headquarters. He knows where all of it is. If Shadera doesn’t take the Vow, he starts dropping bombs. Beginning with me.”

His mind filled again with the image of her in that room, her face when she’d told him to leave, the way she’d backed away from his kiss. Something had changed in her. Something beyond the threat hanging over the Boundary.

“There’s more.” He looked directly at Jaeger now. “Those medical supplies I’ve been getting? The ones with the Serel serial numbers? They’re from him.”

“Bullshit,” Breach muttered.

“He told me himself,” Jameson continued. “Knew the exact numbers. Used it as leverage. Said if I wanted the medicine to keep flowing into the rings, I’d leave without her.”

Jaeger’s face remained frustratingly neutral. “And you believed him?”

“Yes. Even if he isn’t smuggling it himself, he knows about it and is letting it happen,” Jameson replied. "When she confirmed what the President is planning, when she said she was staying—I saw her face. She was scared. She wasn’t lying.”

He thought of that moment again, of Shadera standing between him and Greyson, her green eyes haunted as she made her choice. Her choice to sacrifice her freedom for the Boundary. For him.

“She’s not in love with him,” Jameson said, the words coming out before he could stop them. The fear that had been gnawing at his heart since he’d seen them together demanded voice. “If that’s what you’re thinking.”

Jaeger raised an eyebrow. “I wasn’t.”

“She doesn’t even like him,” Jameson pushed on. “She’s doing this to protect us. To protect the rings.”

“Are you trying to convince me or yourself?” Jaeger asked, his voice cutting through Jameson’s defense.

The question sliced into Jameson like a blade between ribs. Because the truth was, he had seen something in that room—something in the way Shadera spoke to Greyson, the way she’d refused Jameson’s kiss—that suggested a complication he wasn’t ready to face.

Jameson deflected. “The only thing that matters is that we’re fucked. All of us. The rebellion, the Boundary, every plan we’ve made—it’s all compromised if Maximus knows where we are, what we’re doing.”

As they entered the deeper sections of Cardinal, away from Heart surveillance, Jameson’s thoughts shifted into something harder. Shadera was trapped, yes. But she’d given him information he could use. She was still fighting, in her way. Still part of the resistance.

And she wasn’t alone anymore. She had him. Had them. Even from inside the Heart.

“This ends now,” Jameson said as they approached the Boundary. His voice carried new resolve, steel beneath the exhaustion. “No more secrets between us. No more compartmentalized intelligence. No more separate agendas.”

Jaeger’s gaze turned toward him. “Careful, Ghost. You’re sounding dangerously close to giving me orders.”

“Not orders.” Jameson met his gaze. “An ultimatum. The Daggermouths and the rebels work together from now on. Complete transparency. Combined resources, combined intelligence, combined planning.”

“Or what?” Jaeger’s voice held no fear, only curiosity.

“Or we lose everything.” Jameson’s answer was simple. “If Maximus knows as much as he claims, if he’s really prepared to bomb the Boundary, we’re already at war. And I refuse to lose the woman I love and this fight in the same week.”

The vehicle came to a stop at the final barrier between Cardinal and the Boundary. The team shifted, preparing to disembark, to disappear back into the shadows of their respective territories. But Jameson’s eyes remained fixed on Jaeger, waiting.

Finally Jaeger nodded, a single sharp movement. “Tomorrow,” he agreed. “Bring Farrow to Wolf’s Head and we will meet.”

It wasn’t a full capitulation, but it was enough for now. Jameson would take it—take any victory, no matter how small, in a day defined by loss. Jaeger’s hand landed on his shoulder, giving him a small squeeze as he exited the vehicle and disappeared into the night with his unit.

Jameson took one last deep breath before he stepped out of the vehicle into the familiar grime of the Boundary, already planning his next move. Shadera might be lost to him for now, trapped in that tower with the Executioner. But the war for New Found Haven—for freedom, for the future—was just beginning.

And he would make sure she had a home to return to when it was over.

Chapter twenty-sixEleven

Consciousness arrived like an unwelcome guest, hammering at Shadera’s temples and setting fire to her throat. She groaned, pressing her face deeper into the pillow as memories from the night before flooded back in jagged, whiskey soaked fragments. The club, Jameson in Veyra uniform coming to free her. Blood. Broken glass. Bodies. Greyson’s mouth on hers, his hands in her hair, on her throat, between her legs, the weight of him against her body on the kitchen counter. Her fingers unconsciously rose to her lips, finding them tender and swollen.

“Fuck,” she whispered, the word scraping against her dry throat.

She forced herself to sit up, ignoring the protest from every muscle in her body. The room spun briefly before settling into focus. Morning light sliced through the gaps in the curtains, cutting across the bed in harsh lines and making the pounding between her ears pulse harder.

She dragged herself from bed, noting the bandage she’d wrapped around her thigh drunk and angry in the middle of the night. The wound wasn’t deep, just a graze. It had stopped bleeding now, but the area around it was bruised and tender. Another scar to add to her collection. Another mark left on her body by Greyson Serel. It stung with every step she took as his T-shirt brushed the edges of it.

She really needed to get her own fucking clothes.

Greyson’s voice filtered down the hallway as she opened the door and she hesitated for one moment, taking a step back into the room. She didn’t want to face him. Not after—

No. She shook her head.

She needed coffee and would not let him take that away from her too.

Let him see her like this—bloodied, disheveled, unmasked in every sense. Let him see what they’d done to each other.

The living room looked worse in daylight. Bullet holes punctured the walls, furniture lay overturned, glass shards glittered across the floor like malicious stars. Blood had dried in dark patches on the floor, the white walls, the couch. The bodies still lay where they fell, marinating in their own blood.

Her eyes roved over the room before they dragged up to look at Greyson. He stood by the cracked window, blinds drawn against the morning light, tablet pressed to his ear. He wore only sweatpants, his torso bare, revealing the full extent of the damage beneath the skull stretched across his back. The fresh graze wound from her bullet curved around his side, angry and red against his skin. Above it, his fathers bullet and the older one from the day they’d met was still healing, the skin puckered and pink.

His voice was low as he talked into the tablet and she took a step closer, trying to hear what he was saying, who he was speaking to.

He turned as her bare foot landed on a shard of glass, her hiss and the train of expletives that followed announcing her presence. Their eyes met across the destroyed room, and for a moment, neither moved. The phone call continued, his voice lowering further, but his eyes stayed on her. Watching. Studying.

Shadera felt exposed, vulnerable as the memory of his hands on her body, his mouth against her skin, swarmed her mind at the sight of him shirtless in front of her. The silence stretched between them, loaded and awkward until she couldn’t stand it anymore.

“You know,” she said, voice rough from sleep and liquor, “you really need to learn how to dodge. That’s twice now I’ve shot you. Pattern’s emerging.”

Greyson’s lips twitched, almost a smile.

“Just get here,” he said, then ended the call without waiting for a response and set the tablet on what remained of the coffee table. “Maybe you should learn to use your words like an adult instead of just shooting me.”

Shadera turned away to hide the smile threatening to break free, moving toward the kitchen. Coffee. She needed coffee to deal with whatever this was, needed distance from his bare skin and the memories it evoked.

The body that’d been on the kitchen floor last night was the only one moved, creating a path to the coffee machine that was miraculously untouched by the violence. She poured a cup, black, strong enough to strip paint. The first sip burned, perfect in its bitterness. She moved to lift herself onto the island, then froze.

The island.

Images flashed—his hands on her throat, her legs around his waist, the desperate hunger of their kiss. Heat crawled up her neck, and she quickly moved away, leaning against the opposite counter instead, shaking the thoughts from her mind.

“About the bodies,” she said, needing to fill the silence with something, anything else.

Greyson sighed, running a hand through his hair. The gesture was unguarded, tired. “Callum’s coming with his men. They’ll handle it.”

“Handle it how?”

“The way he handles everything. Efficiently. Quietly.” He moved closer, stopping at the opposite end of the counter, maintaining distance but closing it enough that she could see the exhaustion in his eyes. “We should talk about last night.”

“No.”

“Shadera—”

“I was drunk.” The words came out too fast, too sharp. “Whatever happened, I’ve already forgotten it. Blackout. Complete memory loss. Medical marvel, really.”

He watched her, that intense gaze that seemed to see through every lie she’d ever told. “Is that right?”

“That’s right.” She met his stare. “And if you ever try to touch me again, I’ll kill you. Properly this time. No more grazes.”

The threat hung between them, hollow even to her own ears. She’d already shot him twice and it’d only seemed to turn him on. She wasn’t sure what that said about either of them.

Something shifted in his expression and Greyson’s lips curled into a knowing smirk. “Wasn’t the part of the night I was referring to, but I’m glad to see it’s so heavy on your mind.”

She opened her mouth to respond—to deny, to threaten, to do something—when a knock echoed through the apartment.

Three sharp raps. Measured. Deliberate.

Greyson’s demeanor changed instantly. The smile vanished, replaced by alertness. His hand went to the back of his waistband, drawing the gun tucked there. He moved toward the door with careful steps, keeping to the side, out of direct line of fire.

“Who is it?” he called, his voice neutral.

“It’s me,” Callum snapped. “Open the fucking door before someone sees me standing here like an idiot.”

Greyson’s shoulders relaxed. He peered through the peephole, then unlocked the door, keeping the gun partially hidden behind his leg as he pulled it open.

Callum stood in the doorway with a briefcase in hand, wearing an impeccable suit despite the early hour, not a cropped curl out of place, looking like he’d stepped from a magazine rather than arriving to clean up a massacre.

He walked into the apartment, removing his mask before looking up to see Shadera’s eyes pinned on him in surprise.

Right.

She didn’t know him well enough yet to understand that he didn’t give a single fuck about masking policies.

“Good morning, sunshine,” he said to Greyson, eyes still focused on Shadera as he took in her appearance. “Rough night?”

“You have no idea,” she muttered into her coffee.

Callum’s gaze swept the apartment again, taking in the blood, the bullet holes, the destroyed furniture. His eyebrows rose slightly. “Well, this is festive. Very avant-garde. Very ‘murder chic.’”

“Are your men with you?” Greyson asked, ignoring his commentary.

“Headed up. But first—” Callum’s eyes darted between them, noting something in their positioning, their careful distance, the tension that crackled in the air. “You two have that guilty look.”

“Cal—” Greyson started.

“I know, I know, there are much more important things to worry about than whatever sick fuck you two got up to in a room full of dead bodies.” He winked at Greyson. “But we’ll definitely be circling back to that later.”

“We didn’t—” Shadera began to protest.

Callum’s hand shot up as a chuckle slipped over his lips. “I’m not here to judge your murder foreplay.”

His men appeared at his back on the tail of his words, dragging a hooded Veyra officer through the doorway.

“Found him on Haven Tower’s roof,” Callum explained, watching as both Greyson and Shadera tensed. “Had quite the setup—long range audio equipment, visual surveillance, a sniper rifle, the works. All pointed at this apartment.”

The guilty looks intensified.

Oh, they’d definitely been up to something.

The air between them practically vibrated with it—that particular tension that came from fighting or fucking, and seeing these two, probably both. Callum filed the observation away for later torment.

“Where?” Greyson asked, his voice taking on that cold edge that Callum knew meant someone was about to have a very bad day.

“Weapons room,” Callum suggested. “It’s soundproof.” He turned to his men. “Start the cleanup. I want this place pristine in three hours.”

They nodded, releasing their captive into Callum’s grip before moving through the apartment, assessing the damage and beginning their work. Callum pulled the officer forward as he followed Greyson toward the hallway.

Shadera fell into step beside them, curious rather than disturbed. “Why did you bring him here instead of killing him?”

“Information,” Callum replied simply. “Dead men aren’t very helpful, but the living can be quite chatty with the right motivation.”

The officer’s whimpering escalated to sobbing as they dragged him down the hallway. “Please,” the officer gasped through the hood. “Please, I was just following orders. I have a family—”

“Shh,” Callum soothed, gently patting the man’s shoulder. “We’re not going to hurt you. Well, not badly. Not if you cooperate.”

The lie came easily. They always did.

The solid metal door had been tampered with—faint scratch marks visible around the electronic lock. Callum smirked, glancing at Shadera with a knowing look as Greyson keyed in the code then pushed his palm to the scanner. The room opened up before them, revealing the steel walls lined with racks of firearms, blades, and more specialized equipment that formed a perfect cube of lethal possibility.

In the center stood a metal table flanked by two chairs, with a single overhead light illuminating the scene like an operating theater. Greyson didn’t bother shutting the door at his back.

“If I didn’t know better,” Callum started, shoving the officer into a chair. “I’d think you were a serial killer.”

“Says the man with a torture briefcase,” Greyson replied dryly, nodding to the case in Callum’s hand.

He smiled, setting the briefcase on the table with care. “It’s not torture, it’s enhanced interrogation. And it’s an art form.”

Greyson zip-tied the officer’s wrists and ankles to the chair quickly. No wasted movements, no hesitation. Sometimes Callum forgot that beneath the brooding and moral conflicts, his friend was still a Serel. Still trained from birth in the application of violence.

Callum took his time preparing. Theater was half of interrogation, after all. He rolled up his sleeves slowly, each fold exact. His rings came off one by one, placing them in a perfect line on the metal table, their surfaces catching the overhead light.

The briefcase opened with a soft click. Inside, his tools lay in custom foam cutouts—hammers of various sizes, pliers, scalpels, and other implements he’d collected over the years. Some innovations of his own.

He noticed as Shadera perched on the table’s edge, legs swinging slightly. Greyson leaned against it beside her, close enough that their elbows touched. Neither pulled away. In fact, they seemed unconscious of the contact, like their bodies had developed their own gravity independent of their minds’ protests.

Fascinating.

Callum wondered as he turned to face the officer, if Greyson had ever noticed these same small tells between him and Lira. If he’d also filed away questions that he never asked.

He pushed the thought from his mind and refocused, reaching for the hood and pulling it from the officer’s head to reveal an older man, mid-fifties. His eyes went wide as his vision was restored, frantically fluttering around the room at the three unmasked faces staring back at him.

“Now,” Callum started, selecting a small hammer from his collection, testing its weight in his palm. “Let’s establish some ground rules. I ask questions. You answer truthfully. Each lie, each refusal, costs you something.” He tapped the hammer against his palm for emphasis. “Each truth buys you time.”

Callum watched as Greyson crossed his arms, his gaze fixed on the officer like he was studying the fear build in his eyes. This was Callum as few ever saw him—the mask set aside to reveal the calculating creature beneath. The Broker, the collector of secrets, the man who knew how to extract information from even the most resistant source.

“Let’s start simple,” Callum said, pulling up a chair to sit directly in front of the man. “Name and unit?”

“M-Marcus Webb, sir. Special Security Division.”

“Good.” Callum’s voice was warm with approval. “Very good. And who ordered you to surveil the Executioner, Marcus?”

The officer swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Captain Mikel. Direct orders f-from the President.”

No surprise there. Maximus was getting paranoid, as dying kings often did.

“And what exactly were you looking for?” he continued, casually leaning back in his chair.

Marcus hesitated, his eyes darting to Greyson, then back to him. “Evidence of . . . disloyalty.”

“Disloyalty,” he repeated, tasting the word. “Fair enough. What kind of disloyalty was Maximus concerned about?”

Another hesitation, longer this time. Callum sighed, his expression one of exaggerated disappointment. He moved without warning, the hammer connecting with Marcus’s knuckle on his right ring finger. Bone shattered with a wet crunch as he screamed, the sound bouncing off the metal walls.

“I told you the rules,” he reminded Marcus gently, returning to his relaxed position. “Now, I’ll ask again. What specific disloyalty was Maximus looking for?”

“Divided loyalties,” Marcus gasped through clenched teeth. “He said the Executioner’s sympathies might be compromised by the Daggermouth whore.”

From the corner of his eye he saw Shadera tense, saw the way Greyson shifted forward, almost in protection of her.

That was all Callum needed to see.

The hammer came down again on his right pointer finger, bone splintering as another scream broke from Marcus’s throat. Callum stayed leaning forward this time, elbows resting on his knees.

“I don’t know if you know this about me, but I loathe misogyny.” His voice was colder now. “That Daggermouth ‘whore,’ as you called her, has a name. And if the tension in this room tells me anything, it’s that she is certainly no harlot.”

Callum looked to Shadera, watching a satisfied smirk spread across her lips as she gave him a subtle nod of approval, then turned back to Marcus.

“The team last night,” he started again. “What were their orders?”

“Install updated surveillance,” Marcus replied quickly, clearly eager to avoid further pain. “Replace the faulty audio and visual throughout the apartment. Report directly on their interactions.”

“Were they authorized to use lethal force?” Greyson interjected.

The officer swallowed again, his gaze flickering between Callum’s hammer and Greyson’s face. “N-no.”

“Then what prompted them to do so?” Callum asked.

“They got spooked. Y-you weren’t supposed to be back so soon.” Sweat was pouring off Marcus now, beads rolling over both temples.

Callum turned to Greyson. “Well, last night seems to be nothing more than an unfortunate incident of misunderstanding. Should be easy enough to get around since they were in your home where you currently house the Boundary’s most prized possession. This is nothing more than self-defense.”

“S-so that means you’ll let me go? That means I-I can go home now?” Marcus’s voice was pleading, the sound so pathetic it made Callum’s stomach churn.

The Veyra were nothing more than little boys who liked the power of a gun in their hands, but when it finally came time to be men—they failed on every front.

“No.” Callum’s voice had lost all warmth. “I have some questions of my own.”

Greyson straightened and Shadera’s legs stopped swinging. There were things his best friend didn’t know about him. Things he had kept hidden so if caught, Greyson and Lira would not be collateral damage.

“Now, Marcus, these next questions will be harder. You’re not going to want to answer them, but you will. You’re going to tell me about the military base. About what they’re doing there. About why Cardinal workers are being held.” The hammer spun lazily in his fingers. “Or I’m going to move on to other bones in your body that will cause much more pain. Your choice.”

Marcus’s mouth opened, closed, opened again. No sound emerged.

The hammer fell. Marcus’s scream filled the weapons room, ricocheting off the walls as his kneecap cracked in half. Bone protruded through skin, through fabric as blood began to pool and spread across the polished concrete floor in a pattern Callum had seen countless times before.

“Let’s try again,” Callum said, his voice returning to that light and conversational tone despite the violence of his actions. “The base.”

Marcus’s breath came in ragged gasps, his chest heaving beneath the crimson splattered Veyra uniform. Blood still trickled from his split lip, a souvenir from his capture.

“I don’t know,” he whispered, his voice cracking. “I swear on the Heart, I don’t know.”

Callum sighed, turning the hammer over in his hands. “That’s disappointing. Davish Cross was much more forthcoming.”

Marcus’s head snapped up at the name, fear flashing across his features. “Cross? You . . . you questioned Cross?”

“I did.” Callum circled the chair. “He had quite a lot to say about diverted resources from the Cardinal and Boundary rings. Supply chains that disappeared. Food shipments that never arrived.” He paused behind the officer, leaning close to his ear. “He screamed beautifully when I removed his fingernails one by one.”

The lie slid easily from Callum’s tongue. Davish Cross had required nothing more in their second conversation than the threat of additional pain to reveal what he knew. But the officer didn’t need to know that.

“Please,” the man whispered. “I’m just following orders.”

“Ah, the eternal excuse of the morally bankrupt,” Callum replied, moving back into the officer’s line of sight. “But you see, that’s not good enough for me. Not when those orders mean children starving in the Boundary.”

He brought the hammer down again, this time on the officer’s right elbow. The crack of bone was followed by another scream, this one higher, more desperate. Callum glanced at Greyson, seeking some reaction, but the Executioner remained still, observing.

What would Greyson think if he knew the full extent of Callum’s activities? For years, he’d been walking the edge, using his position to gather intelligence, to filter supplies and information to the rebellion. Greyson knew some of it—the men and women from the lower rings he’d given jobs to help escape poverty and feed their families, the occasional food that “went missing” from his clubs—but not the deeper involvement, the nights spent in secret meetings with rebel leaders, the encrypted messages passed through his network of informants.

“Answers, Marcus.”

“I don’t—”

The hammer came down on the officer’s left wrist. Blood sprayed across Callum’s chest, dotting the pristine black of his shirt with crimson.

“You’re being tedious,” Callum said, wiping a speck of blood from the fabric. “And I have a very busy schedule today.”

From her position on the table, Shadera finally spoke. “Maybe he needs more motivation.” Her voice carried a cruel edge that sent a shiver through the room. “I could start removing pieces. Ears first, perhaps?”

Callum smiled. He liked her more than he’d expected to. There was something refreshing about her directness, her lack of pretense.

“An excellent suggestion,” he agreed, watching Marcus’s face drain of color. “Though I was thinking of moving to larger targets.” He placed the hammer against his jaw, applying just enough pressure to promise pain.